Components are in series if they are joined end to end like this:
The last article covered the resistor differences between series and parallel. In this article, We'll work with resistors to reveal the properties of the series connection.
Resistors in series
Resistors are in series when they are connected head-to-tail and there are no other wires branching off from the nodes between components.
In the following image,R1 R2 R3 are in series:
Resistors in series share the same current.The resistors in the following image are not in series. There are extra branches leading away from the nodes between resistors. If these branches carry current (orange arrows), thenR1 R2 R3, do not share the same current.
Properties of resistors in series
Here is a circuit with resistors in series:
Two things we do know are
- The three resistor voltages have to add up to v_{text S}vSv, start subscript, start text, S, end text, end subscript.
- Current iii flows through all three resistors.
With this little bit of knowledge, and Ohm's Law, we can write these expressions:
