Software
Which resistor series would you like to use?
Which resistance value were you trying to find?
Series values:
Resulting resistance:
Ohms
Accuracy:
%
Parallel values:
Which resistance ratio were you trying to find?
Ratio values:
The purpose of this project was to allow me to find the most accurate pair of resistors for a needed purpose. When selecting resistor values, there is often a sacrifice when using a single value, as they can never be as accurate as needed. This project allows me to find the nearest possible pair of values, either in series or parallel.
Through this project, I learned that it is very simple to find the required values when the correct equipment is used. Instead of selecting values for an hour and trying to find the nearest combination, I simply used a nested for loop to find the closest pair in less than a second. It also came to my attention that sometimes an algorithm running in n^2 time is not bad. With such a small number of values to iterate through, it does not matter that the algorithm has n^2 complexity, as the amount of time saved with a different algorithm would be negligible.
Future inspiration for this project is to convert the python script to javascript so that I am able to display and use the caluclator on this page here. (Already did!) I also plan to add a greater number of resistor series, allowing the calulcator to be used for more purposes and by more people.