Electronic – Capacitor discharge and 1/2 terminal voltage sources

basiccapacitorsourcevoltage

I understand that this is really basics of electronics, but I would really appreciate if somebody clearly explained following question.

So here is a small set of questions related to similar topic:

  1. What's the difference between 1 and 2 terminal source? As far as I understood one wire is the max-potential(+) and the second is low-potential(-). But what is the low-potential? Is it usually 0?

  2. I tried to simulate a simple circuit with capacitor charge/discharge function. In one case I tried to use 2 terminal source, assuming that low-potential ~ virual ground. The capacitor did not discharge. In the second case I used 1 terminal source and ground – capacitor successfully discharged. Why the capacitor did not discharge in the first case?

  3. Is 0V the same as ground?

I have added 2 images below here illustrating the problem.

2 terminals
1 terminal/grounded

Best Answer

The one-terminal source is referred to ground, which has a specific symbol that you also used.

  1. The 1-terminal supply is like a battery in which the negative terminal is automatically connected to ground. The 2-terminal is more like a battery: you can stack more or put it inside a circuit, so it simply creates a voltage. Then you have to reference it to ground if you want.

  2. In the first circuit, the capacitor is connected between the low terminal of the voltage source and ground, so basically it's not supplied by anything. You have to put a ground symbol in the negative terminal of the voltage source, to make the circuits equivalent.
    As I said in n. 1, since the 2-terminals supply is not referenced, you are not creating any potential across the capacitor.

  3. Especially in this case, yes, 0 V is ground.

P.S. It's not the best to put horizontal grounds, consider turning it.

This is the equivalent of your second circuit with a 2-terminal supply

Related Topic