These circuits are usually bigger and more complicated than the circuits that have been introduced before. The most important detail to remember when working with combination circuits is to break down the circuit into smaller pieces and then solve the small pieces. After solving the small pieces, then they need to be combined back together to find the answer. Where I t is the total current, E t is the total voltage, and R t is the total resistance. E t is equal to 120 volts.
R t is the only other variable that needs to be found.
To find R t , we need to break the circuit into 3 parts. The third part will consist of R 5. By doing this we know that the resistance in the first and third parts is 16 ohms and 20 ohms respectively. The second part we will have to calculate by using the equation to find the resistance in a parallel circuit. By doing this, we find that the total resistance in the second part of the circuit is 24 ohms.