Electricity and Circuit basics

Over the past week we started our Auto Electrical & Electronics section of our course this year. Over the past week we have been learning the basics of electricity through classroom and practical sessions. We learnt the terms and their purpose within a circuit.

Terms:


Voltage = "Practical unit of electromotive force". The way i would I understand voltage is a force that pushes electrons through a conductor. The "pushing force" if I may use the simplest of english.

Ampere = "Unit of current". I wouldn't hesitate to point out that i struggle to describe ampere in simple english. Referring back to my book "the larger the amount of and flow of electrons the larger the current". I would say Amp's are a measurement relative to the amount of electrons (electricity) flowing through a circuit, but to anyone who may read this in the future, i may be completely wrong so i wouldn't trust  what i say. 


Ohms = "Unit of resistance". Resistance refers to the blockage or slowing down of electron flow through a circuit. Resistance comes in various forms but the one we were shown and worked with was a light bulb. 


Wattage = "Work being done". To me Wattage is the measurement of energy used to power a circuit and its components. 


There are a lot more terms that i should be describing but because of my being absent to most of my classes in the past week.

Circuits:

Circuits are a path which electrons can flow through, from a positive to negative outlet (usually a battery). A basic circuit, to my understanding, consists of a fuse, a resistor, a power source. I say to my understanding because i do believe some countries define it differently.  The circuits we used were basic, but changed the amount of resistors or configurations depending on the task. We used and researched series and parallel circuits.

Series circuit = A circuit where all the components (resistors (light bulbs)) will share a common positive lead and earth.

Parallel circuit = A circuit where each resistor (light bulb) would have its own positive lead and ground.

Compound circuit = Where both circuit configurations are apparent. A parallel circuit and series circuit in one.

With these we were to find out the repercussions of adding or taking away a resistor from the system.
   E.g;
        :Adding a light bulb to the series circuit dimmed the bulbs across the board and slowed the current because the available 12v had to be shared with another bulb, and the new bulb added resistance slowing the current.
       :Adding a light bulb to the parallel circuit did not affect the brightness of the bulbs because each bulb was receiving the full 12v, and the current increased throughout the entire circuit because there was an overall less resistance in the circuit.

Unfortunately I do not have any photo's or my worksheet so i could further elaborate on the preceding passages and I will begin to take pictures as soon as I can locate a camera.