Brightening up the morning
We kicked off our Friday in lab with building circuits! For this lap we were tasked with building a both parallel and series circuits to light up two LEDs.
Building the series circuit
For this first circuit, I used an AC to DC adapter that connect to the bread-board, a voltage regulator, and a resistor with two LEDs. I also needed to add a push button switch.
Choosing the resistor value wasn’t extremely hard. I just used Ohm’s law to find the needed current for the particular color of LED.
After figuring out the resistor value, I got to actually building the circuit. I did not have too many issues making this circuit work other than the fact that I am still getting used to how small all of the components are. After a couple times trying to get wires to stay in their bread-board ports, I got it working.
Making the Parallel Circuit
For the parallel circuit, I used the same components as the series circuits albeit with some extra wires, and an extra resistor. Unlike a series circuit, a parallel circuit will not drop voltage around the whole circuit with just a single resistor (and LED load). Because of this, the extra resistor was needed.
Having suffered through Physics 2 last year, I was able to remember how to build a parallel circuit. However, like my experience building the series circuit, I struggled to work with the small pieces. I found that the wires would easily slip out of the bread-board. Fortunately, I was able to get it working with only a few times cursing at my bread-board. The LED’s glowed brighter than the series circuit.