Simulating charge-discharge of a capacitor in TINKERCAD

Question

I have been using TINKERCAD circuits for a while now, and I have been able to simulate almost every basic thing in circuits. But when it comes to simulating the charging and discharging times of a capacitor with the oscilloscope, then I can not show the charge-discharge phases... Any help here?

Is it true TINKERCAD is not good simulating capacitors?

Thanks

Answer 1

As the other answer explained well (scope connection / ground wrong, and capacitor shorted by solderless breadboard), your schematic should look more like this:

^{simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab}

If you run the simulation above, you'll get this plot:

As pictured, the circuit shown has time constant \$\tau\$:

$$\tau = R C = (100 \ \Omega) (1 \ \mu \text{F}) = 100 \ \mu \text{s}$$

The \$V_\text{in}\$ input switching interval, i.e. the half-period of the square wave function generator, is \$t_\text{hp}\$:

$$t_\text{hp} = \frac {1} {2 f} = 500 \ \mu \text{s}$$

The characteristic shape of this RC charging-discharging is determined the number of time constants of settling \$n\$:

$$n = \frac {t_\text{hp}} {\tau}$$

If \$n\$ is large, then the output will look more like the input, with only a brief analog edge. If \$n\$ is small, then the output will look more like relatively small ripple around the long-term average.

With \$n = 5\$, the plot shown here is somewhere in the middle of behaviors. After 5 time constants, the output of the first-order system has settled to within \$e^{-5} = 0.7\%\$ of its final value.

Answer 2

Your scope connection is wrong. If you want to see the voltage of the cap, you need to connect the scope to both terminals of the cap.

Also note that you shorted the cap on the board (vertical holes are connected).

Answer 3

You can not imagine how grateful I am with your help. I finally could simulate the capacitor charge-discharge phases using TINKERCAD. Thank you very much.