Design and Simulation of Half-Wave Rectifier circuit in PSPICE: Student-9.

This tutorial will guide you through the creation and analysis of a simple half-wave
rectifier circuit in PSPICE. The circuit diagram below is what you will build in PSPICE.

Step 1. Starting a new project Starting a new project in PSPICE by following these simple steps: 1.
Launch PSPICE “Capture Student” by left-clicking your mouse on “Start—PSPICE Student— Capture
Student”. PSPICE Capture will launch and you see the following interface. No projects will load
automatically.

Step 2. From the File menu in Capture choose New → Project. A dialog box will pop up. In the New
Project dialog box, create a name for your project .You can use any name you like. It’s recommended that
you use a name which can help you recall this project. For example, we will use “Simple halfwave_rect” as
the project name here. Also select the type of project as “Analog or Mixed A/D”, choose a location to store
your PSPICE files. (You can create a folder in your computer hard drive, and click “Browse” to point to the
directory you created. All your Spice files will be saved in this directory.

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 Step 3. After clicking OK, the Create PSPICE Project dialog box will pop up. It will ask you to choose
which type of project you want to create.

Step 4. Once you have clicked OK in the Create PSPICE Project dialog box, the schematic window will
open and you are ready to begin adding libraries.

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Step 5. Adding libraries:
If you are using PSPICE for the first time on your computer or you are using a lab computer, the parts
libraries will need to be added. Different libraries are needed for different types of circuits, so we will focus
on the libraries containing the parts we need.
1. The first step in adding libraries can be done in one of two ways:
a. Go to the Place menu and choose Part...

b. From the icon bar on the right of the Capture window click the icon shown below. There are many
useful icons in the right icon bar. Please point your mouse to each of these icons and the function of the
pointed icon will be displayed. Please try to point all these icons separately to get familiar with them. They
are short-cuts to menu paths and they can be very useful in our circuit design. For example, some useful
icons include Select, Place part, Place wire, Place net alias, Place power, Place ground, Place off-page
connector, etc. If the icon bar does not appear in the right side, just left click anywhere in the schematic
window and the icon bar will appear.

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 2. The Place Part dialog box will appear and you will have the option to add libraries.

3. Please select all the available libraries: Left click on first library “abm”, then press your “shift” key and
simultaneously click on the last library “special”, you will be able to select all the libraries as shown below.
All the selected libraries will be in blue shade. Then click “Open”.

NOTE: We will only use a few libraries.

1). Analog and analog_p libraries: they are analog libraries. Actually they are very similar to each other.
Analog contains analog parts such as resistor R, capacitor C, conductance L, etc. The different between the
resistors in each library is very simple. The resistors in the analog_p library use a 1 and 2 at each end of the
resistor to show the positive and negative ends of the resistor (1 for positive, 2 for negative). This isn't
shown on the resistors in the analog library.
2). Breakout library: This includes MOS transistors (PMOS, NMOS), bi-polar transistor (NPN, PNP), etc.
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 3). Source library: This includes power sources, such as DC voltage Vdc, AC voltage Vac, Sin wave voltage
VSIN, etc.
4). You will also need to add a library to use grounds in your circuit. PSPICE must have this ground in
order for proper simulation. Otherwise it will give error result. Select the Ground button from the icon bar
on the right.

5). The Place Ground dialog box will look like the one below if you are using PSPICE for the first time on
your computer or if you are using a lab computer. Once you choose the Add Library... button, go to the
same location as we did above to add part libraries and add the source library. Please note that you only
need to add library for the first time. In the future, you will not need to add the library anymore.

Step 6. Inserting parts:

Now we will insert parts to construct our circuit. We design our circuit in 3 substeps:
1). First insert all the parts without considering their values (for example, the resistance value of a resistor,
etc.).
2). After all the parts are inserted, we will make the necessary rotations for the parts, and move the parts
to appropriate locations.
3). Then we will make all the necessary wire connections.
4). Finally, we will set the values for all the parts.
In this circuit, we need to insert one ac voltage sources, one resistor, and one diode.

5). Adding Source and Ground:

1. Get to the Place Part dialog box by using Place->Part from the menu or using the Place Part button on
the icon bar.
2. All of the libraries will be highlighted. Click on the SOURCE library first in the Libraries box. In the Part
List, scroll down to Vsin and highlight it. The dialog box should look like the one below.

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3. After clicking OK, you will be on the Schematic screen. Once you click the mouse on the Schematic
screen, a ac voltage source will be inserted. Move the mouse and insert a second one. You should have
something similar to what is shown below on your Schematic screen. After you finish placing the voltage
source, you need to right click mouse and select (by left-click) “End mode”. Alternatively, you can just press
the “Esc” key in your keyboard, and then the red part in dotted rectangle will disappear. That is, you finish
inserting the part of “ac voltage source”. Then you can continue to insert other parts or perform other
operations.
Note: If you placed extra ac voltage source, you can first right click to select “End mode”, then click
“Select” icon on top right corner, then left click on the extra part to select it, and press “delete” key to
Delete it. You can also easily left click to select a part and drag it to anywhere in the schematic design.
4. Follow the procedure to get to the Place Part dialog box again. This time highlight ANALOG_P in the
Libraries box and highlight r in the Part List box. The dialog box should look like the one below.

5. Click OK in the Place Part dialog box and then click once on the Schematic screen to insert a resistor.

NOTE: Do not click more than once on the Schematic screen or you will have more than one resistor.
6. Select the Place Ground button from the icon bar.

7. In the Place Ground dialog box, highlight (left click to select) CAPSYM under Libraries and highlight GND
under the Symbol box. Then left click on the “Name” bar to change the name from “GND” to “0”. You must
change the name “GND” to “0” to indicate that this is the reference ground voltage (“0” node) of the
circuit. Otherwise this “GND” node may stay at a voltage level other than 0V. Spice needs this “0” node in
simulation. Otherwise it will cause error. The Place Ground dialog box should look like the one below.
8. Click OK and click once on the Schematic screen. Click “Select” icon in the right icon bar. On your Schematic
screen you should have all of the parts shown below.

Step 7. Wiring the circuit:

The most difficult part of wiring the circuit is to make sure the polarity of the parts is correct. There
are different ways to go about wiring the circuit, so feel free to try something different than what I
show here. Just make sure that the direction of the sources in your schematic is the same as it is in
mine.

1. First of all, you need to rotate some parts if it is required. For example, in our circuit we need to rotate
resistor R1. In “Selecting” mode, left click to select (highlight) the resistor so a dashed line appears around
the entire part. It should look like this:

We need to rotate the resistor, which can be done in one of three ways. The easiest is to hold down CTRL
and hit R. This will rotate the resistor 90 degrees. The second method is to select Rotate from the Edit
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menu. The last method is to right click on the resistor while it is highlighted and select Rotate. Rotate the
resistor until it is vertical with the 1 at the top and the 2 at the bottom (3 rotations or 270 degrees).
2. Then you need to move the parts to appropriate locations in the schematic design. Click “Select” icon to
enter “selecting” mode. Then left click on any part you want to move, and drag it to the right location and
release the mouse button. This can move the part to anywhere in the design.

3. Now we are going to make all the wire connections. Select the Place Wire button from the icon bar or go
the the Place menu and select Wire. You can left click your mouse on a point to start a wire in that point,
then left click your mouse on another point to draw a wire to connect both points. If you don’t want more
wires, right click your mouse to select “End wire”. If you draw extra wire connections, you can also select
and delete them just like you select and delete extra parts. Use wire to connect the resistor and diode as
shown below.

4. After all the wire connections are finished, now we are ready to set the values for all the parts. Select
the numerical value of the resistor, labeled 1k (as shown below). Double-click on the numerical value (1k)
and the Display Properties dialog box will open. 1k will be displayed in the Value box. Change the value of
“1k” to “2k” in the Value box of the Display Properties dialog box, as shown below.

Note: If you wish, you can also change the name of the parts in a similar way. For example, if you wish to
change the name of resistor R1 into “Rin”, you can double click on the name “R1” region, and the “Display
Properties” interface will pop up. However, this is just an example. Here we will still keep the name as
“R1”.

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5. Position all of your parts in a similar way to the one shown below. Pay attention to the upper voltage
source's polarity as you rotate it. The + should be toward the resistor, not away from it. This will require
three rotations.

6. Follow the flowing step to complete the diagram.

a)Adding diode D1N4002 to the circuit.

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7. Adding resister (1k ohm) to the circuit.

8. Next connect the wires by selecting Wire from right side bar as we did above to connect the elements.

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9. Follow the diagram below to connect the ground to the circuit.

10. To set the parameter of the voltage source, right click on VOFF, VAMP & FRENQ one by one and put
the required value.

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Step 8. Running the analysis:
In this step, we will create a new PSPICE simulation and run the analysis.
1. Under the PSPICE menu choose New Simulation Profile. The New Simulation dialog box will open
up. In this box type a name for your simulation. It is good practice to use the same name for your
simulation as you used for your project.

2. Click Create and the Simulation Settings dialog box will open. For our analysis, we want to do a Time
Domain (Transient). All of the settings in the dialog box will be correct as long as the type of analysis is
correct. In this simulation, we would like to set the total simulation time (TSTOP) to be 10ms, and the
maximum step size as 0.01ms. We can change the settings and the Analysis tab of the Simulation Settings
dialog box should look like the one below.

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 3. Click OK and you will return to the schematic. The next step is to run the simulation. This can be done
by choosing Run from the PSPICE menu, or by hitting F11, or by choosing the Play button from the icon bar
at the top of the screen.

4. Under the PSPICE menu in Capture, select Bias Points -> Enable Bias Current Display. Alternatively
you can click on the icon of “Enable Bias Voltage Display” on the top icon bar, as shown below. The
currents flowing through all parts will be displayed in red as shown below.

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 5. If you want to observe the exact values of all the node voltages, you can return to the PSPICE menu and
select Bias Points -> Enable Bias Voltage Display. Alternatively, you can click on the icon of “Enable
Bias Voltage Display” on the top icon bar, as shown below. The voltages on all the nodes will be displayed
in maroon as shown below.

Step 9. Analyzing the output file:

In the output file we will find the nodes necessary to make plots of the current and voltage.
1. In the PSPICE window, under View select Output File. This will display your output file. Scroll through the
output file until you find a list similar to the following.
2. Under View choose Simulation Results. This will take you back to the screen where we can plot our
values. Under Trace select Add Trace. The following window will open.

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3. We want to view the current across the resistor. Generally, I(part_name) means the current flowing
through the part_name, V(node_name) means the voltage level on the node_name. Click on I(R1) and it
will appear in the Trace Expression box. I(R1) is the current flowing through resistor R1. Select OK and we
will return to the simulation results. In the simulation results screen, a straight light displaying the current
will be plotted.

Step 10. Go to add trace bar and select V1(V1) to view the actual sinusoidal source voltage.

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Step 11. To view the voltage across resister i.e required output voltage, select V1(R1) from add trace bar.

We have finished building the circuit, running it, and solving it. The best way to learn more about PSPICE
is to try out its different functions.

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