Electrical Circuits

- Terms learnt

volts- practical unit of pressure. the force or pressure that moves electrons in a circuit. 

ohms- is the unit of resistance. the resistance to the flow of electrons in a circuit. used to reduce or limit current flow and voltage.

amps- unit of current. when electrons move along a conductor this means there is now current flowing in the circuit measured in amps.

available volts- the total amount of volts the battery is running in a circuit.

voltage drop- the amount of volts lost after massing through a consumer or resister.

-we learnt how to put together 3 different types of electrical circuits. Individual circuits, Series circuits, Parallel Circuits and Compound Circuits.

-Individual circuit = battery -> fuse -> switch -> consumer (lightbulb) -> ground.
-Series circuit = battery -> fuse -> switch -> consumer (2 or more only connected by a single branch) -> ground.
-Parallel Circuit = battery -> fuse -> switch -> consumers (bulb 1, 2 and 3) -> ground.
-Compound (series - parallel) Circuit = battery -> fuse -> switch -> consumers 1 and 2 -> consumer 3 -> consumer 4 -> ground.

-In both the circuits we made we ran 12v through the system. We started by building a individual circuit with 1 small lightbulb and then went on to a series circuit that ran 2 larger light bulbs.
-The only problem we came across was when we were building our series circuit, instead of using a single wire to connect the to bulbs we used 2 wires to connect them. in doing so this created a parallel circuit.

-We also learnt how to use a multimeter. this is a tool used to measure amps, volts and ohms. a multimeter DOES NOT measure watts, but by using ohms theory we can calculate the watts of an object using volts and amps. e.g volts ⊗ amps = watts.
- Ohms theory can also be used to find out amps, volts or ohms. e.g (v÷a = r) (v÷r = a) (a×r = v)

-Using the multimeter we found out how many amps, volts and ohms were in different parts of the circuit and why this was. trends we found were that the higher the resistance the lower the amps/flow and the lower the resistance the higher the amps/flow. to test amps in a circuit using the multimeter it must be attached as part of the circuit (making a series circuit) so that it can measure the flow of amps.