 Voltage Divider
This script can be used to solve the various unknowns associated with the shown voltage divider circuit schematic. The output at point Vout, the junction of R1 and R2, represents the voltage across the resistor R2. For example, to determine the resistors needed to produce 5 volts at schematic point Vout from a 12 volt source (for instance, a battery) supplying 1 milliamp (mA) of current, the value 12 would be entered in the Supply Battery Voltage field, .001 in the Circuit Current field, and 5 in the Vout field. The result should be 7000 and 5000 Ohms for R1 and R2, respectively. To find the series resistance needed for a 2 volt LED operating from a 12 volt battery at 20 milliamps, enter the values 12 for the battery, .02 for the current, and 2 for Vout. The LED and associated resistor would
represented by R2. The result should be 500 Ohms for the series resistance R1. The calculator can also work problems based on power dissipation. For example, to find the series resistance needed for a 5.1 volt Zener diode
operating at 1/8 watt from a 15 volt supply, the value 0.125 is entered in the Power Dissipation R2 field, 5.1 in the Vout field, and 15 in the battery voltage field. The result should be about 404 Ohms for the series resistor R1. You might want to see our 555 based circuit for building a Zener diode tester and our Zener diode calculator.
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