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?

  • farting_weedman [none/use name]
    ·
    2 months ago

    There’s no need to use analogies.

    Unless otherwise noted your battery is a chemical cell.

    When current flows from the battery a chemical reaction takes place. The type of reaction determines the voltaic potential between the battery’s terminals, measured in volts. Most batteries will have several parts called “cells” stacked up to get to a certain voltaic potential. Often times the battery will get warm because the reaction releases heat.

    When you charge the battery, current flows into it from the charger and a different chemical reaction takes place that reverses effects of the discharging reaction. Often times the battery will get warm because the charging reaction generates heat.

    Nowadays batteries have charge controllers standing between them and the current. Charge controllers can read the voltaic potential of the whole battery and sometimes each cell, the temperature through a thermocouple or something and a bunch of other crazy crap to figure out if the battery could take a charge and if so, how much current should be allowed to flow into it and at what voltaic potential.

    Your batteries are probably lithium ion unless otherwise specified. That chemistry loses storage capacity as it’s discharged more and more. So a lion battery that’s new has a longer life than one that’s been run down and charged up 1000 times.

    Your computer or phone will call those charge cycles. You can see how many you did on its battery health readout.

    All that is to say: leave your shit plugged in as much as possible. Fewer charge cycles means a battery that lasts many years!