Discharging a capacitor via resistors with Cobra SMARTsense

Principle
In this experiment, voltage curves during the discharge process of a capacitor in an RC circuit are measured. Different resistors are used to investigate the relationship between the half-life and the respective resistance values.

Tasks

1. Record the discharge curve of three different capacitors as a function of time.
2. Determine the half-life of the capacitor.
3. Identify the correlation between resistance and half-life.

Learning objectives
Students learn to understand the discharge process of a capacitor in an RC circuit and recognize its dependence on different resistance values. They also determine the relationship between the half-life of the discharge process and the resistance.

Benefits

• Simple setup in just a few minutes.
• High-resolution data acquisition (up to 10 kHz).
• Improvement of digital media literacy.
• Safe (RiSU-compliant) power supply unit.