Kirchhoff’s voltage law

Network analysis · Intermediate · about 15 minutes · part of Zen’s Electronics Design Mastery

Go around any closed loop adding rises and subtracting drops, and you always get back to zero. Here two opposing sources share one loop.

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How it works

Try it on the bench

1. Raise V2 above V1. The current reverses and every drop changes sign, but the sum is still zero.
2. Add a fourth resistor anywhere in the loop.

Parts on the bench

• 2 × Bench power supply
• 2 × Digital multimeter
• 3 × Resistor

In the course

Zen’s Electronics Design Mastery, module “DC Circuit Analysis”.

More on network analysis

• Kirchhoff’s current law
• Mesh analysis
• Nodal analysis
• Thévenin equivalent
• Norton equivalent
• Superposition
• Maximum power transfer