All About Circuits

Component failure analysis

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 09:02:00 +0000

The job of a technician frequently entails "troubleshooting" (locating and correcting a problem) in malfunctioning circuits. Good troubleshooting is a demanding and rewarding effort, requiring a...

Correct use of Ohm's Law

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 09:02:00 +0000

One of the most common mistakes made by beginning electronics students in their application of Ohm's Laws is mixing the contexts of voltage, current, and resistance. In other words, a student might...

Building simple resistor circuits

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 09:03:00 +0000

In the course of learning about electricity, you will want to construct your own circuits using resistors and batteries. Some options are available in this matter of circuit assembly, some easier...

Volume I - DC

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 09:10:00 +0000

Ø Chapter 1: BASIC CONCEPTS OF ELECTRICITY · Static electricity · Conductors, insulators, and electron flow · Electric circuits · Voltage and current · ...

Voltage divider circuits

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:26:00 +0000

Let's analyze a simple series circuit, determining the voltage drops across individual resistors: From the given values of individual resistances, we can determine a total...

Kirchhoff's Voltage Law (KVL)

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:27:00 +0000

Let's take another look at our example series circuit, this time numbering the points in the circuit for voltage reference: If we were to connect a voltmeter between points 2 and 1, red test...

Current divider circuits

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:28:00 +0000

Let's analyze a simple parallel circuit, determining the branch currents through individual resistors: Knowing that voltages across all components in a parallel circuit are the same, we can...

Kirchhoff's Current Law (KCL)

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:29:00 +0000

Let's take a closer look at that last parallel example circuit: Solving for all values of voltage and current in this circuit: At this point, we know the value of each branch...

What is a series-parallel circuit?

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:30:00 +0000

With simple series circuits, all components are connected end-to-end to form only one path for electrons to flow through the circuit: With simple parallel circuits, all components are...

Re-drawing complex schematics

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:31:00 +0000

Typically, complex circuits are not arranged in nice, neat, clean schematic diagrams for us to follow. They are often drawn in such a way that makes it difficult to follow which components are in...

Analysis technique

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:31:00 +0000

The goal of series-parallel resistor circuit analysis is to be able to determine all voltage drops, currents, and power dissipations in a circuit. The general strategy to accomplish this goal is as...

Building series-parallel resistor circuits

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:33:00 +0000

Once again, when building battery/resistor circuits, the student or hobbyist is faced with several different modes of construction. Perhaps the most popular is the solderless breadboard: a platform...

Component failure analysis

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:33:00 +0000

"I consider that I understand an equation when I can predict the properties of its solutions, without actually solving it." P.A.M Dirac, physicist There is a lot of truth to that quote from...

What is a meter?

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Sat, 10 May 2008 09:38:00 +0000

A meter is any device built to accurately detect and display an electrical quantity in a form readable by a human being. Usually this "readable form" is visual: motion of a pointer on a scale, a...

Voltmeter design

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Sat, 10 May 2008 09:39:00 +0000

As was stated earlier, most meter movements are sensitive devices. Some D'Arsonval movements have full-scale deflection current ratings as little as 50 µA, with an (internal) wire resistance of less...

Voltmeter impact on measured circuit

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Sat, 10 May 2008 09:40:00 +0000

Every meter impacts the circuit it is measuring to some extent, just as any tire-pressure gauge changes the measured tire pressure slightly as some air is let out to operate the gauge. While some...

Ammeter design

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Sat, 10 May 2008 09:42:00 +0000

A meter designed to measure electrical current is popularly called an "ammeter" because the unit of measurement is "amps." In ammeter designs, external resistors added to extend the usable range...

Ammeter impact on measured circuit

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Sat, 10 May 2008 09:43:00 +0000

Just like voltmeters, ammeters tend to influence the amount of current in the circuits they're connected to. However, unlike the ideal voltmeter, the ideal ammeter has zero internal resistance, so as...

Ohmmeter design

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Sat, 10 May 2008 09:44:00 +0000

Though mechanical ohmmeter (resistance meter) designs are rarely used today, having largely been superseded by digital instruments, their operation is nonetheless intriguing and worthy of study. ...

Multimeters

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Sat, 10 May 2008 09:45:00 +0000

Seeing as how a common meter movement can be made to function as a voltmeter, ammeter, or ohmmeter simply by connecting it to different external resistor networks, it should make sense that a...

High voltage ohmmeters

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Sat, 10 May 2008 09:45:00 +0000

Most ohmmeters of the design shown in the previous section utilize a battery of relatively low voltage, usually nine volts or less. This is perfectly adequate for measuring resistances under several...

Kelvin (4-wire) resistance measurement

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Sat, 10 May 2008 09:46:00 +0000

Suppose we wished to measure the resistance of some component located a significant distance away from our ohmmeter. Such a scenario would be problematic, because an ohmmeter measures all resistance...

Bridge circuits

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Sat, 10 May 2008 09:47:00 +0000

No text on electrical metering could be called complete without a section on bridge circuits. These ingenious circuits make use of a null-balance meter to compare two voltages, just like the...

Creating custom calibration resistances

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Sat, 10 May 2008 09:48:00 +0000

Often in the course of designing and building electrical meter circuits, it is necessary to have precise resistances to obtain the desired range(s). More often than not, the resistance values...

Wattmeter design

noreply@blogger.com (Educational Information) — Sat, 10 May 2008 09:48:00 +0000

Power in an electric circuit is the product (multiplication) of voltage and current, so any meter designed to measure power must account for both of these variables. A special meter movement...