May 26. Apparent Power and Power factor

This lab is about power and power factor to quantity the AC power delivered to a load and power dissipated by the process of transmitting this power. After this lab we are expected to get a better understanding of this subject. 

Pre-lab:

following are circuit schematic and values of elements and the pre-lab calculations.

actual circuit we build for this lab

another angle of the circuit. 

The oscilloscope screen with 10 ohm resistor

The oscilloscope screen with 47 ohm resistor

The oscilloscope screen with 100 ohm resistor

Then we add a capacitor in series with resistor. 
following is the prelab calculation for this set up. When we add a capacitor, the phase shift significantly decreased comparing to the previous part. 

the oscilloscope screen with 10 ohm resistor with a capacitor

the oscilloscope screen with 47 ohm resistor with a capacitor

the oscilloscope screen with 100 ohm resistor with a capacitor

The main source of error is the inaccurate measurements of the time difference, and the actual resistance and capacitance are little off from the theoretical values.

Summary:

Today we observe and calculate the apparent power and power factor of an AC circuit, then we add a capacitor to reduce the phase shift which is a very useful application of AC circuit since it could increase the apparent power we obtained. For the lab, the results are what we expected and we are happy about that.