/diy/ - Do It Yourself

[Anonymous No.1434562]

hello can you guys help my autist brain figure out voltage vs ampres
i dont get it and it makes me angery

[Anonymous No.1434568]

voltage = measure of electrical potential. All voltages are relative. It's just a difference in potential, voltage is analogous to having higher air pressure in a soda bottle vs the outside air.

Amperes is just a measurement of "electrons per second" going through a wire. It can get a little weirder but that's basically it.

You could have asked on /sci/ you know

[Anonymous No.1434570]

google "water analogy for electricity"
usually helps students get it. falls apart when you consider magnetism but so what.

[Anonymous No.1434571]

>>1434562

Voltage X Resistance = current

Put 50 V DC across different materials and you get different current because they have different resistance.

[Anonymous No.1434634]

>>1434571
>Voltage X Resistance = current

this. learn this, aka Ohm's law and you can do lots of electrical wizardry.

it's often stated as V x R = I. Just make a cheat sheet with that on it and you can get a job as an electronics technician.

[Anonymous No.1434639]

>>1434562
do u unnerstan Force = mass * acceleration?

voltage are the force, an it accelerate erektrons (currents)

[Anonymous No.1434648]

>>1434639
:( pls do not shitpost in this thread

[Anonymous No.1434651]

There are plenty of various analogies for electric networks. There is a hydraulic analogy, thermal analogy, acoustic analogy, magnetic analogy and at least two classic-mechanical analogies (mobility and impedance analogy). There are even more abstract, non-physical ones like economic (where you analyse the flow of money, as long as you assume money can't be printed and other various restraints and assumptions), ecological or biological analogies (fun fact: the last one is historically where the concept of energy in physics originates from).
A dynamic system is a set of some variables, a state function of those variables called energy (you can think of it as a "meta", dependant variable) and laws tying variables and energy together. It's like a playground for a certain discipline of physics.
Having all of those analogies is possible because all of those different systems operate on the same common concept of energy and share the same dynamic equations (like conservation of energy and laws tying energy with system domain variables) but within different energy domains (mechanical energy, electrical energy, heat energy etc.). The difference between the domains is the variables they operate on. Like where you have voltage in electricity, you have force in mechanical system, air pressure in acoustic, fluid pressure in hydraulics, temperature in thermal system etc. The energy is the same everywhere and it can be convert between those systems.
So you can represent a certain electrical problem by e.g. drawing material points representing physical objects moving and acting upon themselves like you did in your physics class instead of drawing circuits diagrams. But IRL its almost always used the other way around - various problems from different domains are represented in their analogous electrical domain because it is so convenient to analyse certain properties within it using tools from circuit analysis.

[Anonymous No.1434652]

>>1430418
>>YouTube?
>mjlorton
>BigClive
>paceworldwide
>eevblog
>EcProjects
>greatscottlab
>AfroTechMods
>Photonvids
>sdgelectronics
>TheSignalPathBlog

[Anonymous No.1434653]

>>1434651
I like the following variation of mechanical analogy (called impedance analogy):
Voltage is like a force and current is like a velocity.
Resistance/impedance is like friction, inductance is like mass and capacity is like compliance (inverse of stiffness/spring constant).
Charge is like distance/displacement and flux linkage is like momentum.

btw. The mechanical impedance analogy is why voltage sources are sometimes referred to as "electromotive force". I think it's worth to mention because this "electromotive force" was something that confused me often when I was beginning my own /ohm/dventure.

Also: It might be good in the beginning to grasp why are there two variables like voltage and current and understand their relationship, or even build upon your overall understanding of physics, but don't stick to it for too long, it's easier to get electronics by sticking to the electrical domain.

[Anonymous No.1434661]

>>1434653
>Charge is like distance/displacement and flux linkage is like momentum.

at some point you might as well give up and be a mechanic if you have to go this far with the analogies, which you seemed to say at the end of your post.

[Anonymous No.1434685]

>>1434562
voltage is how high the water tower is
amps is how big around the pipe is

taller tower = more pressure
bigger pipe = more volume

[Anonymous No.1434701]

>>1434685
Wrong, resistance is how big the pipe is. Flow is current

[Anonymous No.1434713]

[Anonymous No.1434745]

>>1434661
>if you have to go this far with the analogies
I'm not saying you should apply it to every problem, I mentioned it mainly for completeness.
Also I always disliked how when talking about capacitors and inductors authors introduced their equations in differential forms omitting their direct relationship with charge and flux linkage which imho makes things a lot easier to grasp. So that kind of analogy might be helpful at that point in learning.

[Anonymous No.1434747]

>>1434745
>forgot the picrel

[Anonymous No.1434749]

Voltage is the amount of electrons 'flowing' through a wire
Amperage is the 'force' of the electrons in the wire
Resistance is the 'restricting force' on the electrons in the wire

the equation they teach at introductory level is I = V / R
For example: Air has a resistance (R) value of approaching infinity. Therefore with such a high denominator it doesn't matter what your voltage (V) value is you amperage/current (I) value will be 0A.
Going the other way imagine you put a wrench across the positive and negative terminals of a car battery. Because the wrench is a solid piece of metal with very little restricting the flow of electrons your resistance (R) value will be very small <1ohm. Therefore with a tiny denominator and a voltage (V) >1V, your amperage/current (I) value will be very large.

[Anonymous No.1434753]

>>1434749
>Voltage is the amount of electrons 'flowing' through a wire
>Amperage is the 'force' of the electrons in the wire

are you these two morons:
>>1434571
>>1434634

[Anonymous No.1434756]

>>1434753
I could have said that voltage is is the ratio of joules to coulombs and current is the rate of coulombs over time therefore resistance is joule-time over coulombs squared but i felt that a dumped down analogy using common words may have been a little less confusing

[Anonymous No.1434759]

>>1434756

what you said was backwards, sir. voltage is not the amount of electrons flowing, and amperes is not the force of electrons.

jeez.

[Anonymous No.1434760]

>>1434749
>Voltage is the amount of electrons 'flowing' through a wire
>Amperage is the 'force' of the electrons in the wire
Just plain wrong

[Anonymous No.1434782]

Sorry OP, /diy/ apparently doesn't get it either.

>>1434562

[Anonymous No.1434814]

>>1434782

Hoo boy. What is going on here? This thread has been a good laugh but...OP came here asking for help. I can't tell if half the replies are trolls or retards.

Just use this to get the basics:

https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/voltage-current-resistance-and-ohms-law/all

[Anonymous No.1434825]

>>1434562
Voltage is the amount of work needed to move a charge across an electric field. If you move a positive charge toward another positive charge, for example, it takes more work the closer you bring them together, which means a higher voltage is required. Conversely, it actually takes energy to NOT have a positive move toward a negative; there is an attractive force between them. You can think of one direction as being "positive voltage" and the other direction as being "negative voltage". In the water analogy, voltage is the pressure of the water pump--more pressure means more "potential" work can be done in the form of moving water from one point to another. (Only potential because you could have incredibly high pressure built up behind a closed faucet but nothing would flow through.)

Current is a measurement of the amount of electric charge moving past a measurement point, usually in coulombs (charge) per second. 1 C/s is 1 amp. In the water analogy, current is the flow rate, the amount of water moving past a point per second.

In a simple DC electric circuit, there is a difference in potential between two points on the energy source (such as the two ends of a battery), which are called the positive and negative terminals. The energy source has the ability (potential) to move electric charge along the wire(s) of the circuit from one terminal to another. It helps to think about the atoms in the wires as being connected in a big circular chain like a chainsaw, and when the energy source is connected to them, the chain (which is electric charges carried by electrons) is moving along the circuit in a circle.

[Anonymous No.1435524]

>>1434825
Not OP, but I find this answer really helpful

[Anonymous No.1435694]

>>1434571
W8 wut? Read that back to yourself.

[Anonymous No.1437745]

>>1434825
voltage is not work.
volts not equal to watts.

[Anonymous No.1437763]

>>1434648
>:( pls do not shitpost in this thread

what exactly do you think makes electrons accelerate, Mr Eisenstein?

[Anonymous No.1437768]

>>1434562
voltage is the "pressure" of an electrical current, while amperage is officially how fast the current is, although it would be less confusing if it's described as "how much" is being put through a given transmission media. A lot of people are going to compare electrical phenomena to the behaviors of water, while this can explain simple concepts, this comparison breaks down quickly.

[Anonymous No.1438049]

>>1437745
Ok, "Voltage is the amount of work per unit charge needed to move a charge".

[Anonymous No.1438060]

bucket full of water=amps
water spraying out of hose=volts
amount of water and pressure its spraying out at=watts

your breaker board is a bucket of 100AMPs divided into little buckets you slosh out 15A for the hallway, 20A for the living area, 10 for the fridge, 5 for the dishwasher, 15 for the central air, 5 for the bathroom, 5 for the utility room, 5 for the bedroom and you have 20A unused.

the dryer and the AC need 240v but the restof the house runs on 110. You plug shit that uses up watts according to how they work which is what you pay the electric company for.

appliances are all rated for amperes required(how much) and specify the voltage required(how fast it comes out of the wall). not enough amps, it will run very very badly or not at all. more amps than need- device doesn't care, it just takes what's needed. plug in devices that add up to more amps than the little bucket has, and you trip the breaker.

too little voltage and it won't work. too much voltage and you fry the device just like you burst a hose with too much water pressure.

capisce?

[Anonymous No.1438078]

>>1438060
>bucket full of water=amps
>water spraying out of hose=volts

how many people in this thread failed electricity 101????

[Anonymous No.1438107]

>>1438078
>how many people in this thread failed electricity 101????

about half, by my estimate.

some have to be trolling, but when it comes to basic electricity it's really hard to tell a troll from a moron.

[Anonymous No.1438146]

>>1434562
Think of it as water flow through a hose. Current is the water, voltage is the pressure, your thumb is the resistor. Ohms law you autist.

[Anonymous No.1438149]

>>1438107
Never associate malice that which can be explained through stupidity. There is very little to be gained from trolling such a slow board.

[Anonymous No.1438151]

>>1438078
>>1438060

That's pretty spot on tho. That's how you'd explain it to an eight year old

[Anonymous No.1438157]

So long ago, this did help at one point, at least for me. I am a retard with no formal education.

[Anonymous No.1438159]

Should be a dick going in that ass for the chans. Samefagging here.

[Anonymous No.1438190]

>>1438151
You missed the most important thing about the hose.
Volts is the height of the water head, or pressure. Not just the water flowing out of the hose. The amount of water flowing out of the hose in a second is amps. A bucket of water is like a capacitor or battery.

9r better yet, dont use the hydraulic analogy and just teach them about electricity.

[Anonymous No.1438293]

>>1438190
no that was implied. hose==water pressure

anyway, an 8yo wouldn't understand your stupid analogy cuz it's wrong

[Anonymous No.1438478]

>>1438157
Hey I already posted this and everybody ignored it.
>>1434713

[Anonymous No.1438512]

Water analogy is gay as fuck, if you want to teach kids or idiots about voltage vs current show them a spark gap, voltage determines length, current is the thickness.
I have met enough retards that don't understand how a garden hose works to stay as far the fuck away from water analogy. Also explain away why circuit needs a closed loop when water just drains into the ground. Bullshit.