A thought occurred to me the other day while I was reading some posts and looking over some schematics. I thought I might have understood the function of resistors in the scheme of things, but just like that, it seems to have eluded me...
If we had 120v DC potential across two wires and tried to wire in a LED with series resistor, would a 6k ohm value pass 20mA of current through the LED? Would it matter that the potential between the two points was far in excess of the typical volts required for a LED? Or would the resistor take up that much potential if sized suitably to dissipate the difference?
Bear in mind, this is hypothetical for theory and understanding, I have no generator or means of producing said value, we could easily have said 600v and substituted in a 30k ohm resistor ;-)
If we had 120v DC potential across two wires and tried to wire in a LED with series resistor, would a 6k ohm value pass 20mA of current through the LED? Would it matter that the potential between the two points was far in excess of the typical volts required for a LED? Or would the resistor take up that much potential if sized suitably to dissipate the difference?
Bear in mind, this is hypothetical for theory and understanding, I have no generator or means of producing said value, we could easily have said 600v and substituted in a 30k ohm resistor ;-)