I'm new to electronics and decided to learn something new by trying to put together a small rectifier circuit that converts 24VAC to DC. So I put together a little full-wave rectifier circuit that consists of four diodes and an LED and ran into an issue when I tried to measure the DC output.
This is a diagram of the circuit I put together on a breadboard and how I connected the probe of my oscilloscope to test it (btw I know the LED should have a resistor in the circuit). The next image is a screenshot of the half-wave rectification reading I am getting on the oscilloscope without the LED as a load, so DC positive connected to probe and DC negative connected to probe GND.
But when I add the LED to the circuit as shown in the diagram, this is the reading I get.
So after that, I decided to test the transformer alone connecting it to the oscilloscope like this.
The transformer seems to have no problem. It's just there to step-down 120VAC mains to 24VAC for testing.
If anyone possibly knows why I'm getting a half-wave rectification out of a full-wave rectifier circuit, I would really appreciate the help.
This is a diagram of the circuit I put together on a breadboard and how I connected the probe of my oscilloscope to test it (btw I know the LED should have a resistor in the circuit). The next image is a screenshot of the half-wave rectification reading I am getting on the oscilloscope without the LED as a load, so DC positive connected to probe and DC negative connected to probe GND.
But when I add the LED to the circuit as shown in the diagram, this is the reading I get.
So after that, I decided to test the transformer alone connecting it to the oscilloscope like this.
The transformer seems to have no problem. It's just there to step-down 120VAC mains to 24VAC for testing.
If anyone possibly knows why I'm getting a half-wave rectification out of a full-wave rectifier circuit, I would really appreciate the help.