Electric Circuit
- An electric circuit is the path where electrical charges flow.
- It is made up of a source of electrical energy (such as batteries),connecting wires and electrical components (such as switches, resistors, ammeters, voltmeters or bulbs).
- These common components are represented by electric symbols when drawing circuit diagrams.
- Some of these symbols are shown in Table 24.4.
- Current will flow only through a complete circuit. & A complete circuit is a circuit that has no gaps.
- A gap occurs when a switch is open.This stops the current from flowing through the circuit.
- Figure 24.15 shows the difference between a complete and open circuit.
- There are two main types of electric circuits:
- (a) series circuit
- (b) parallel circuit
Series Circuits
- A series circuit connects an electrical source with its
- components, one after another, in a single loop.
- Current flowing through each component is the same throughout the circuit.
- A disadvantage of this circuit is that if there is a break in any part of the circuit, current flow throughout the whole circuit is cut off.
- Light bulbs connected in series are less bright than those connected in parallel.
- If one bulb is disconnected, the other bulbs do not light up because the circuit becomes incomplete.
Parallel Circuits
- In a parallel circuit, the current source is split into two or more branches.
- Current flowing through each branch in the parallel circuit may be the same or different.
- However, it is certainly less than the current flowing out of the electrical source.
- The current entering any junction in the circuit is also equals to the current leaving that junction.
- Light bulbs connected in parallel are brighter than those connected in series.
- If one bulb is disconnected, the other bulbs can still light up because current can still flow through the other paths.
