Circuits Components Diagrams Basic Circuit Components and Diagrams

Circuits: Components & Diagrams

Basic Circuit Components and Diagrams Four basic components: 1. Source: source of energy 2. Conductor: wire where current flows 3. Electric Load: turns electricity into other forms 4. Switch: turns circuit on or off

Circuit Diagrams All circuit diagrams should be drawn using a ruler. All turns in the circuit should be drawn at 90° angles. Not all circuit diagrams will be identical the size & spacing of the components is not important, but the components should be in the same order as the initial illustration. The battery in a circuit may be symbolized as either a battery or a cell. Modern convention is to use the cell symbol to represent both cells and batteries

Connecting Ammeters in a Circuit An ammeter counts the number of coulombs passing a particular point every second In order to connect an ammeter to a circuit, you must break the circuit and insert the meter. Ammeters becomes part of the pathway

Electrons are so Pushy! As each e- moves through a conductor, it pushes on the one ahead of it all the e- move together as a group The starting and stopping of e- flow is virtually instant Imagine a tube filled end-to-end with marbles: The tube is full of marbles just as a conductor is full of free e- ready to be moved by an outside influence If a single marble is suddenly inserted into this full tube on the left-hand side, another marble will immediately try to exit the tube on the right Even though each marble only traveled a short distance, the transfer of motion through a tube is instantaneous from the left end to the right end, no matter how long the tube is With electricity, the overall effect from one end of a conductor to the other happens at the speed of light (a speedy 299 792 458 m/s!)