Electronic Project: Build a voltage divider

Mar 21, 2021

Learn how to build a voltage divider with two resistors in series, why the voltage splits the way it does, and the formula V times R2 over R1 plus R2.

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One usage of resistors is to create a voltage divider.

If you put 2 resistors in series (one after another) in a circuit, like this:

Circuit diagram showing two resistors connected in series to a 9V battery

and you measure the voltage drop after the first resistor, you can observe that if the resistors have the same resistance value, for example 1kΩ, the tension after the first resistor is exactly half the original tension.

Multimeter measuring 4.50V at the midpoint between two equal resistors in the voltage divider

This is because in a circuit the sum of all voltages around any closed loop must equal zero (this is Kirchhoff’s voltage law).

The difference in voltage measured before the first resistor, and after the second resistor, is ~9V, the voltage provided by the battery.

Multimeter measuring 8.99V across the full voltage span from positive to negative terminals

If you double the resistance of the second resistor, the voltage drop after the first resistor is 3V, while the voltage drop after the second is 6V:

Two multimeters showing 3.00V and 6.00V measurements with different resistance values in voltage divider

This means that we can adjust the voltage served to a component by using resistors.

The formula to calculate the tension between the two resistors, R1 being the first one linked to the + pole of the battery and R2 the second one, is: V * (R2 / (R1 + R2)).

Tagged: Arduino · All topics

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