Quote:
Originally Posted by TnBob
"Wattage in a Series Circuit is Additive"
Wattage Series
Very good basic answer |
Just trying to recall the little I remember about what Stretch calls Electrotrickery
Lets say you have a 120v lamp with a 100W bulb. You turn it on and you get 100W output. From Power = V*I, I=100/120= 0.833A. Power also is (I^2)R so R=P/(I^2) or 100/(0.833*0.833)=144.11ohms.
Now you connect four 100W lamps in series and connect 120v across the string of bulbs. You do have a 400W system, but do you get 400W of output?
You get a current of V/R or 120/(4*144.11)=0.21amps. So each lamp puts out (I^2)R or (0.21*0.21)*144.11*4= ~25 watts. So string of lamps still provides about 100watts output. (probably in practice less)
If you want 400watts
output, then you would need 4x120V=480volts. Then you would get 480/(4*144.11)=0.833Amps (each bulb gets same as single bulb on 120v!) Now you would get 400watts of output!
So Power may be additive, but Power
Output only if current remains the same.
Don't know if this just confuses things. If so, sorry for butting in. (Gotta stop click on New Posts and reading stuff I am not concerned with
)