Source transformation

Source transformation is like changing a juice box into a juice bottle, it’s the same drink, but looks different. In circuits, we use source transformation to change how the electricity looks, but the amount of energy is still the same.

Imagine you have a battery and a resistor connected in series. If you want to convert the battery into a current source, you can swap the battery for a current source with the same value. This is a source transformation. Or, imagine you have a current source and a resistor in series, and you want to convert the current source to a voltage source. You can do that by swapping the resistor and current source with a voltage source and another resistor with the same value in parallel. Again, this is source transformation.

Source transformation makes solving circuits easier because sometimes we have a rule or equation that's easier to use on one type of source rather than another. So we can change the source to help us solve the circuit. But remember, no energy is lost or gained in this process, it is just a different way to represent the same amount of energy.