Having trouble with the most elementary project

[missusliz]

Hi,
If anyone can assist with this, it would be greatly appreciated!

I bought from Radio Shack:
1. A battery holder; holds two triple A batteries and has wire leads.
2. An on/off switch.
3. A lamp holder with a little 2.4 v bulb in it.

I know NOTHING about electricity, but I need to hit the switch and have the bulb turn on for one of the kid's inventions (this is just for the display, not part of the actual project, but I really want this to work).

This is how I hooked it up:

battery holder on left with wires going to the bulb in the middle. Switch on the right with wires leading to the bulb.

I matched the black wires from the battery holder with the black wires from the switch to the same node on the lamp holder and the same with the red on the other node on the lamp holder. Every time I hit the switch, the battery holder starts to melt behind the tension coils that hold the battery in the holder. I've gone through four battery holders!

Note: The switch didn't have wires, just two prongs sticking out of the back, so I took the wires off a battery holder and taped them to the prongs. I didn't pay attention to color of the wires, I just taped them on. Could I have put them on wrong and now when I'm matching red to red, I'm actually connecting black to red?

Ugh, if this is confusing, I apologize, I'm usually more eloquent, but this is not my area of expertise, obviously! Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

Liz

 

[Audioguru]

I think you need to learn a little about electricity.
Electricity and your circuit are very simple.
When you turn on the switch then it is short circuiting the battery.

 

[betwixt]

Agreed!

All you need to do is connect them in series. One wire from the battery holder (doesn't matter which) to the switch, the other side of the switch goes to the bulb, the other side of the bulb returns to the other side of the battery. In other words in a loop.

At the moment, it sounds like when you close the switch you short out the batteries. The power they can provide is enough to heat the holder and wires.

Brian.

 

[neils_arm_strong]

Just connect all of them in series.Start with one terminal of the battery holder.Connect this to one terminal of the switch.Take the other terminal of switch and connect it to one of bulbs terminals.Now the other terminal of the bulb goes to remaining terminal of the battery. Polarity and color codes are not an issue in this circuit.

 

[Mickster]

Sometimes, a picture is all that is required for someone who admits they know very little....

Have a look at Figure 1 in the link below:
https://cnx.org/content/m22648/latest/

 

[biff44]

So when you turn on the switch, the circuit melts. Congrats! It takes engineers many years of college to learn to do the exact same thing!

 

[rosarioantony]

connection1 -> black wire of the battery -> one terminal(black) of the switch
connection2 -> another terminal(red) of the switch -> one terminal of the bulb.
connection3 -> another terminal of the bulb -> red wire of the battery.

It should look like a ring when connected.