4841 Electrical Blog

Circuits

In the first practical class Prem handed us a booklet and went over the book briefly what is going to be covered in circuits.

•  Series Circuit
• Parallel Circuit
• Compound Circuit

Series Circuit

Unitec provides us with a premade circuit board we create circuits on them using the 12 volts supply.

We started making a series circuit with one bulb (smaller Bulb) using a control switch and a 10 amp fuse. We slowly made our way through using 2 bulbs (2 larger bulbs) with a control switch and a 10 amp fuse.  We finished off series circuit by using 3 bulbs using a control switch and 10 amp fuse.

While we were doing the circuits we had to get the readings with multimeter and fill in the practical book we detailed explanations.

In a series circuit the current (amps) will be the same but the voltage is different, that is why the bulbs are not brighter in a series 

circuit.

Parallel Circuit

We made a parallel circuit on the same circuit board as earlier.

The first parallel circuit consists of 2 larger bulbs and a control switch and 10 amp fuse. And followed by we did a circuit this time use used all three bulbs and a control switch and a 10 amp fuse. 

All the circuits we made on a parallel circuit all the bulbs were brighter because of the same voltage going through the each bulb.

Compound Circuit

When a parallel and a series circuit are made together it is called compound circuit.

We made a compound circuit with 3 bulbs and 2 of the bulbs are connected in  parallel and the other 1 is connected in series. It is controlled with a switch and consists a 10 amp fuse. In a compound circuit the parallel bulbs are dim and the series bulbs are brighter.