Monday, April 21, 2014

DC Circuits

      On Wednesday, we were given a series-parallel circuit and were asked to compute the equivalent resistance of the entire circuit. We broke it down into parts in order to make that computation, and those calculations can be seen in the picture above. Then, we made the circuit by twisting resistors together, measured the total resistance, and compared it to our calculated value. Those values can be seen in the lower right hand corner of the whiteboard.
 
      The two pictures above are pictures of an exercise we also completed on Wednesday. We constructed the circuits from the schematics seen in the picture and analyzed voltage and current in both series and parallel circuits. We found that the sum of the potentials across the resistors in a series circuit equals the input voltage, and that the current is the same in all components in a series circuit. We found that the opposite was true for parallel circuits. Specifically, the sum of the currents in a parallel circuit equals the input current, and the potential is the same across all resistors in a parallel circuit.
 
     We were given another circuit and were asked to compute the three unknown currents using Kirchhoff's laws. We were then to build the circuit on a breadboard, and actually measure the currents and compare them to our measured values. However, this is still a work in progress, and a picture of the circuit can be seen below. 
 
     Our calculated values for the currents I_1, I_2, and I_3 were 1.14 amps, .999 amps, and .138 amps respectively. Upon actually breaking the circuit at the necessary points in order to measure these currents, I found that I_1, I_2, and I_3, were 1.12 amps, .99 amps, and .11 amps respectively.  

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