Why centre tapped transformer

Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for electronics and electrical engineering professionals, students, and enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. I'm having trouble understanding the electric principles that allow a center tapped transformer to work. I understand if you connect a voltmeter across the top and bottom wires, you'll get V, and V between the center tap and other two wires.

This is where I'm having trouble. The center tap is essentially a grounded neutral wire if my understanding is correct. Here is my secondary transformer. This is the part that confuses me. How can my center tapped wire G which is grounded be at a higher voltage than B when it is supposed to be 0?

Thinking about it the other way still confuses me as well; how can B be at a V less than G, what would that mean? How can B be at a V less than G, what would that mean? You are forgetting that your meter only measures magnitude of an AC voltage. There is no sign so saying that B is less than or greater than ground doesn't make much sense. Figure 2. For AC we have the same situation as with DC but with no sign - just the voltage magnitudes. When working with AC, therefore, referencing to ground doesn't tell you what the voltage is between two non-grounded points.

Let's look at a high-leg delta transformer arrangement which should be familiar to you in North America but always looks so unbalanced to us Europeans. This transformer arrangement gives the possibility of obtaining single phases at V, V or V plus the possibility of 3-phase V. Image source: Wikimedia Commons. In the period P, the diode current, is given bym Note that the peak diode current, , increases with reduction in or increase in or.

We see that as reduces, R. But it cannot become zero for finite resistances. A way to achieve a better smaller ripple factor is through the use of a Zener Diode Figure 9. Thus, we can eliminate the transformer from the circuit, if the step-down voltage is not required. Although, Bridge rectifier also possesses some drawbacks, among which one of the drawbacks is the voltage drop across four diodes.

Bridge Rectifier needs four diodes which makes the circuit complex, as well as the voltage drop in this scenario, will be two times more than the voltage drop in Centre-Tap Rectifier. This is because Centre-Tap rectifier includes only two diodes in its circuit. The other significant differences can be understood with the help of comparison chart described below. In this, the anodes of the diodes are connected with Centre tapped secondary winding, and the cathodes of the diodes are connected with the load resistor.

Thus, it is called Centre Tapped Rectifier. It is a type of full wave rectifier. Thus, the positive half cycle of AC and negative half cycle of AC both are converted into the unidirectional voltage with the help of centre tapped rectifier. When the AC voltage is applied to the rectifier, firstly the step-down transformer lowers the magnitude of AC voltage.

Then this voltage is passed through the diodes. When the positive half of AC cycle is applied to the rectifier circuit, the diode D1 is forward biased, and diode D2 is reverse biased.

How to use Center Tapped Transformer The operation and theory behind a Center tapped transformer is very similar to a normal secondary transformer. Let us consider the voltage given by the first half of the secondary coil as Va and the voltage across the second half of the secondary coil as Vb as shown in the diagram below As we know the voltage across the coil depends on the number of turns on the primary and secondary coil.

Component Datasheet. Center Tapped Transformer Datasheet. Tags Transformer.