Difference between revisions of "Ohm's Law"

Reference Material

• Horowitz & Hill, The Art of Electronics, 2nd Ed., Ch. 1

Ohm’s Law

${\displaystyle V=IR,\,\!}$

where ${\displaystyle V}$ is voltage, measured in Volts (${\displaystyle V}$), with typical values ranging from ${\displaystyle mV}$ (into an oscilloscope) to ${\displaystyle kV}$ (power lines, severe arcing danger); ${\displaystyle I}$ is current, measured in Amperes (${\displaystyle A}$), typical values ranging from ${\displaystyle mA}$ (relatively safe for bench-top work) to ${\displaystyle A}$ (very dangerous); ${\displaystyle R}$ is resistance, measured in Ohms (${\displaystyle \Omega }$), typical values ranging from ${\displaystyle \Omega }$ (power resistors dissipating a lot of power) to ${\displaystyle M\Omega }$ (almost a no-connect).

Resistor

A typical (330${\displaystyle \Omega }$) resistor

A resistor resists the flow of electrons, such that a potential (i.e. voltage) is required to produce a current, as described by Ohm’s Law above. If we imagine electric current flowing as water, a resistor would be a narrow pipe. The higher the resistance, the narrower the pipe, and the harder you will have to push to get a liter-per-second of water through it. As per all electronic components, resistors dissipate energy as heat according to the equation:

${\displaystyle P=IV\,\!}$

Resistors in Series

Resistors in series add because, in the pipe analogy used above, all the water has to go through all of the pipes, and they all contribute drag:

Resistors in series

${\displaystyle R=R_{1}+R_{2}+\dots +R_{n}\,\!}$

Resistors in Parallel

Resistors in parallel add reciprocally. In the pipe analogy, water has a choice of which pipe to flow through, and the bulk of the water will be carried by the widest pipe (or for electrons, the lowest-value resistor). Having more paths to choose from will always always reduce drag, but a thin straw next to a firehose isn’t going to do much:

Resistors in parallel

${\displaystyle R={\frac {1}{{\frac {1}{R_{1}}}+{\frac {1}{R_{2}}}+\dots +{\frac {1}{R_{n}}}}}\,\!}$

Match each color with a digit using the chart above (I remember it as "black, brown, ROYGBIV, grey, white", where ROYGBIV is, of course, rainbow ordering). The first two color bands are a two-digit number (e.g. 27 for red-violet above), and the third number is a power-of-ten multiplier (e.g. ${\displaystyle 10^{5}}$ for green above). Hence the resistor red-violet-green resistor above is a ${\displaystyle 27\times 10^{5}\Omega }$ resistor.