With the aim of preventing an Electrical Engineering course from being predominantly theoretical, the didactic materials used in laboratory activities are essential to make the learning process easier and more stimulating for the student. In this context, this paper presents a didactic platform developed for teaching a.c.-d.c. converters in the subject of power electronics at the Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU), Brazil. The proposed platform consists of a three-phase controlled and/or uncontrolled rectifier. The IC TCA785 is used to control thyristor operation. In order to make teaching more dynamical, the didactic platform was designed to have various operating conditions, simulating, for example, breakdown components and mixed use of thyristors and diodes. A prototype of the proposed platform was built, evaluated experimentally in the laboratory and the results are shown in this paper.