December 17th, 2011 
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The first entry covered basic electronic concepts such as voltage, current, and power. This session will cover Ohm’s Law, and Kirchhoff’s Laws of voltage and current.
Resistors and Ohm’s Law Georg Simon Ohm was a German physicist that in 1826 experimentally determined most basic laws that relate to voltage and current for a resistor.
Elements are in series if they exclusively share a single node.
Kirchhoff’s Laws The first of Kirchhoff’s Laws is Kirchhoff’s current law (KCL). This law states that the sum of all current entering a node or enclosed area of a circuit is equal to zero.
The second of Kirchhoff’s Laws is Kirchhoff’s voltage law (KVL). If the positive terminal is hit first, the voltage is added. If the negative terminal is hit first, the voltage is subtracted.
Basic DC Analysis By combining Kirchhoff’s voltage and current laws, basic DC circuits are relatively easy to analyze.
If a loop contains one voltage source and multiple resistances, voltage division (eq. 1) should be used to find the value of voltage drops across the known resistances. Once the voltage across the known resistance is found, Ohm’s law (eq. 2) can be used to determine the current flowing through the resistance.
Eq.1 Voltage Division: ((voltage source in volts) (resistor of interest in ohms))/(sum of resistance in loop)
Eq.2 Ohm’s Law: (voltage across a resistance) = (known resistance)(current flowing through resistance)
Eq. 3 Equivalent Resistance (Req) of Resistors in parallel: Req = ((resistance in branch 1)(resistance in branch 2)) / (sum of resistances in both branches)
Other concepts that make DC circuit analysis easier are current division, mesh analysis, and nodal analysis.
Basic Laws of Electronics
The focus on passive safety has shifted to active safety more recently.
The first entry covered basic electronic concepts such as voltage, current, and power. This session will cover Ohm’s Law, and Kirchhoff’s Laws of voltage and current.