centre tap rectifier

[kingrosekhan123]

what are the advantages and disadvantage of centre tap full wave recifier.??

is it better than full wave bridge rectifier???

please explain in simple words.
Thanks...

 

[duke37]

At low voltages, the 1.2V or so drop in a bridge rectifier is significant so a centre tapped transformer winding is used with only two diodes. The voltage drop is reduced to 0.7V or so at the expense of a slightly bigger and more expensive transformer

At high voltages the diode voltage drop is not significant so a single cheaper winding is used with fatter, lower resitance wire.

Its all a matter of optimisation for the particular service.