Circuit Laws.340.

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Circuit Laws
Ohms Law
The voltage across a resistor is proportional to its resistance and the current flowing through it:
V =I R

DC Power
Power is proportional to the voltage across and current through an element.
P =V I

By substitution with Ohms Law:

P =V I = V2 = I2 R R

Series and Parallel

The following are intuitive laws observed in the lab experiment.

Currents
in series are equal to each other. in parallel sum to current entering/leaving the parallel section.

Voltages
in series sum to the source voltage (for a single source). in parallel are equal to each other.

Kirchhoffs Circuit Laws

These are more formal versions of the previous.

Kirchhoffs Current Law (KCL)

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Version 1: The sum of currents at any junction is zero (when you account for current direction by making one direction negative). Version 2: The sum of currents entering a junction is equal to the sum of currents leaving it. Simply, no electrons escape the circuit, just as no water normally escapes your plumbing. In the image above, all the current flowing into the junction flows out again:
i2 + i3 = i1 + i4

Assigning flowing out to be negative current, the sum of currents is zero:

i2 + i3 i1 i4 = 0

Kirchhoffs Voltage Law (KVL)

The sum of voltages in a closed loop is zero (when you account for voltage polarity by making one negative). Simply, all the potential is used up in a loop. For example, if in the image above V4 is a battery (a source of voltage), the resistors (consumers of voltage) will have voltages V1 to V3 summing to the same magnitude as V4:
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V4 = V 1 + V2 + V 3

Including polarity (labeling them such that the + on the resistors is in the opposite direction as on the battery), the voltages will sum to zero:
V4 V1 V2 V3 = 0

Practical Results
Stemming from Ohms Law, KCL, and KVL are several practical formula.

Equivalent Resistance
Two or more resistors in series or two or more resistors in parallel are equivalent to a single resistor of a calculable value. For example, if you need an 8 k resistor, you can put two 4 k resistors in series and they will have a combined resistance of 8 k. Similarly, if you needed a 3 k resistor, you could put three 9 k resistors in parallel and get the equivalent resistance of 3 k.

Resistors in Series
Resistors in series sum.
Req = R1 + R2 + ...

Resistors in Parallel
Resistors in series divide (in a funny way).
Req = 1
1 R1

1 R2

+ ...

For two resistors, this has a simpler form:

Req = R1 R2 R1 + R 2

For n equal resistors with value R, it has very simple form:

Req = R n

Divider Circuits
Voltage Dividers
From KVL, you can see that series resistors can be used to split off a fraction of a source voltage, such as for a volume control.

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Vout = Vin

R2 R1 + R 2

When nothing is connected beyond Vout, the above formula is correct and Vout is called the open loop voltage (as in there is no path that continues through Vout that loops back to this circuit). If there is another resistance connected between Vout and ground, it is called the load. It is in parallel with R2 and an equivalent resistance should be calculated and substituted in the voltage divider equation to find the closed loop voltage. As is, the formula is close enough if the load resistance is much much higher than R2.

Current Dividers
As with series resistances and voltage, parallel resistances can be used to divide current.

Ix = IT

R1 R 1 + Rx

Example Power Attenuator

A common problem faced by guitarists is that a tube amps sound better when played at high power, but then its too loud for their apartment. The solution is to put a circuit between the amplifier and the speakers that reduces the amount of power going to the speakers without changing the amount of power coming out of the amp (hence wasting most of the power as heat in the circuit). A simple circuit to accomplish this is:

The goal is to find R1 and R2 so that the current and voltage coming out of the amp is the same as for both the speaker alone and with the attenuator:

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The way to accomplish that is to have the equivalent resistance of the attenuator circuit be the same as the speaker alone, i.e. the amplifier sees the same load.
RSP K = R1 + R2 RSP K R2 + RSP K

To find the relationship between R2 and RSPK, you must decide how much to attenuate the power and find the attenuated power in terms of R1 and R2. The initial power is:
P0 = I 2 RSP K
2 P1 = IS RSP K

and the attenuated power is: To find Is, use the current divider equation.
IS = I1 R2 R2 + RSP K

Note that I1 = I because the current flowing out of the amp was not supposed to have been changed. Substituting these the attenuated power equation: into
P1 = R2 RSP K R2 + RSP K 2 R2 P1 = I 2 RSP K R2 + RSP K I
2

P1 =

Nowsubstitute I2 from the initial power and solve for R2:

P0 RSP K RSP K 2 P1 R2 = P0 R2 + RSP K r P1 R2 = P0 R2 + RSP K q RSP K P1 P0 q R2 = P1 1 P0 R2 R2 + RSP K
2

Now you have everything you need to find R2 then R1 for whatever speaker resistance and ratio of powers you want. Sayp you have an 8 speaker you want to make a quarter as loud (-20 dB), P1/P0 = 0.01.
R2 = R1 = 8 8 0.01 p = 0.89 1 0.01 0.89 8 = 7.2 0.89 + 8

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