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## How many ways can I flip switch positions to make the motor stop

For this exercise:

I found six

That's it, right?
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 Recognitions: Homework Help There is a total of 16 configurations and only a few of them will let the engine turn. Edit: Hmm, I missed the title of your thread before. But there are more configurations than you mentioned.

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Hi FP !
Perhaps it would be a good starting point to determine which positions will allow the motor to start.
(also ILS alluded to this)
Once you have that, it should be clearer which positions will shut the motor off.

 There is a total of 16 configurations and only a few of them will let the engine turn.
hmmm i wonder where ILS got 16 configs? [hint 2 positions, 4 switches]. Perhaps a useful way to represent this problem is with a binary table with switch & position as inputs and output: "motor ON/OFF"

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## How many ways can I flip switch positions to make the motor stop

 There is a total of 16 configurations and only a few of them will let the engine turn. Edit: Hmm, I missed the title of your thread before. But there are more configurations than you mentioned.
Oops, you're right!

 hmmm i wonder where ILS got 16 configs? [hint 2 positions, 4 switches]. Perhaps a useful way to represent this problem is with a binary table with switch & position as inputs and output: "motor ON/OFF"
Fair enough

How's that? :)

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 Quote by Femme_physics http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/5904/motormode.jpg How's that?
I like the table. :)

Let's take a look at the first line where you say the motor is turning.
That would be with switches 1,2,3 in position 1, and with switch 4 in position 2.

Can you say how the currents will flow?
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 Recognitions: Homework Help Nice drawing. :) How about the current through switch 1? Which current will be bigger, the current through switch 1 or the current through switch 2?
 Recognitions: Gold Member Well the current through the first switch meets no resistance, therefor it will be much higher. Hmm. Short circuit eh?
 Recognitions: Homework Help Yep. Short circuit. I don't think there will be current left for the motor to turn. ;) (Poor carton board men that are frying.)
 Recognitions: Gold Member I agree. :) Is that the only blunder I made?
 Recognitions: Homework Help Well, I haven't checked out all your switch-combinations. How many will be left with the motor turning if you remove all short circuits?
 Recognitions: Gold Member Taking all the short circuits into considerations... In brackets it just says short circuit :)
 Recognitions: Homework Help And another one bites the dust! ;) All correct now.
 Blog Entries: 2 Recognitions: Homework Help Science Advisor Good Job!! As you are learning in solving such questions, analyzing how a circuit functions is most important. Once you've determined that, the rest follows more easily. Your encoding is easy enough to follow. Another way to encode your table is in standard binary. for example: on the input side, position1=0, position2=1. output side: motor off = 0, motor on = 1.

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