I’m going to show you what negative voltage is by putting John into a hole. As you’ll quickly learn, it’s nothing weird or mystical.
Meet John. He is 1.8 meters (6 feet) tall.
What does it mean that John is 1.8 m tall? Could you find his height by only looking at his head?
No. You have to compare the top of his head to the ground he is standing on to be able to find his height. That John is 1.8 m tall really means that the top of his head is 1.8 m higher than the ground that he stands on.
It’s the same thing with voltage. You can’t say anything about the voltage without comparing it to another point.
It’s common to define a zero point (0V), or ground, in a circuit.
In a simple battery circuit, the ground point is usually the minus terminal of the battery. So if someone says that “this point is 5V”, they usually mean it’s 5V compared to ground.
Putting John in a Hole
Back to John. What if we dig a hole of 1.8 meters, then put John into the hole. (Poor John).
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His feet are now 1.8 meters below the ground.
Another way of saying this is that his feet are at MINUS 1.8 meters.
John is still the exact same person, he’s just placed differently compared to the ground. Therefore the position of his feet becomes negative.
It’s the same with voltage.
Creating Negative Voltage
For example, imagine two 9V batteries.
Remember – a battery being 9V means the plus terminal is 9V higher than the minus terminal.
Now, let’s take one battery and say that its minus terminal is going to be the ground (0V) in our circuit.
What happens if we connect the plus of the second battery to the minus of the first one (i.e. we connect it to ground)?
Nothing really happens with the batteries. They’re exactly the same as they were before connecting them.
And no current flows.
But what is the voltage on the minus terminal of the second battery?
Since the minus is 9V lower than the plus, and since the plus is connected to ground, the minus would have to be minus 9V.
So we have created a negative voltage of 9V.
Or have we?
If you look closely, we haven’t really created anything.
We’ve just labeled the plus of the second battery 0V.
And we’ve labeled the minus of the second battery -9V, because it’s 9V lower than 0V.
When Do You Need Negative Voltage?
It’s not so much that you “need” negative voltage. But sometimes you get negative voltage in a circuit, and it’s good to know what it is.
One example where you get negative voltage is in the astable multivibrator circuit.
Sometimes you see circuits that need a power supply with three connections, for example, +9V, 0V, and -9V. This is very common for amplifier circuits.
But they might as well have said that the circuit needs +18V, +9V, and 0V (GND). It would have been the exact same thing, just with different names.
Questions?
If you find these lessons useful, you should check out Ohmify. It’s an online academy for electronics where you learn everything from how voltage works to how you can design a microcontroller circuit.
And there are a bunch of project plans you can follow to build cool things like robots, traffic lights, amplifiers, a kitchen timer, music synthesizers and more.
Click here to learn more about Ohmify.
Do you have any questions about negative voltage? Let me know in the comments field below.
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easy to understand.
Great to hear! That’s what I was aiming for.
Dear Sir/Mdam,
This is the most easiest lesson I have ever seen. Very easy to understand and simple. It is good for every beginner who likes electronics.
I recommend this site for all beginners.
Thank you.
Warm Regards,
Sudesh
Glad to hear you liked it!
Sou principiante em eletrônica mas, você nasceu prá ser professor!
Parabéns… Vou até o fim do curso!
Eudes
Pls sir what is the voltage between+9 terminal and -9 terminal
That would be 18V.
I also was wondering about this. This thought experimant doesn’t seem to make much sense to me.
This is a really interesting way of explaining it! Thanks for sharing.
this is the best teaching i’ve ever seen. love you guys <3
U did a good job simplifying this _time voltage concept.
So do the electrons flow in the same direct in the second battery?
Yes, the electrons flow in the same direction in both batteries.
So we have created a negative voltage of 9V.
Or have we?
If you look closely, we haven’t really created anything????
You have connected the 2 x 9V batteries in Series…so shouldn’t the Terminal Voltage be 18 V???
Like connecting 4 x 1.5 V Cells in Series to get 6 V for my Torch bulb?
Voltage is a measurement that is always done between two points. So when you connect two 9V batteries, you get 18V between the two ends, yes. Between the middle point to the positive terminal, you get 9V. And from the middle point to the negative terminal, you get minus 9V.
You’re right that we haven’t really created anything. We have just changed the labels.
The difference between -9V and +9V is 18V. The difference between 0V and 18V is also 18V. So it’s the same.
We can call them -9V and +9V. Or we can call them 0V and 18V.
That was superb!!!
But does current flow through it?
Current always flows through things where the voltage potential on one side is different from the other side AND that has a path for it to flow.
So yes, current flows. It flows from the most positive side to the most negative side. So if you have a component with 0V on one side and -9V on the other side, current flows from 0V to -9V.
And if you connect the third battery, the -9V of the terminal of the second battery becomes ground for the third battery? As a result, we have created the -18V negative voltage? And continuously..
If you add a third battery to the -9V terminal, you’ll get -18V compared to the original ground. But it wouldn’t make sense to have to grounds at different voltage levels.
If I connect 2 terminals of one battery, it creates a current flow through it, but it not when connect the positive of the second to the negative of the first battery?
If one of the terminals of a battery is left unconnected, no current flows through that battery.
Let’s assume that I have 2 power supplies, and each of them can supply 30V, if I connect one positive of one to the negative of the other, can I have the voltage of the two remaining terminals will be 60V?
Yes, the voltage between the two unconnected terminals will be 60V. You decide if you want to call one terminal 0V and the other 60V – or if you want to call one +30V and the other -30V.