Reservoir capacitor
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The pulsating DC from an AC rectifier (either half-wave or full-wave) sometimes needs to be smoothed to be useful. This can be done using a Reservoir capacitor.
As the rectifier voltage increases, it charges the capacitor and also supplies current to the load. At the end of the quarter cycle the capacitor is charged to its peak value Vm of the rectifier voltage. Following this the rectifier voltage starts to decrease as it enters the next quarter cycle. This initiates the discharge of the capacitor through the load.
