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I'm using an oscilloscope with probes that are specified to have to have an input resistance of 10Mohms, I apply 5 volts (using power supply) in parallel to my capacitor and use the scope in parallel as well. Using the scope I get, at 2.5 Volts the time is 90 ms. My capacitor is 100 nF. Using the 90 ms I know that the time constant is just 90ms/ln(2) = 0.129s.

so using time constant = R*C I get that the R = 1.29 Mohms, but shouldn't I have obtained 10 Mohms? Can anyone please help, is the scope input reactance negligible (Watching discharge after disconnecting power supply) ?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ What do you mean "I apply 5V", apply using what source? Are you watching how the cap charges, or how it discharges after your 5V source gets disconnected? \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 10 at 1:44
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Ale..chenski Watching discharge after disconnecting power supply, apply 5V using power supply, edited post \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 10 at 1:48
  • \$\begingroup\$ Could you please post your scope trace? \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 10 at 1:54
  • \$\begingroup\$ What kind of capacitor do you have? How do you know it is 100nF? \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 10 at 2:10
  • \$\begingroup\$ Also, get a known good 100k resistor and measure the fall time just as you did with the scope alone. I suspect your capacitor is just effectively a 10nF cap. \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 10 at 3:14

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That's a nice experiment. I tried a quick test with my 'scope. I grabbed the nearest ceramic 10nf capacitor - as Spehro suggested, it was marked "103":

schematic

simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab

Time to discharge C1 from 9.12V to 4.56V was measured at 70 milliseconds.
SW1 was done by simply stabbing the top capacitor lead at the DC supply's positive terminal.

I've not done an error analysis because the capacitor tolerance is unknown and my measurement was quickly "eyeballed". The calculated result of R1 was close-enough to 10^7 ohms.discharge 0.01uf with 10M scope probe

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Now I see you have modified your question, and are referring to discharge time. I've edited my answer with an update further down.


I believe that you are seeing the "rise time" of your power supply, when you switch it on. There's no way that supply has an output impedance in the Megohms. Typically you'd expect an output impedance near zero.

If you switch the supply on prior to applying its 5V directly across the capacitor (using a switch, for example), letting its output settle to 5V first, then you'd see capacitor voltage rise almost instantaneously, not over many, many milliseconds.

The supply's own power switch is applying mains voltage to its own internal circuitry, and the time between that switch's closure and the full 5V appearing at the supply's output terminals is going to have more to do with the supply's own internal architecture than whatever load it is powering.

For instance, a power supply that employs a full bridge rectifier and beefy reservoir capacitor might take several mains cycles to fully charge that capacitor, for a delay in the tens of milliseconds.

If the supply contains a slew rate limited output, or current limiting, perhaps what you are witnessing is this in action. Maybe there's a microcontroller in there that takes 90ms to boot.

There are a dozen possible reasons for the rise time to be so long, but The "R" in an RC circuit (where C=100nF) is not one of them.


For a 100nF capacitor to discharge by 2.5V in 90ms requires a current of about:

$$ I = C\frac{dV}{dt} \approx 100nF \times \frac{2.5V}{90ms} \approx 3\mu A $$

I presume this is a ceramic capacitor, whose self-discharge current will be picoamps, or at worst nanoamps, so that's unlikely to be the cause of such a rapid discharge. I would expect a good quality 100nF ceramic capacitor to self-discharge over many seconds, without any load across it.

Dielectric absorption is going to have some effect, but not this significant, so somehow 3μA is passing.

It could be a really poor quality capacitor, or a badly labelled one.

It could be you, holding the probe against the capacitor leads with your fingers. It could be finger grease and sweat bridging the capacitor's leads after you've man-handled the thing. It could be any number of contaminants on the breadboard or structure you are using to build the experiment.

While the above reasons are likely to have an effect, the biggest contributor is likely to be the probe, which as you pointed out should have a resistance of 10MΩ. To isolate the probe, you'll need a FET input voltage follower:

schematic

simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab

The op-amp will draw negligible current from the capacitor, while faithfully reproducing capacitor voltage at its output, so (assuming the circuit is free from contaminants) any voltage droop shown on the oscilloscope will chiefly be due to capacitor self-discharge.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Per OP comment, it is not the rise time, it is the fall time. \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 10 at 3:12
  • \$\begingroup\$ My read of the OP, is that the question is about the rise time, "I apply 5 volts (using power supply) in parallel to my capacitor and use the scope in parallel as well." Lab power supply rise times can certainly be in the 10's of ms range. Rise times of this magnitude will certainly violate the assumptions used for a 'simple' RC time constant equation I asked the OP to add waveforms to let all see if those assumptions are fulfilled or not. \$\endgroup\$
    – JkingNH
    Commented May 10 at 3:49
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Ale..chenski I started writing the answer before OP said that. \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 10 at 3:50
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I see probably two issues. First you have a ~10:1 discrepancy. That can be explained by the probe being set to x1 rather than x10, in which case you will see the oscilloscope input resistance rather than the probe, probably ~1MΩ. Alternatively the capacitor could be 103 (10nF) rather than 104 (100nF).

Secondly, even after that, you have about a 30% discrepancy (capacitance high). Possibly your capacitor is a type that has poor tolerance and/or high voltage coefficient such as some ceramic types. Or it could be measurement error.

Or the whole thing could be a result of serious contamination. If you take the probe-capacitor pair and measure the resistance with your multimeter (no power supply attached, obviously, or you could damage the multimeter) you will be able to see what the real resistance is.

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