Table of Contents

Abstract Procedures and Results Discussion and Conclusion References Page 3 Page 4 Page 11 Page 13

ABSTRACT
As a first experiment in the electric circuits and devices course, this experiment had the purpose of mainly helping us become familiar with the basic equipment used in the lab, such as the circuit boards, resistors and how to read their resistance, connecting wires and the digital multimeters. The important knowledge required for this experiment would be that of Kirchoffs voltage and current laws for closed loop circuits, that of reading the color codes on resistors and the ability to form a circuit while simultaneously adjusting it repeatedly to fit in voltmeters and ammeters to get the readings when necessary.

The experiment was divided into four basic parts:

Interpretation of color-coded resistors and measuring their real values using the digital multi-meter. In this part, the resistances of four resistors were to be determined and compared with their nominal values.

Verification of Ohms Law Using Current and Voltage readings to do calculations and analysis in order to come to the conclusion that V=IR.

Kirchoffs Voltage and Current laws: Using the four resistors connected in a circuit, Kirchoffs laws were to be verified using the Voltage and Current values measured at several points in the circuit.

Procedure and Results:

Part I: Measuring resistor values by color code. The first part of the experiment included determining the nominal values of four different resistors using the color code table shown below.

Figure 1: Resistor Color Code Chart The first two bands give the first two digits respectively of the nominal value of the resistance and the third band is the multiplier by which the first two digits combined are multiplied. The 3

fourth band gives the tolerance level of the resistor. For instance, if the color code is Blue, Black, Brown, Golden, then the nominal value is calculated as: Equation (1) The resistance values of all four resistors were then measured using the digital multi-meter. Finally, the percentage error was calculated using the following equation:

( The data collected is shown below: Resistor Nominal Value () %Tolerance Measured Value () PE (%)

Equation (2)

R1 470 5% 485

R2 820 5% 808

R3 2200 5% 2161

R4 680 5% 678

3.19

1.46

1.77

0.29

Table 1: Resistance measurements

Part II: Voltage and Current Measurements to verify Ohms law

In the second part of the experiment, the relationship between voltage and current was analysed by passing current through an unknown resistor was connected in series with an ammeter and a 4

variable DC power supply as shown in the figure below. The DC power supply was varied between 1V and 10V with increments of 1V and each time, the current passing through the resistor was measured using the voltmeter and the ammeter. The current values were recorded in a table and the resistance for each increment in voltage was calculated and recorded in the table using Ohms Law(R = V/I) and its average came out to be 0.675k which is similar to its measured value of 678 .

A
0-10 V

Figure 2: Circuit Diagram (Part B) The graph of V versus I was plotted from the collected data and the slope was measured to calculate the resistance value.

Reading No. 1 2 3 4 5 6

Voltage (V) 1 2 3 4 5 6

Current (mA) 1.47 2.94 4.43 5.99 7.41 8.97

Resistance (V/I, ) 0.68 0.68 0.68 0.68 0.67 0.67

7 8 9 10

7 8 9 10

10.35 11.81 13.45 14.82

0.67 0.67 0.67 0.67

Table 2: Voltage and current measurement (Part B)

Part 3: Kirchoffs Voltage and Current Laws In this part, the four resistors are connected as shown below:

1 R1: 470 15 VDC R2: 680

2 R3: 2.2k

R4: 1k 0

Figure 3: Circuit for Kirchoffs Voltage and Current laws (Part C)

Here, the Kirchoffs laws (KVL and KCL) need to be verified. The following data need to measured: Voltages:, V10, V20, V30, V12, V23

Currents: I12 , I23 , I20 After this we substitute the values into the following equation in order to verify both KVL and KCL: Equation (3) Equation (4)

Part 3: Data collected Voltage (V) DMM 15.1 -8.02 2.157 6.98 5.51 V10 V20 V30 V12 V23

Table 3: Node voltages (Part C) Current (A) DMM 14.46 11.90 2.56 I12 I23 I20

Measuring the voltages around the path 2-3-0, KVL is confirmed as follows:

Hence, KVL is also confirmed. The small differences in values are due to experimental errors, which are further discussed in the discussion.

Similarly, KCL for node 2 is confirmed as follows:

Hence, KCL is verified and the law is in complete agreement with the experiment.

DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

In this experiment we had to verify Ohms law and Kirchhoffs laws. We started off by measuring the resistance of the multimeter by reading off the digital multimeter. The second section consisted of the resistor and checking the actual resistor value from the coloured stripes present on it. In this method, the first and the second colour band represents the digit from the table. The third band represents the multiplier and finally, the last colour represents tolerance. After the both the evaluations were finished we noticed that the percent difference (3.19, 1.46, 1.77 & 0.29) was always lower than the tolerance value (5%).

In the second experiment, we let current flow through a resistor and the voltage was varied from the power supply by increments of one volt from 1-10V. By this method we verified Ohms Law as we as the relation between current and the voltage was linear.

Then we had to verify both of Kirchhoffs Voltage and Current laws. As displayed by the values above the sum of the voltage drops were found to be 0.007, which is not exactly equal to zero. This may be due to human errors and errors in measurements and instruments; also keeping in mind the fact that difference is very minor and can be negligible The Current Law showed that the sum of the currents entering and exiting the node.

The main sources of errors in this experiment were the presence of human errors, errors in measurement and instrument errors.

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In conclusion it can be said that all the experiments were done fairly accurately with satisfactory results. Although the digital multi-meter gives us a better and more accurate reading of the resistance the colour coding is more suitable when many resistors have to be sorted through. KVL and KCL were also confirmed to be true inside a closed loop.

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REFERENCES
Ohms Law and Kirchoffs Law Verification. Lab script. Spring 2014

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