Learning the Art of Electronics - diode clamp

Question

Working through Learning the Art of Electronics, Hayes T, I'm stuck trying to build the diode clamp in Figure 3L.7 on page 137, as below:

The text says to, "Drive it with a sinewave from your function generator... ...and observe the output." So presumably +ve from the function generator connects to "in", +ve from the power supply to "+5 volts", and scope probe to "out".

Having searched the web and studied various clamp schematics, I still can't work out the answer to my question which is, where to put the ground leads from function generator, power supply and oscilloscope?

Thanks

David

Answer 1

I would draw the schematic like this:

^{simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab}

That (for me) makes it easy to see that the diode will start to conduct when the voltage at out exceeds 5 V + the diode's forward voltage, so at about 5.6 V.

Answer 2

The schematic is missing a ground connection which would connect the ground of the power supply, function generator and oscilloscope probe together.

Answer 3

In the place which´s written 5 Volts you should put the positive of your power supply. The negative terminal would be the ground, along with all other grounds coming from function generator and oscilloscope.

Answer 4

That is only a partial schematic, the rest is implied and is shown below. The scope goes across the two terminals on the right.

^{simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab}