Simple Circuits: Electric Charge - Monday

Atoms are made of protons, neutrons and electrons

- Protons and neutrons are located in a small and dense core called the nucleus
- Electrons spin around the nucleus but are not held tightly to the nucleus

Protons have a positive charge and electrons are negatively charged Neutrons carry no charge and
are often said to be neutral
- Overall, an atom is neutral because the numbers of protons and electrons are equal

Electrons can be knocked, rubbed or pulled off an atom

- This leaves an atom with more protons than electrons, giving it an overall positive charge.
We call this charge a positive ion
- The electrons that have been removed attach themselves to another atom nearby
- This atom now has more electrons than protons so it has a negative charge. A negative ion is
formed.
- Protons cannot be knocked off an atom as they are tightly held in the nucleus.

Static Electricity - Monday

- Static Electricity is the build-up of electric charge on a surface.
- This build-up happens because electrons have been rubbed off one surface (charging it
positively) and have been transferred to another surface (charging it negatively)
- Static charge usually leaks away after some time. This returns materials to their original state
 - If the build-up of charge continues, forming a large collection of electrons, the electrons may
jump across a gap from a negatively charged surface back to a positively charged surface.
- The electrons release all their energy and this energy is converted into heat, light, sound and
motion (kinetic energy)
- This causes a spark or a lightning bolt

The Triboelectric Series - monday

- The series tells us which substances will be positively charged or negatively charged after
rubbing
- The higher a substance is on the series, the more likely it will be positively charged.
- Eg. If the glass is rubbed with cotton, the glass will be positively charged and cotton will be
negatively charged

Current Electricity - Monday

- Current Electricity is made up of electrons moving along a wire

- This movement of electrons (electric charge) is called an electric current.
- The electrons have energy that is transformed as it passes through objects like light bulbs
(electrical energy into light), heating elements (electrical energy to heat) and motors
(electrical energy to kinetic energy)
- If electrons are not moving, the light bulbs/heating elements/motors remain ‘off’

Simple Electric Circuits - monday

- An electrical circuit is a path that electrons travel around so that they can deliver their
energy

An electric circuit needs:

a. An energy source - like a battery, generator or dynamo. This supplis the electrons in the wire
with the energy they require to move around the circuit.
b. An energy user - like a light globe, heating element or motor
c. Wires - to connect everything to complete the circuit.

- A circuit usually has a switch as well. Any break in the circuit stops the flow of electrons.

Circuit Components
Circuit Diagrams - monday
- A circuit diagram is a simplified version of how all the components in the circuit are
connected.
A circuit diagram for a torch:
- The energy source is the battery
- Electrons flow through the globe, losing almost all their energy which is transformed
into light or heat energy
- The y then travel back to the battery where energy is replenished
Current monday
- Electric Current is the amount of charge that flows through a point in the circuit every
second. It is measured using an ammeter.
- It is measured using an ammeter.
- The unit used to measure current is ampere (unit symbol A)

Eg. Your muscles are activated by electrical impulses sent along your nerves. The same happens in
other animals.
Eg. A platypus uses sensors within its duck-like bill to detect electric current from the muscle
movements of yabbies, fish, worms and frogs.

Direction of Current
- Electron flow is from - to + terminals of the battery
- Conventional current flow is from + to - terminals of the battery.

Ammeter:
- Electrons must pass through an ammeter for the charge to be detected
- The ammeter needs to be in series with the rest of the circuit’s components.

Voltage - monday
- Voltage: measures the amount of energy that is:
- Supplied to charges by the voltage source (supply voltage)
- Used by charges as they pass through a component such as a light globe (energy is
transformed into heat and light)
- Voltage is measured using a voltmeter. The unit is volts (V)
- A voltmeter compares the energy of an electrons before and after they pass through
a component like a light globe
 - For this reason, voltmeters are connected in parallel.

Supply Voltage

- Electrons get the energy they need to move around the circuit from the circuit’s energy
source
- Each energy source has its voltage.
- Higher supply voltages give the electrons a bigger push than low supply voltages.
- In Australia, powerpoints supply 240 V to the electrons in any circuit plugged into them
- Sometimes, a transformer is used to reduce the voltage from a power point to a safer
voltage.

Resistance - tuesday

- Electrons lose energy as they pass through a component such as a light globe, a heating
element or a motor.
- This results in a voltage drop across the component. The amount of voltage dropped
depends on the resistance.

- Resistance measures how difficult it is for an electric current to flow through a material or
component
- As electrons pass along the wires in an electric circuit, their path is restricted a little by the
atoms that make up the wires. This restriction is known as resistance.

High Resistance: Electrons find it hard to pass through the material, losing a lot of energy and voltage
Low Resistance: Electrons find it easy to pass through the material, losing almost no energy and
voltage.

As the resistance of a component increases, fewer electrons get through every second. This reduces
the current flow.
The resistance of a material depends on:
a. Type of material. Eg. Metals have low resistance, whereas rubber has high resistance
b. Length of Wire: Doubling the length of a wire doubles the number of obstacles that the
electron must pass through. This doubles the resistance
c. The thickness of the wire. It is more difficult for electrons to pass along thin wires than to
pass along thick wires

- Resistance is measured in ohms

- It can be measured through a multimeter. A multimeter combines an ammeter and a
voltmeter, and can also measure resistance.

Conductors - wednesday

- Metals are conductors. But different metals have different resistance

- Copper is an excellent conduct and relatively cheap
- Aluminium is more expensive than copper but lighter.
- They are often used in transmission lines

- Tungsten and nichrome have high resistance. They are ideal for use in eating elements like
hair dryers and electric kettles or old-fashioned incandescent light globes

Insulators - wednesday
- Insulators have high resistance. Eg. rubber, plastics, wood, glass
- Plastics are used to wrap electric wires and cables to insulate them from their surroundings.

Ohm’s Law - wednesday

Series Circuits - wednesday

- All components of the circuit are connected one after another to form a single loop
- When charges leave the battery, they carry the full amount of energy of 6V
- Very little energy is lost in the wires as they have low resistance
- The energy of the charges (voltage) is split equally among each light globe.
- The same current passes through both globes
Parallel Circuits - wednesday
- A parallel circuit has a number of branches, each branch having its own components
- The current leaving the battery splits into two with half going down each branch
- An individual electron cannot pass through both globes so loses all its energy in the one
globe it passes through
- Therefore, each globe receives the same voltage supplied by the battery.

Practicality of Circuits - wednesday

Series Circuits Parallel Circuits

Easy to connect (easy) It is more difficult to construct

They are not very practical, as each light globe Each branch can have its own switch, allowing
cannot be controlled individually. A switch each globe to be turned on or off
would turn them all on or all off independently (often used in household
(switch) circuits)

If one globe ‘blows’, the other globes would go Only one branch is affected if a globe ‘blows’,
out too. Difficult to find the faulty globe (faulty) making it easy to find the faulty

Adding more globes make the circuit duller in Adding extra globes does not affect their
brightness. (colour of brightness) brightness

Electrical Safety
- Practical circuits have a device that deliberately breaks the circuit if a faulty appliance allows
an abnormally high current to flow
- This current might end up passing through you or might set the house on fire
- Abnormally high currents cause wires to heat up rapidly, melting their plastic coatings
- Devices that prevent such events are fuses, circuit breakers or safety switches

Fuses
- Wire with high resistance and low melting point
- Break if too much current flows along it
- Melting breaks the circuit and stops the current
- Common in older houses and still used in cars and trucks
- Typical values are 3A, 5A or 13A, to protects device that has 4A, I should have fuse with
rating of 5A

Circuit Breakers
- New houses use
 - Circuit breakers is a switch that is activated by a higher than normal current
- When this happens it switches off, breaking the circuit
- Each circuit breaker controls a different circuit (one controls light and the other AC)
- These are easily reset while fuses are replaced manually

Safety Switches (for residual current device RCD)

- Modern home switchboards have safety switches on their lighting and power circuits that
monitor how much current is flowing through them
- The current flowing into the house through the safety switch should be the same as the
current flowing out of the house through the same safety switch
- If different then the current might be leaking either into a faulty appliance or into you
- When the safety switch detects a leak it breaks the circuit in 0.03 seconds
- Stopping further current from flowing, you will receive a nasty shock but hopefully the
current will be switched off fast enough to stop you from being electrocuted