A voltage divider consists of two or more passive components, usually resistors, connected in series across a voltage supply. The output voltage is tapped from the junction between the components and is a fraction of the input, determined by the ratio of the resistance values. They are heavily used to set reference voltages or step down signals for analog-to-digital converters.
Just throw a quick voltage divider on the 5V sensor output so it doesn't fry the 3.3V microcontroller pin.
Never use a resistive voltage divider to supply power to a load. The load's own resistance will parallel the bottom resistor, ruining the voltage ratio and potentially burning out the top resistor.
Also heard as
- resistive divider
Related terms
Current divider
A parallel circuit configuration that splits total current among multiple branches based on their impedance.
Potentiometer
A three-terminal variable resistor used to manually adjust voltage or resistance in a circuit.
ADC
An analog-to-digital converter transforms continuous physical signals into discrete digital numbers.