Electrical Engineering › Section D · Parallel and series-parallel circuits › Topic D.4

Sources in parallel, open circuits, and short circuits

Batteries wired side by side, a broken wire, a stray blob of solder: each changes a circuit in ways that the plain series and parallel rules handle only if you know exactly what an open and a short do. This topic pins those two conditions down and shows when sources may share a load.

In this topic

  • Two extreme conditions
  • Identical voltage sources in parallel
  • Unequal sources in parallel
  • Worked example: mismatched batteries
  • The open circuit
  • Worked example: resistors beside a gap
  • The short circuit
  • Worked example: a resistor shorted out
  • Spotting opens and shorts in a network
  • Common mistakes to avoid
  • Key takeaways

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