Bridge AC-to-DC Doubler

An improvement to the conventional and cascade doublers shown above is the bridge rectifying doubler. Instead of half wave rectification, a bridge doubler provides full wave rectification. The advantages of full wave rectification include less input impedance and a ripple voltage at twice the input frequency, which improves ripple-filtering capability. The schematic for the bridge doubler is shown in Fig. 10.10. The IsSpice equivalent schematic is shown in Fig. 10.11. 

This circuit uses the same 1N4002 diodes as the circuit in Fig. 10.1, the same 1 //F capacitors, and the same 5 kHz 3 V input pulse. Again, a 100K resistor acts as a load for the circuit. The breadboard results 

The results of the Micro-Cap and PSpice simulators are shown in Figs. 

Advantages Medium parts count, lower impedance than conventional doublers, full wave rectification allowing for less filtering (ripple now at twice the switching frequency) Disadvantages Current capability limited by source, ripple not as controlled as other topologies, no AC/DC isolation, no regulation 

File names bridgel (IsSpice), bridge2 (PSpice), bridge3 (Micro-Cap) 

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