greetings
what is the difference between voltage and voltage drop?
thanks

 

They are both measurable with your multimeter. With a battery you measure a voltage potential, with resistive components you measure voltage drops.

iONic

 

voltage is a static measurement, like pressure. Voltage drop is a dynamic measurement, indicating current flow.

 

You often hear people talking about voltage drop when they compare a voltage upstream from the source downstream to a device or after something else. Like if you have a 12V power supply and a device pulling 10 amps. If the resistance of the wire (both combined) is .1 ohms then the VOLTAGE DROP across the wire supplying the device (ohms law) is 10A x 0.1ohms = 1 volt Thus your device sees 11V.
"the voltage drop across the cable is 1 volt"

 

Both are potential differences which in that case we call voltage. Voltage drop is a name given to a voltage which is usually across a component within a network, however, this is a voltage too.