basic circuitry help

[dirtydx]

I'm having some trouble getting started with some circuitry homework. Here's the diagram that I'm trying to solve...


a few other things i need clarified.
does amperage stay the same throughout the entire circuit? and the effect of resistors on voltage..

I would ask my teacher, but i wont see him untill friday..(which is also the test date.) plus he's really hard to communicate with, he just assumes i should know all this, while its completely new to me. And when I ask him questions, he replies by asking me questions, further confusing me while feeling completely idiotic.

[Andydg]

I e-mailed this to my dad, he's got a degree in electrical engineering or something like that. Here's what he said:

Yes, the amperage stays the same. All series only circuits are this way.

The resistors currently are dropping .7104V each. (V=I*R, so V = 148A * .0048)
Increasing the resistors will cause more voltage to be dropped across them resulting in less voltage being dropped across E2. As the resistance goes up, the current thru the circuit will go down if the resistance of the device at E2 stays constant.

I2 = I1 as it is a series circuit and Iout must equal Ireturn.

The Pt is 3377.36W from P = I * V or P = 148 * 22.82V
with the 22.82V coming from 21.4 across E2 and .0048V across each resitor.

All of the above is based on the circuit being DC not AC. And what is the device at E2.

[dirtydx]

It's a DCEP (shielded metal arc welding) circuit, R2 is the electrode meeting the base-plate.

a classmate and myself worked through it and came up with the same answers, i think all is well for now... but things are only going to get deeper since this is the first assignment. Should be a challenging semester, but anyways...

thanks for your help.

[Andydg]

Yeah no problem. If you have any more questions feel free to send them my way and I'll forward them to my dad, he doesn't mind helping out.