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Series Circuit

There are two types of electrical circuits series and parallel.

Series Circuit

This is a very simple type of circuit where the components are connected in a series, one following the other one.

Below is a diagram of a simple battery powered circuit where the light bulb and the server follow each other in the circuit. 

 A series circuit works on the following assumptions:

Circuit - If one component fails in a serial circuit, than all the other components in the circuit will also not work as the circuit would be broken.  There is no complete path for the electrons to follow from - to + for any of the components.  An example of this is Christmas lights where if one light were to burn out, the whole series of lights would go out also.

Current - Current is the same all way round the circuit, there are no changes and a multimeter will show a similar reading at all points around the circuit.

Resistance - To measure the resistance in the circuit we would have to measure the resistance of the light bulb and the motor.  We could then add the number of ohms of each component  together and we can find the amount of resistance in the circuit.  e.g If the lightbulb has 2Ω resistance and the motor has 4Ω Resistance we have a good guide that the total resistance in the circuit is 6Ω. (2+4)

Voltage - To find out the voltage in the circuit we must measure the voltage across each component.

The voltage drop across each component if combined is always equal to the total series circuit.   For any circuit containing one or more componenrts and a battery, the component "use up" the potential energy provided by the battery. (All voltage is used) 

 The correct equation to use is: V_sup = V₁ + V₂ + V₃

E.g 9 volt battery = 3 volt light bulb + 6 volt motor

E.g 12 volt battery = 7 volt motor + 5 volt radio

 Since we know the amount of current flowing though each of the two resistors, and we also know the resistance of the two components we can also use Ohm's law to calculate the voltage drop across each of them.  The combined voltage drop will add up to the voltage supply.