A zigzag or a plain rectangle in a circuit, marking a resistor.
Also known as: Zigzag symbol, Resistance symbol, Resistor schematic symbol
A resistor is drawn as a zigzag in North American schematics and as a plain rectangle under IEC practice. Both are current, which is why the same component looks like two different things depending on where the diagram was drawn.
Marks a resistor in a circuit diagram: a component that opposes the flow of current and drops voltage across itself.
Contexts: Electrical equipment
Is drawn two incompatible ways that are both in current use — a pointed zigzag in North American practice, and a plain unfilled rectangle under IEC practice followed across most of Europe.
Neither is a variant of the other. A reader cannot tell which convention a schematic follows from the symbol alone, only from the diagram's origin or its other symbols.
Contexts: Electrical equipment
In its IEC rectangle form is easily misread as a fuse or an unlabelled functional block, both of which are also plain rectangles distinguished only by additional marks.
Contexts: Electrical equipment
Either a sharply pointed zigzag line of three or four peaks set into a straight wire, or a plain empty rectangle with the wire entering each short end.
The IEC rectangle form of the resistor and the fuse symbol are both plain rectangles in a wire, separated only by the fuse's additional line.