Electrical – how to calculate voltage drop by a resistor/ circuit attached parallel to another resistor/ circuit

currentparallelresistorsshuntvoltage

On my battery eliminator, if I measure source voltage without any load, it gives the correct voltage.

But when I add a load, the voltage drops.

And if I short-circuit the 2 output-leads with a very low resistance, say a piece of conductor wire, the voltage comes down to Zero.

voltage drop

The above image shows what is the diagram for connection.

Now I want to know , is there any formula or rule (mathematical expression) to calculate such voltage-drop?

What would be the calculation for this voltage-drop for other-kind of electric-source, such as battery, AC-source, etc. ?

Edited: intuitively it seems the voltage drop should occur even in ideal voltage source with no internal resistance; because the leakage through the parallel (bypass) path would drop the electrical pressure .

Best Answer

schematic

simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab

The reason why the voltage of the voltage source drops when you connect a load to it is that the voltage source is not an ideal voltage source. It has an output impedance. The output impedance is unavoidable during the construction of a power source. In theory you can split your voltage source into two components, the ideal voltage source (V1) and the output impedance (R1).

If you now measure your voltage source with a voltmeter you get the voltage of your ideal voltage source (V1), since no current is flowing through the resistor R1. (In reality some tiny amount of current flows through the voltmeter since it is not ideal either but we ignore this since it is negligible)

In the second case where you load down you voltage source the measured voltage drops because the current flowing through the load (R2) will also flow through the output impedance (R1). What you got here is a voltage divider.

$$VM1 = \frac{R2}{R1 + R2} V1$$

To calculate what amount of voltage your voltage source will drop if you connect a load to it you need to know the value of the output impedance. Then you can just use ohms law to calculate the voltage drop for a known load current.

$$U(R1) = R1 \cdot I$$

A problem with batteries as a voltage source is that the voltage source (V1) is dependent on the capacity left in the battery. Once the battery is empty it will rapidly drop, but because of battery chemistry this will only be visible when you load down the battery.

Addendum: Your "Battery eliminator" probably has a schematic similar to this:

schematic

simulate this circuit Since you have no regulation your voltage/current relation is mainly dictated by the transformer. Giving you an exact mathematical relationship is rather complicated since it involves both AC and DC. If you want to know the specifics you can read further here (requires knowledge of AC circuit analysis)