Let’s analyze a simple 

series circuit and determine the voltage drops across individual

resistors:

From the given values of individual resistances, we can determine a total circuit
resistance, knowing that resistances add in series:

Determine the Total Circuit Resistance

From here, we can use Ohm’s Law (I=E/R) to determine the total current, which we know
will be the same as each resistor current, currents being equal in all parts of a series
circuit:
Use Ohm’s Law to Calculate Current
Now, knowing that the circuit current is 2 mA, we can use Ohm’s Law (E=IR) to calculate
the voltage across each resistor:

It should be apparent that the voltage drop across each resistor is proportional to its
resistance, given that the current is the same through all resistors. Notice how the
voltage across R2 is double that of the voltage across R 1, just as the resistance of R 2 is
double that of R1.

If we were to change the total voltage, we would find this proportionality of voltage
drops remains constant:

Solving for Voltage Drop Ratios

The voltage across R2 is still exactly twice that of R 1‘s drop, despite the fact that the
source voltage has changed. The proportionality of voltage drops (ratio of one to
another) is strictly a function of resistance values.
With a little more observation, it becomes apparent that the voltage drop across each
resistor is also a fixed proportion of the supply voltage. The voltage across R 1, for
example, was 10 volts when the battery supply was 45 volts. When the battery voltage
was increased to 180 volts (4 times as much), the voltage drop across R 1 also increased by
a factor of 4 (from 10 to 40 volts). The ratio between R1‘s voltage drop and total voltage,
however, did not change:

Likewise, none of the other voltage drop ratios changed with the increased supply
voltage either:

Voltage Divider Formula

For this reason, a series circuit is often called a voltage divider for its ability to proportion
—or divide—the total voltage into fractional portions of constant ratio. With a little bit of
algebra, we can derive a formula for determining series resistor voltage drop given
nothing more than total voltage, individual resistance, and total resistance:
The ratio of individual resistance to total resistance is the same as the ratio of individual
voltage drop to the total supply voltage in a voltage divider circuit. This is known as
the voltage divider formula, and it is a short-cut method for determining voltage drop in
a series circuit without going through the current calculations of Ohm’s Law.

Example of Using Voltage Divider Formula

Using this formula, we can re-analyze the example circuit’s voltage drops in fewer steps:
Voltage - Dividing Components
Voltage dividers find wide application in electric meter circuits, where specific
combinations of series resistors are used to “divide” a voltage into precise proportions as
part of a voltage measurement device.

Potentiometers as Voltage-Dividing Components

One device frequently used as a voltage-dividing component is the potentiometer, which
is a resistor with a movable element positioned by a manual knob or lever. The movable
element, typically called a wiper, makes contact with a resistive strip of material
(commonly called the slidewire if it is made of resistive metal wire) at any point selected
by the manual control:
The wiper contact is the left-facing arrow symbol drawn in the middle of the vertical
resistor element. As it is moved up, it contacts the resistive strip closer to terminal 1 and
further away from terminal 2, lowering resistance to terminal 1 and raising resistance to
terminal 2. As it is moved down, the opposite effect results. The resistance as measured
between terminals 1 and 2 is constant for any wiper position.

Rotary vs. Linear Potentiometers

Shown here are internal illustrations of two potentiometer types, rotary and linear.

Linear Potentiometers
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
Some linear potentiometers are actuated by straight-line motion of a lever or slide
button. Others, like the one depicted in the previous illustration, are actuated by a turn-
screw for fine adjustment ability. The latter units are sometimes referred to
as trimpots because they work well for applications requiring a variable resistance to be
“trimmed” to some precise value.

It should be noted that not all linear potentiometers have the same terminal assignments
as shown in this illustration. With some, the wiper terminal is in the middle, between the
two end terminals.

Rotary Potentiometer
The image below shows the body construction of a rotary potentiometer.

The following photograph shows a real, rotary potentiometer with exposed wiper and
slidewire for easy viewing. The shaft which moves the wiper has been turned almost fully
clockwise so that the wiper is nearly touching the left terminal end of the slidewire:

 
 

Here is the same potentiometer with the wiper shaft moved almost to the fully
counterclockwise position so that the wiper is near the other extreme end of travel:

 
Effects of Adjustments in a Potentiometer in a Circuit
If a constant voltage is applied between the outer terminals (across the length of the
slidewire), the wiper position will tap off a fraction of the applied voltage, measurable
between the wiper contact and either of the other two terminals. The fractional value
depends entirely on the physical position of the wiper:

 
The Importance of Potentiometer Application
Just like the fixed voltage divider, the potentiometer’s voltage division ratio is strictly a
function of resistance and not of the magnitude of the applied voltage. In other words, if
the potentiometer knob or lever is moved to the 50 percent (exact center) position, the
voltage dropped between the wiper and either outside terminal would be exactly 1/2 of
the applied voltage, no matter what that voltage happens to be, or what the end-to-end
resistance of the potentiometer is. In other words, a potentiometer functions as a variable
voltage divider where the voltage division ratio is set by wiper position.

This application of the potentiometer is a very useful means of obtaining a variable

voltage from a fixed-voltage source such as a battery. If a circuit you’re building requires
a certain amount of voltage that is less than the value of an available battery’s voltage,
you may connect the outer terminals of a potentiometer across that battery and “dial-up”
whatever voltage you need between the potentiometer wiper and one of the outer
terminals for use in your circuit:
When used in this manner, the name potentiometer makes perfect sense:
they meter (control) the potential(voltage) applied across them by creating a variable
voltage-divider ratio. This use of the three-terminal potentiometer as a variable voltage
divider is very popular in circuit design.

Samples of Small Potentiometers

Shown here are several small potentiometers of the kind commonly used in consumer
electronic equipment and by hobbyists and students in constructing circuits:

 
 

The smaller units on the very left and very right are designed to plug into a solderless
breadboard or be soldered into a printed circuit board. The middle units are designed to
be mounted on a flat panel with wires soldered to each of the three terminals. Here are
three more potentiometers, more specialized than the set just shown:

 
 

The large “Helipot” unit is a laboratory potentiometer designed for quick and easy
connection to a circuit. The unit in the lower-left corner of the photograph is the same
type of potentiometer, just without a case or 10-turn counting dial. Both of these
potentiometers are precision units, using multi-turn helical-track resistance strips and
wiper mechanisms for making small adjustments. The unit on the lower-right is a panel-
mount potentiometer, designed for rough service in industrial applications.
By now you should be well aware of the correlation between electrical conductivity and
certain types of materials. Those materials allowing for easy passage of free electrons are
called conductors, while those materials impeding the passage of free electrons are
called insulators.

Unfortunately, the scientific theories explaining why certain materials conduct and others
don’t are quite complex, rooted in quantum mechanical explanations in how electrons
are arranged around the nuclei of atoms. Contrary to the well-known “planetary” model
of electrons whirling around an atom’s nucleus as well-defined chunks of matter in
circular or elliptical orbits, electrons in “orbit” don’t really act like pieces of matter at all.
Rather, they exhibit the characteristics of both particle and wave, their behavior
constrained by placement within distinct zones around the nucleus referred to as “shells”
and “subshells.” Electrons can occupy these zones only in a limited range of energies
depending on the particular zone and how occupied that zone is with other electrons. If
electrons really did act like tiny planets held in orbit around the nucleus by electrostatic
attraction, their actions described by the same laws describing the motions of real
planets, there could be no real distinction between conductors and insulators, and
chemical bonds between atoms would not exist in the way they do now. It is the discrete,
“quantitized” nature of electron energy and placement described by quantum physics
that gives these phenomena their regularity.

Excited-state Atom
When an electron is free to assume higher energy states around an atom’s nucleus (due
to its placement in a particular “shell”), it may be free to break away from the atom and
comprise part of an electric current through the substance.

Ground-state Atom
If the quantum limitations imposed on an electron deny it this freedom, however, the
electron is considered to be “bound” and cannot break away (at least not easily) to
constitute a current. The former scenario is typical of conducting materials, while the
latter is typical of insulating materials.

Some textbooks will tell you that an element’s electrical conductivity is exclusively
determined by the number of electrons residing in the atoms’ outer “shell” (called
the valence shell), but this is an oversimplification, as any examination of conductivity
versus valence electrons in a table of elements will confirm. The true complexity of the
situation is further revealed when the conductivity of molecules (collections of atoms
bound to one another by electron activity) is considered.

A good example of this is the element carbon, which comprises materials of vastly
differing conductivity: graphite and diamond. Graphite is a fair conductor of electricity,
while diamond is practically an insulator (stranger yet, it is technically classified as
a semiconductor, which in its pure form acts as an insulator, but can conduct under high
temperatures and/or the influence of impurities). Both graphite and diamond are
composed of the exact same types of atoms: carbon, with 6 protons, 6 neutrons and 6
electrons each. The fundamental difference between graphite and diamond being that
graphite molecules are flat groupings of carbon atoms while diamond molecules are
tetrahedral (pyramid-shaped) groupings of carbon atoms.

The intentional introduction of impurities into an intrinsic semiconductor for the purpose
of altering its electrical, optical, and structural properties is called doping. If atoms of
carbon are joined to other types of atoms to form compounds, electrical conductivity
becomes altered once again. Silicon carbide, a compound of the elements silicon and
carbon, exhibits nonlinear behavior: its electrical resistance decreases with increases in
applied voltage! Hydrocarbon compounds (such as the molecules found in oils) tend to
be very good insulators. As you can see, a simple count of valence electrons in an atom is
a poor indicator of a substance’s electrical conductivity.

All metallic elements are good conductors of electricity, due to the way the atoms bond
with each other. The electrons of the atoms comprising a mass of metal are so
uninhibited in their allowable energy states that they float freely between the different
nuclei in the substance, readily motivated by any electric field. The electrons are so
mobile, in fact, that they are sometimes described by scientists as an electron gas, or even
an electron sea in which the atomic nuclei rest. This electron mobility accounts for some
of the other common properties of metals: good heat conductivity, malleability and
ductility (easily formed into different shapes), and a lustrous finish when pure.
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
Thankfully, the physics behind all this is mostly irrelevant to our purposes here. Suffice it
to say that some materials are good conductors, some are poor conductors, and some
are in between. For now it is good enough to simply understand that these distinctions
are determined by the configuration of the electrons around the constituent atoms of the
material.

An important step in getting electricity to do our bidding is to be able to construct paths

for current to flow with controlled amounts of resistance. It is also vitally important that
we be able to prevent current from flowing where we don’t want it to, by using insulating
materials. However, not all conductors are the same, and neither are all insulators. We
need to understand some of the characteristics of common conductors and insulators,
and be able to apply these characteristics to specific applications.

Almost all conductors possess a certain, measurable resistance (special types of materials
called superconductors possess absolutely no electrical resistance, but these are not
ordinary materials, and they must be held in special conditions in order to be super
conductive). Typically, we assume the resistance of the conductors in a circuit to be zero,
and we expect that current passes through them without producing any appreciable
voltage drop. In reality, however, there will almost always be a voltage drop along the
(normal) conductive pathways of an electric circuit, whether we want a voltage drop to be
there or not:
In order to calculate what these voltage drops will be in any particular circuit, we must be
able to ascertain the resistance of ordinary wire, knowing the wire size and diameter.
Some of the following sections of this chapter will address the details of doing this.