Or, struggle session: give me your best electricity analogies
I passed my physics classes in high school from simply memorizing the formula. I never thought too deeply about electricity until now because I want to preserve the life of my electronics. The water hose somewhat makes sense to me, but I need something a bit more concrete.
- Amps/Current: the electrons; the thing that is actually powering electronics
- Volts/Voltage: the
“speed”“pressure” of amps.I know that it’s not technically speed, but it’s measuring the movement of amps right? Can we agree for layman’s purposes that it’s the speed? - Watts: How much work is done, or a summary of your power situation
So, the analogy of an airport
- The charger: Security checkpoint
- The battery: The terminal
- The device: the plane
Charger: checkpoint
Input: 200V 5A
- At an urgency level of 200V (i.e. people want to rush home before weather cancels the flight), 5 customers arrive at the checkpoint waiting line at a time
Output: 100V 3A
- The checkpoint is operating at an urgency of 100V, and they process 3 customers then send them to the terminal
Checkpoint B can screen 6 customers an urgency level of 100 (100V 6A)
Terminal: battery
Input: 100V 3A
- The terminal can handle a level 100 urgency, and 3 passengers from the checkpoint enter
- You can have more than 3 passengers enter the terminal at an urgency level of 100 (e.g. 100V 6A), but it may overcrowd or the planes may take off sooner
- If the airport is advanced enough, it will always only let 3 passengers through no matter what the urgency level is
- You can let less than 3 passengers enter the terminal at an urgency level of 100, but it will take a longer time before the terminal is full, and perhaps a longer time before the plane can take off (or maybe the plane/device keeps losing money/power because not enough passengers/amps are entering)
- The terminal is not designed for an urgency level of over 100 because there’s not enough room or resources to handle that pressure
- (What if you have 3V 100A?) - It’s a busy, normal day. 100 passengers are slowly moving through the airport because there’s no pressure compelling them to rush
- The terminal has a capacity of 500wH, so 500 max passengers?
Output: 25V 2A
- The terminal boarding area is not feeling much pressure, so they have an urgency of 25 and sending 2 customers in the plane at a time
Plane: device
Input: 25V 2A
- The plane is not feeling much pressure, so they have an urgency of 25 and accepting 2 customers at a time
And in the context of headphones, amplifiers would be… extra employees pushing more passengers into the plane?
So when you get electrocuted, you can either suffer because the voltage is low and current is too high (more energy zapping you at once), or it’s because the voltage is too high and current is low (less energy is zapping you, but it’s happening more frequently which builds up and hurts you)