What is the Basic Electrical?
Electricity is a force that attracts like types of electrons. It has been around for thousands of years, and was first formally described in writing 2000 years ago.
Conductors are materials through which electricity flows freely. They are made of atoms that share their outer, valence electrons with other atoms.
Voltage
Voltage is the difference in electric potential energy between two points in a circuit. It is also referred to as electric tension or electric pressure and is measured in volts. Voltage can be caused by the build-up of electric charge (capacitors, for example), electromagnetic induction in generators and transformers, electrochemical reactions such as those found in batteries and cells, and even by mechanical friction.
Since electrons are small, it is difficult to visualize the concept of voltage. As such, we use analogies to help explain the idea of voltage. One way to envision voltage is to consider the flow of water. Water in rivers flows from places with higher water height to places with lower water height. In the same way, electrons in atoms want to move towards things with lower charges because they are negatively charged and need an equal number of positive charges to balance them. If there is a lot of voltage, electrons will be more likely to move in that direction.
The force that attracts electrons is called electro-motive force or EMF and it can be measured in joules per coulomb. A coulomb is the amount of charge passing through a wire in one second. This force, which is inversely proportional to the distance between the electron source and the electron sink, determines current. A simple rule is that current is equal to the product of voltage and resistance, in units of watts.
While the power company provides the energy that powers your home, it is your responsibility to understand how electricity works inside your house. Knowing the basics of voltage, current and resistance will allow you to make smart decisions about safety, maintenance and upgrades. You may also be able to avoid expensive repairs by being able to recognize electrical issues before they become serious problems. More than 6% of home fires are caused by electrical issues and understanding your house's basic electrical system can help keep you and your family safe. The basic components of a residential electrical system include sources, which supply voltage and current, resistors, which offer resistance to the flow of electrons, and switches, which control current and provide access to electricity.
Current
Voltage and current are fundamental concepts in the study of electric circuits. Understanding how they relate to each other can help you understand how electricity flows and the relationships between different components in a circuit.
Current is the net rate of electrons moving past a given point in a circuit in a certain amount of time. A common unit used for current is the ampere, which represents how many coulombs of electrons pass a given point in a circuit in one second. This is the same as how we measure water flow, in terms of gallons per minute (or GPM).
Electrons are free to move in metals and other conductors. These free electrons are what carries current in the circuit. Current also has a direction. By convention, we call the direction in which electrons are flowing positive and vice versa.
In addition to the direction of current, we need to know the velocity at which the electrons are moving through the conductor. This is the current density. The current density can be measured by dividing the total charge of the electrons by the cross-sectional area of the conductor. A lower density means a slower current; a higher density means a faster current.
Impedance is the resistance of a conductor to the flow of current. The SI unit of impedance is the ohm, symbolized by omega (O). The more impedance there is to the flow of current in a circuit, the less power it can produce. This is why it's important to use low-resistance wire when constructing electrical circuits.
When two points in a circuit have a difference in electric potential, current will flow between them. The direction of the current is determined by the voltage and the impedance of the medium. The laws of Kirchhoff capture these basic relationships and translate them into the concepts of volts, amps, ohms and watts.
Resistance
An electrical circuit’s resistance is a measure of the difficulty encountered by a current to pass through that circuit. It is measured in ohms, named after Georg Simon Ohm (1784-1854), the German physicist who first studied the relationship between voltage, current and resistance.
The higher the resistance, the more difficulty that a current has to overcome in order to pass through the circuit. As the current encounters more resistance, it requires more energy to push through the circuit, which is then dissipated as heat. This is why we use resistors to help limit the current in a circuit — their high resistance helps prevent the circuit from becoming too hot.
Electrical resistance varies by type, temperature and length of a wire or other component. For example, silver and copper have low electrical resistance because they are good conductors (the electricity easily flows through them). Iron wire has a lot more resistance than copper because it is not as good of a conductor.
As you can imagine, the longer a wire is, the more resistance it has because there is a greater distance for electricity to travel over. This also means that a thinner wire has more resistance than a thicker wire. To determine how much resistance a wire has, you can calculate it using an equation: where R is the resistance in ohms, V is the potential difference in volts and I is the current in amperes.
When you are dealing with complex circuits, it is very helpful to draw a graph and see how the resistance changes along with the voltage and current. This can help you determine if your circuit is working correctly and if there are any issues that need to be addressed. For instance, if the voltage is too high, it will cause too much current to flow through the circuit, which can damage or even burn it. In this case, adding more resistors to the circuit will decrease the current and reduce the voltage. You can find many different types of resistors available, which range from very small and thin to large and thick. They are often striped with from three to six bands of colors, and each color and placement indicates a particular resistance value.
Ground
A large conducting body that is used as a position of zero of electric potential in an electric circuit. It is also used as a reference for signals. Connecting electrical devices to ground can prevent them from emitting dangerous voltages that can hurt a person. Grounding is done by running a wire from the electrical device to the circuit's ground.
Electric current is the flow of negatively charged electrons along a conductive path. When it flows, it produces a magnetic field that can attract or repel other electrons. These forces are measured in coulombs per second. One coulomb is equal to the number of electrons that pass through a circuit or conductor in one second. The rate at which this electron flow is produced, and the amount of force that is required to push these electrons through a resistance, are called the power of the current. The unit for power is watts (W).
Electrons have a negative charge, so they are attracted to oppositely-charged objects. When they are moved by a current, they seek to compensate for this attraction by acquiring more electrons. This causes a net positive flow of electrons, and is the source of electricity.
It was the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta who first realized this phenomenon, and invented the battery in 1800. He discovered that by putting two parallel wires in the same direction and connecting them at the end of a long-distance telegraph line, the signal could be transmitted without having to return it to its starting point. This is how modern alternating current electrical systems operate.
Knowing the basics of electricity can help you keep your home safe and make smart decisions about wiring and appliances. This information is especially important to have when a storm knocks out your power, or you need to fix a tripped breaker. The utility company handles the line portion of your electrical service, but from there on out, everything is your responsibility. If you understand how electricity works, you can diagnose problems and contact Ampi Electric Inc. at https://www.ampi-electricinc.com/ for electric repair .
Electricity is a force that attracts like types of electrons. It has been around for thousands of years, and was first formally described in writing 2000 years ago. Conductors are materials through which electricity flows freely. They are made of atoms that share their outer, valence electrons with other atoms. Voltage Voltage is the difference…