Which best describes continuity in a circuit

Badges: Fix Your Stuff Community Store. Difficulty Moderate. Steps Time Required 6 minutes. Sections 1. How To Use A Multimeter 16 steps. Flags 0. Introduction Every fixer should know their way around a multimeter , which has just north of a zillion uses for testing electronic components and circuits. Step 1 Testing Continuity. Add a comment. Add Comment Cancel.

Step 2. Step 3. Step 4. Step 5. Step 6. Step 7. Step 8. One comment. Step 9 Testing Voltage. Step Step 13 Testing Resistance. Almost done! Finish Line. You're Finished! Author with 3 other contributors. EASy and helpful indeed. Thank you! Connect with us.

Sign up. Term of the Day. Best of Techopedia weekly. News and Special Offers occasional. Continuity Test. Techopedia Explains Continuity Test. What Does Continuity Test Mean? Techopedia Explains Continuity Test A continuity test is mostly performed by providing a small voltage between the selected paths.

Share this Term. Related Terms Current Circuit. This loss in electric potential is referred to as a voltage drop. It occurs as the electrical energy of the charge is transformed to other forms of energy thermal, light, mechanical, etc. If an electric circuit powered by a 1. There is a voltage drop for each resistor, but the sum of these voltage drops is 1. This concept can be expressed mathematically by the following equation:.

To illustrate this mathematical principle in action, consider the two circuits shown below in Diagrams A and B. Suppose that you were to asked to determine the two unknown values of the electric potential difference across the light bulbs in each circuit.

To determine their values, you would have to use the equation above. The battery is depicted by its customary schematic symbol and its voltage is listed next to it.

Determine the voltage drop for the two light bulbs and then click the Check Answers button to see if you are correct. Earlier in Lesson 1, the use of an electric potential diagram was discussed. An electric potential diagram is a conceptual tool for representing the electric potential difference between several points on an electric circuit.

Consider the circuit diagram below and its corresponding electric potential diagram. The circuit shown in the diagram above is powered by a volt energy source. There are three resistors in the circuit connected in series, each having its own voltage drop. The negative sign for the electric potential difference simply denotes that there is a loss in electric potential when passing through the resistor.

Conventional current is directed through the external circuit from the positive terminal to the negative terminal. Since the schematic symbol for a voltage source uses a long bar to represent the positive terminal, location A in the diagram is at the positive terminal or the high potential terminal. Location A is at 12 volts of electric potential and location H the negative terminal is at 0 volts. In passing through the battery, the charge gains 12 volts of electric potential.

And in passing through the external circuit, the charge loses 12 volts of electric potential as depicted by the electric potential diagram shown to the right of the schematic diagram. This 12 volts of electric potential is lost in three steps with each step corresponding to the flow through a resistor. In passing through the connecting wires between resistors, there is little loss in electric potential due to the fact that a wire offers relatively little resistance to the flow of charge.

Since locations A and B are separated by a wire, they are at virtually the same electric potential of 12 V. When a charge passes through its first resistor, it loses 3 V of electric potential and drops down to 9 V at location C. Since location D is separated from location C by a mere wire, it is at virtually the same 9 V electric potential as C. When a charge passes through its second resistor, it loses 7 V of electric potential and drops down to 2 V at location E.

Since location F is separated from location E by a mere wire, it is at virtually the same 2 V electric potential as E. Finally, as a charge passes through its last resistor, it loses 2 V of electric potential and drops down to 0 V at G.

At locations G and H, the charge is out of energy and needs an energy boost in order to traverse the external circuit again. The energy boost is provided by the battery as the charge is moved from H to A.

The Ohm's law equation can be used for any individual resistor in a series circuit. When combining Ohm's law with some of the principles already discussed on this page, a big idea emerges. Wherever the resistance is greatest, the voltage drop will be greatest about that resistor.

The Ohm's law equation can be used to not only predict that resistor in a series circuit will have the greatest voltage drop, it can also be used to calculate the actual voltage drop values.

The above principles and formulae can be used to analyze a series circuit and determine the values of the current at and electric potential difference across each of the resistors in a series circuit. Their use will be demonstrated by the mathematical analysis of the circuit shown below.

The goal is to use the formulae to determine the equivalent resistance of the circuit R eq , the current at the battery I tot , and the voltage drops and current for each of the three resistors.

The analysis begins by using the resistance values for the individual resistors in order to determine the equivalent resistance of the circuit. Now that the equivalent resistance is known, the current at the battery can be determined using the Ohm's law equation.

The calculation is shown here:. The 1. For a series circuit with no branching locations, the current is everywhere the same. The current at the battery location is the same as the current at each resistor location. Subsequently, the 1. There are three values left to be determined - the voltage drops across each of the individual resistors. Ohm's law is used once more to determine the voltage drops for each resistor - it is simply the product of the current at each resistor calculated above as 1.

The calculations are shown below. As a check of the accuracy of the mathematics performed, it is wise to see if the calculated values satisfy the principle that the sum of the voltage drops for each individual resistor is equal to the voltage rating of the battery. The mathematical analysis of this series circuit involved a blend of concepts and equations.