Electricity Circuits: Individual, Series, Parallel and Series-Parallel

What is electricity?

Electrons- negatively charged particles present in all atoms the movement of electrons creates electricity in a conductor.

Conductor- many material that will allow electrical current to the various circuit components, the most commonly used materials in automotive use is copper, brass, steel.

Insulator- material that has an extremely high resistance to current flow, material that will reject an electrical charge such as plastic, mica, fiberglass etc.

Semi conductor- materials that act as conductors or insulators depending on temperature physical or electrical conditions. Common materials are: germanium or doped silicon. (impurity)

Electrical terms

Voltage; (volts)

Practical unit of pressure; practical unit of electromotive force.

The force or pressure that is required to move the electrons in a circuit.

Ampere (amps)= unit of current (flow)

When electrons move along a conductor, this means there is now current flowing in the circuit measured in amperes (amps). The larger amount and flow of electrons the larger the current.

Ohms; This is the unit of resistance

The resistance to the flow of electrons.

Resistance is introduced into a circuit to reduce or limit current flow and voltage.

It is important to have an understanding of resistance for calculation purposes.

Wattage; practical unit of power. (work being done)

In an electrical circuit, if you multiply the voltage maintained across the circuit, by the amperes flowing through the circuit, this will equal the Watts being used to produce the output.

Conventional current flow; conventional current flows from positive to negative.

Electron flow; electrons flow in opposite direction to conventional current flow. Negative to positive.