Electronic – why isn’t Norton transform applicable on ideal sources

current-sourcenortonsourcevoltage-source

  1. An ideal voltage source has no resistance in series to it, so the it's transform the current source must have zero resistance in parallel to it.
  2. This means that all the current passes through the short (zero resistance) and no current will pass through the load.

Why is this happening?

Best Answer

The transform will be to a current source with infinite current and therefore (so the mathematicians say) the voltage will be finite across a zero ohm parallel resistor.

Consider a 1v source with 0.001 ohms series resistance - short circuit current is 1000 amps and therefore the equivalent current source is 1000 amps in parallel with 0.001 ohms.

Keep moving the goal posts upwards and you of course get very big currents and very small resistances but it is just a theory and at this sort of level has very little practical importance to many things.