e-refrigeration.com

Parallel Circuit

A parallel Circuit has considerable advantages over a series circuit.

A Parallel circuit is one with several different paths for the electricity to travel. It's a river that has been divided up into smaller streams. However, all the streams come back to the same point to form the river once again.

In a parallel circuit, each device is placed in its own separate branch.  If an individual component in a parallel branch gets damaged, then there is still current in the overall circuit and current in the other branches to power the rest of the circuit.

 A series circuit works on the following assumptions:

Circuit -  A parallel circuit has more than one path for current flow. The same voltage is applied across each branch. If one branch is broken, current will continue flowing to the other branches keeping the overall circuit working. We call this type of circuit a "parallel circuit" because is can run in parallel. You can have as many parallel circuits as you want. Parallel circuits share the same voltage, but they allow more paths for the electricity to go over. This means that the total number of electrons that can get across (the current) can increase, without breaking either circuit.

Voltage - In a parallel circuit the same voltage is applied across each branch.

The image to the left shows a basic parallel circuit with a battery and two lamps.

Both lamps have the full battery voltage across them. The battery current is divided between the two lamps. So if the circuit was being powered by a 9volt battery both lamps would receive 9 volts.

Parallel circuits have the advantage that you can add more components to the circuit without the need for more voltage. 

Current - The more components connected in parallel, the more energy is used.

One special concern in parallel circuits is that the amperage from the source increases each time another load is added to the circuit in parallel. Therefore, it is very easy to keep adding loads or plugging them in parallel and thereby overloading a circuit by requiring more current to flow than the circuit can safely handle.

The current flowing through a parallel circuit depends upon where in the circuit the current is measured.   In a parallel circuit, current divides up into separate branches such that there can be more current in one branch than there is in another.

We must always remember that the different branch currents must tally to equal the source current. So we can measure different currents in differant branches but still resort to knowing that all the different current readings will add up to the suplly of current at the source.