How Do Electrical Circuits Work? This is one of the most common electrical questions we experience. Let's start with the explaining what electricity is. Electricity is a form of energy resulting from charged particles. These particles can be stationary like in a battery or, they can be in movement as what's called current. Electricity can cause things to move and happen many ways. The most common ways are through heat and magnetism.
Electricity travels along conductive materials such as wires or most metals. These materials try to resist the flow of the charged particles. This action is called resistance and can be measured by sending out an electrical charge and measuring the charge that returns. The difference between the original charge and the returning charge is then calculated as a factor of resistance. When you provide a large resistance to the charged particles heat is created, similar to friction. We can then use the heat generated to cause further actions.
The other most common use of electricity is magnetism. The charged particles, electricity, has a positive and negative charge. When the particles flow in the correct arrangement the positive and negative charges can be manipulated in the for of magnetism. We can manipulate the flow by changing the shape and path of the conductive materials chosen, usually wire. Now that we know we can manipulate the magnetic field of the electricity we then can create things like electric motors.
Now that we know what electricity is as how to use it lets take a look at what an electrical circuit is. An electrical circuit is made of at least 3 parts, a source, a conductor, and a device. In order for electricity to get from point A to point B we need to create a circuit. Electricity must be available through some form of source like a battery or utility company. We must then use some form of conductor to allow the electricity to travel to where it is needed. Once the electricity gets to the new location, we can attach the conductor to the device needing the energy. The device uses the energy and then must have another conductor to divert any unused energy to the ground. Without this final conductor the circuit isn't complete. The reason the final conductor is so important is because we can only use the flow of electricity not the charged particles themselves. We attach the final conductor to the ground because the dirt will accept a large amount of electricity safely. Once the circuit is complete, we can then begin to install any controls we want. This could be through switches, buttons, disconnects, and way more.
We hope that this article has given you a very in depth understanding of what electricity and circuits are. Thanks for reading and feel free to browse our website for more information. If you have a question, you would like answered subscribe to our website at the bottom of any page on this website or email us at contactus@electriciantooldeals.com
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