Saturday, September 11, 2010

Series Circuit and Parallel Circruit

Series Circuit

Series circuit is a electric circuit in which the loads are connected one after another. In a series circuit there is only one path from the source through all of the loads and back to the source. This means that all of the current in the circuit must flow through all of the loads. Opening or breaking the circuit at any point will cause the loads, for example, light bulbs in the circuit all start operating or stop operating. This is the main disadvantage of a series circuit. If any one of the light bulbs or loads burns out or is removed, the entire circuit stops operating.


Parallel circuit is a circuit in which there are at least two independent paths in the circuit to get back to the source.The loads in a parallel circuit connect side by side. In the circuit, the current will flow through the closed paths and not through the open paths. Consider an example, in the example a switch and a 60 watt light bulb is acquired. If the switch is closed, the light operates. When a second 60 watt bulb is added to the circuit in parallel with the first bulb, it is connected so that there is a path to flow through to the first bulb or a path to flow through to the second bulb. In such circuit both bulbs glow at their intended brightness, since each of them receives the full circuit voltage.
Every load connected in a separate path receives the full circuit voltage. If a third 60-watt bulb is added to the circuit, it also glows at its intended brightness since it also receives its full volts from the source.
The concern in parallel circuits is that it is very easy to overload a circuit by adding loads in which more current is flowing in the circuit than it could safely handle. 
An obvious advantage of parallel circuits is that the burnout or removal of one bulb does not affect the other bulbs in parallel circuits. They continue to operate because there is still a independent closed path from the source to each of the other loads.

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