Voltage Dividers

Purpose:   To see the changes that occur in branch currents and voltages when using voltage dividers and see the effects on unregulated power sources.

Introduction:  

• Using three 1k Ohm resistors in parallel with a voltage source
• Using breadboard
• Using Labvolt power source

Preperations

Max resistance = 1 Ohm
Upper V bound = 6.25 V

Min resistance = 1/3 Ohm
Lower V bound = 5.75 V

Vs  = 6.53 V
Rs = 45.45 Ohm

IMax  = 6.25mA
IMin  = 17.23mA

We will use the circuit in the picture to the right.

Measure of 3 Resistors (left to right):
R1: 978 Ohms
R2: 976 Ohms
R3: 979 Ohms

Rs was created with a variable resistance box.

Data:

	R(Bus)            Ohms	V    (±0.05)	mA      (±0.02)	P load    (mW±0.1)
1 Load	978	6.08	6.04	83.8
2 Loads	488.5	5.65	11.28	63.7
3Loads	325.3	5.33	15.73	83.8

Calculations:

The load volatage variation exceeding our theiretical value is due to non ideal values of resistance such as with Rs. If we added another 1k Ohm resistor in parallel then the voltage variation would be around 16.7%