What Is Electric Power?

If we are going to recall our Physics subject, it is said that whenever a force is applied that causes motion the work is said to be done. Take a look on the illustration below:


Forces that work is done and  forces not doing work.

The first figure shown above are combination of forces which work is done and forces which work is not done. (a)The picture in which the shelf is held under tension does not cause motion, thus work is not done. (b) The second picture in which the woman pushes the cart causes motion, thus the work is done. (c) The man applied tension in the string is not working since as there is no movement in the direction of the force. (d) The track applied horizontal force on the log is doing work.

The potential difference between any two points in an electric circuit, which gives rise to a voltage and when connected causes electron to move and current to flow. This is one of a good example in which forces causing motion, thus causing work to be done.

Talking about work in electric circuit, there is also a electric power which is the time rate of doing work done of moving electrons from point to point. It is represented by the symbol P, and the unit of power is watt, which is usually represented by the symbol W. Watt is practically defined as the rate at which work is being done in a circuit in which the current of 1 ampere is flowing when the voltage applied is 1 volt.

The Useful Power Formula

Electric Power can be transmitted from place to place and can be converted into other forms of energy. One typical energy conversion of electrical energy are heat, light or mechanical energy. Energy conversion is what the engineers really mean for the word power.

The power or the rate of work done in moving electrons through a resistor in electric circuit depends on how many electrons are there to moved. It only means that, the power consumed in a resistor is determined by the voltage measured across it, multiplied by the current flowing through it. Then it becomes,

Power = Voltage x Current
Watts  = Volts x Amperes

P = E x I  or P = EI ------> formula no.1

The power formula above can be derived alternatively in other ways in terms of resistance and current or voltage and resistance using our concept of Ohm's Law. Since E=IR in Ohm's Law, the E in the power formula above can be replaced by IR if the voltage is unknown. Therefore, it would be:

P = EI
P = (IR)I or P = I²R ------------> formula no.2

Alternatively if I = E/R in Ohm'Law, we can also substitute it to E in the power formula which is terms of voltage if the resistance is unknown.

P = EI
P = E(E/R) or P = E²R ---------> formula no. 3

For guidance regarding expressing of units of power are the following:
a. Quantities of power greater than 1,000 watts are generally expressed in (kW).
b. Quantities greater than 1,000,000 watts are generally expressed as megawatts (MW).
c.  Quantities less than 1 watt are generally expressed in (mW).

The Power Rating of Equipment

Most of the electrical equipment are rated in terms of voltage and power - volts and watts. For example, electrical lamps rated as 120 volts which are for use in 120 volts line are also expressed in watts but mostly expressed in watts rather than voltage. Probably you would wonder what wattage rating all about.

The wattage rating of an electrical lamps or other electrical equipment indicates the rate at which electrical energy is changed into another form of energy, such as heat or light. It only means the greater the wattage of an electrical lamp for example, the faster the lamp changes electrical energy to light and the brighter the lamp will be.

The principle above also applies to other electrical equipment like electric soldering irons, electrical motors and resistors in which their wattage ratings are designed to change electrical energy into some forms of energy. You will learn more about other units like horsepower used for motors when we study motors.

Take a look at the sizes of carbon resistors below. Their sizes are depends on their wattage rating. They are available with same resistance value with different wattage value. When power is used in a material having resistance, electrical energy is changed into heat. When more power are used, the rate at which electrical energy changed into heat increases, thus temperature of the material rises. If the temperature of the material rises too high, the material may change it composition: expand, contract or even burn. In connection to this reason, all types of electrical equipment are rated for a maximum wattage.


Carbon resistors with comparative sizes of different wattage ratings
of 1/4 watt, 1/2 watt,1 and 2 watts

If the resistors greater then 2 watts rating are needed, wire-wound resistors are used. They are ranges between 5 and 200 watts, with special types being used for power in excess of 200 watts.



Use wire wound resistors if higher than 2 watts are needed

Fuses

We all know that when current passes through the resistors, the electrical energy is transformed into heat which raises the temperature of the resistors. If the temperature rises too high, the resistor may be damaged thereby opening the circuit and interrupting the current flow. One answer for this is to install the fuse.

Fuses are resistors using special metals with very low resistance value and a low melting point. When the power consumed by the fuses raises the temperature of the metal too high, the metal melts and the fuse blows thus open the circuit when the current exceeds the fuse's rated value. What is the identification of blown fuse? Take a look on the picture below.



This is the good fuse




This is the blown fuse

 In other words, blown fuses can be identified by broken filament and darkened glass. You can also check it by removing the fuse and using the ohmmeter.

There are two types of fuses in use today - conventional fuses, which blow immediately when the circuit is overloaded. The slow-blowing (slo-blo) fuses accepts momentary overloads without blowing, but if the overload continues, it will open the circuit. This slo-blo fuses usually used on motors and other appliances with a circuit that have a sudden rush of high currents when turned on.

Fuses are rated in terms of current. Since various types of equipments use different currents, fuses are also made with different sizes, shapes and current ratings.

Various types of fuses are made for various equipments

Proper rating of fuse is needed and very important. It should be slightly higher than the greatest current you expect in the circuit because too low current rating of fuse will result to unnecessary blowouts while too high may result to dangerously high current to pass.

Later we will be study circuit breaker which is another protective devices for over current protection.


Electrical Power in Series, Parallel and Complex Circuits

The principle of getting the total power of the circuit is just simple. There is no need to elaborate this topic.

The total power consumed by the circuit is the sum of all power consumed in each resistance.

Therefore, we just only sum up all power consumed in each resistance whether it a series, parallel or a complex circuits. Thus,

P_t= P₁+P₂+P₃+P_n watts  ---------->formula no. 4

From the problem in my previous post about complex circuit, try to calculate each power of the resistance and the total power as well. Constant practice always makes you perfect!

Cheers!

DC Series Circuit Part 2

Hello folks, I'm glad that you're still there hunting for my new post here in our study of basic electrical engineering which is very recommended for the beginners. Well, if you find this site useful for you, then tell your friends and let them subscribe to my articles.

It's a little bit hectic on my work schedule including posting my blog here. Because I have to double my effort just for you... How sweet...I will not make my introduction again get longer because I know that you're really want to learn more here. So, let's continue of what we've left last moment which is the DC Series Circuit Part 1. For those who missed it, you can still catch up with the lecture.

Let's study the continuation...

The Voltage Division in the Series Circuit

In a series circuit, you would be able to find the voltage across at any point in the series circuit. The voltage which we called it the step-down voltage.

A circuit used for this is shown in the circuit diagram below. This is called a voltage divider. You may click the picture to enlarge.

Let's assume in the given circuit above that the applied voltage with the electrical notation of E or Ein is 100 volts and the values of R1 and R2 are 15 and 20 ohms respectively. You may want to know what is the applied voltage across R2 with the electrical notation of Vout or Eout which is written in another way. Please take note that the electrical notation of Vout or Eout could be an input voltage for another circuit. which of course will also become an Ein once more). That topic would be study on my succeeding post here in Electrical Engineering.

So, this is how you will going to do it...

We know that the total resistance in the circuit is 15 + 20 = 35 ohms. Given that the given circuit voltage is 100 volts. You may now use the Ohm's Law to find the circuit current. This is:

I = Ein / Rt = 100/35 = 2.86 amperes

Then, let's go to R2 in the given circuit. We all know that the resistance is 20 ohms and we have just calculated that the current is 2.86 amperes (from the conditions mentioned earlier in Ohm's Law Series Circuit that the current in the series circuit are just the same throughout).

Therefore, you will obtain that,

Eout = I x R2 = 2.86 x 20 = 57.2 volts - answer

You may observe that with the appropriate choice of resistor values in voltage divider chain, an input voltage of 100 volts has been stepped down to an output voltage of 57.2 volts. By using ohm's law, you would be able to calculate it.

Since we have an illustrative example above, let's expressed the above example into equation. Given that the total resistance is R1 + R2 and ohm's law tells you that the circuit current would be: Ein/ R1+R2. This is also the current across R2. Using Ohm's Law again, we can calculate the Eout = I x R2 will give an equation just by substitution:

Eout = (Ein/R1+R2) x R2

Expressing it in a correct and understandable way would give you...

Eout = (R1/R1+R2) x Ein

The equation above is the simplified formula that you can use in the given condition like this in voltage division chain. To put the equation into words. The voltage across any resistor in a voltage divider chain can be calculated by multiplying the value of that resistor by the input voltage dividedby the total resistance of the circuit.

Norton's and Thevenin's Theorem are commonly used principles when solving such voltage divider problems. This will be another basic concept that we will study on my succeeding post. For the meantime, let's absorbed first what we have now.

The Variable Resistors

You can also vary the resistance of the circuit as well. If you are not aware, you always done it by yourself by adjusting volume of your radio. This is what we called a variable resistor.

The resistor can be made variable in this way by means of sliding arm made of good conducting material to be arranged so that it can be moved along the length of the resistor. The resistor is then connected into the circuit with one of its end fastened to the sliding arm. By moving its sliding arm along the resistor, the value of the resistor can be varied at between maximum and minimum (zero).

If the variable resistor is used in this way, it is called the rheostat. It is used to control the current flow in the circuit.

The maximum value of resistance was obtained when the slider moves on the lower position as what had shown on the illustration above- left portion. (You may click the image to enlarge). Likewise, when the slider moves upward would obtain the minimum value of resistance. This is the simple function of a variable resistor.

A variable resistor may have either two or three circuit connections. The first picture that you see below is the example of the three terminal teminal connections variable resisitor which are commonly known as Potentiometer.

This is one typical sample for three terminal connections...

Typical potentiometer looks like this.

The Potentiometer Connections

The circuit diagram of a potentiometer is really no more than that of a voltage divider chain. R1-R2 is a single resistor effectively divided by the sliding arm C, whose movement alters the relative values of R1 and R2. Please refer to circuit diagram above.

The output voltage can vary from zero (when C is lowered so that R2=0) to full circuit voltage (when C is moved up so that R1=0)

Variable resistors, like fixed resistors, can be made with resistance material of carbon or can be wired-wound, depending on the amount of current to be controlled - wire-wound for large currents and carbon for small currents.

Wire-wound variable resistors are constructed by winding resistance wire on a porcelain or bakelite circular form, with a contact arm which can be adjusted to any position on the circular form by means of a rotating shaft. A lead connected to this movable contact can then be used, with one or both of the end leads, to vary the resistance used.

For controlling small currents, carbon variable resistors are constructed by depositing a carbon compound on a fiber disk. A contact on a movable arm actsto vary resistance as the arm shaft is rotated.

On my next post, let's have some practical applications for DC Series Circuit here in Learn Electrical Engineering for Beginners.

Cheers!

Resistors Part 2- Color Code and How Resistance is Measured

Let's continue of what we have discussed yesterday before we go on the full discussion of a Series Circuit which will be our next topic that we will going to study here in Learn Electrical Engineering for Beginners.

Today, we will be dealing on how the resistor color coding is being used and how do we going to interpret it to obtain the reading. Then, afterward s we will touch a little bit on how the resistance is being measured. That's all will be discussed within this new post.

Let's begin now... timer start now!

The Resistor Color Code

We all know that we can find the resistance value of any resistor by using an ohmmeter. But what if we don't have an ohmmeter to use? Most of the case we can find the resistance value easier by interpreting its marking. Some resistors like wire-wound resistor have its printed value in ohms in their body. If they don't have the mark, you would require to use an ohmmeter. An example of a resistor which usually have all of the data printed directly on the resistor body with the information such as tolerance, temperature characteristics, and exact resistance value is the precision wire wound resistor. Other resistor like the carbon resistors usually do not have the data of characteristics directly marked on them, instead they have a so called color code by which they can be identified. You will wonder why it is being done this way for carbon resistors. The reason of using a color code for a carbon resistor is that they are small which is difficult to read the printed values especially when they are mounted.

Before we forgot something, there are two types of carbon resistors. The radial and an axial. They are only differ in the the way the leads are connected to the body of the resistor. Both employ the same color code but they are printed in the different manner. Radial lead resistors are not found in modern equipment. They are widely used in the past. I can't see any example of this now. Below is an example of an axial resistor.

In the picture above this axial lead resistors have its leads molded into the ends of the carbon rod of the resistor body. If you will see, the leads extends straight out in line from the body of the resistor. The carbon rod is coated with a good insulator.

Moving on...

Color coding system for resistors consists of three colors to indicate the resistance value in ohms of a certain resistor, sometimes the fourth color indicate the tolerance value of the resistor. By reading the color coded in correct order and substituting the correct value of each corresponding color coded as shown in the table below, you can immediately tell all you need to know about the resistor. The only thing that you will practice on how to use it and familiar yourselves for those value so that you can easily determine the value of the resistor color coded at a glance.

This is how you will do it.

The color of the first color band indicates the first digit of the resistance value or the first significant digit. Let's have an example below. Supposed that you have a given resistor below, the first color is yellow. If you would look at the table above it is equivalent to 4.

The second color coded of the resistor given below is violet, so this is now your second digit which is equivalent to 7 as shown in the table above.

The third color would served as your multiplier. In the case below since it is color red which is equivalent to 100 multiplier, or just simply add 2 zeros so this would look like this now:

47 ohm x 100 = 4, 700 ohms or 4.7 kilohms

Ooooppps! it seems that we are not done yet. The last color band or the fourth color band is gold which have 5% tolerance according to our table above. Therefore our final answer would be:

4.7 kilohms +/- 5% - answer

How to Measure the Resistance

We all know that voltmeter and ammeter are used for measuring the voltage and the current respectively. For the resistance, the meters that use to measure it is the ohmmeter. When using an ohmmeter, there should be no voltage present across the resistors except for the ohmmeter battery, otherwise your ohmmeter would be damaged. I can see two types of ohmmeter nowadays, the analog and the digital. Among the two ohmmeters, digital is widely used nowadays.

The above ohmmeter usually used to measure the resistance of the resistors. Ohmmeter ranges usually vary from 0-1,000 ohms to 0 -10 megohms. There are some special ohmmeters called the MEGGERS. This ohmmeter was used to measure high resistance values which are over 10 megohms. Some meggers use high voltage batteries and other use special type of hand generator to obtain the necessary voltage. These megohmeters is used to measure and test the resistance of insulation. Picture below is the example of a megger.

Ohmmeter is very easy to use by following two steps. First, the voltage must be set to the proper value. This is done with the zero adjustment by shorting outor by connecting together the two leads from the ohmmeter and setting to zero ohms on the meter with the zero adjustment control. This should be always done whenever you changed the meter range selector switch to a different scale. Now, the meter is now calibrated for the given range, you will notice that when the leads shorted out, the meter reads zero ohm, but when it opens, the meter reads infinity which indicates an open circuit. Therefore, when these leads touches the resistors subject for measurement, it will directly read the resistance in the meter multiplying it with the range selector switch. The range selector switch is serves as the multiplier or the multiplying factor whenever you are measuring the resistance using ohmmeter. The range selector switch usually marked as R, RX 10, RX 100, RX1,000, etc...
For example if the ohmmeter is switch on to R X 1,000 meaning the value of the meter will be multiplied to 1,000 to get the actual value of the resistance being measured.

That's it for today.

Tomorrow we'll continue dealing with circuits here in Electrical Engineering.

Cheers!

Resistors Part 1 - Use and Properties

Now that you have learned the basic concept of Ohm's Law, we can now proceed in discussing the use, properties, and construction of resistors. All you can learn it here in Electrical Engineering.

Before we continue our study of circuits, we need to know more about resistance and resistors though we have touched it a little on my previous post. But its just a review. Today, it would be a bit deeper.

We know that there is a certain amount of resistance in all electrical equipment which we use. Sometimes, this resistance is not enough to control the flow of current to the extent desired. If you did not get my point here, let's have a few example of this. I will going to give an example by illustration as what had shown below. The circuit shown below, a switch and a current limiting resistor are used to control the flow of current through the motor. When starting a motor, the switch is kept open and the resistance is thereby added into the circuit to control the flow of current. After the motor has started, the switch is then closed in order to bypass the current limiting resistor.

There are wide variety of resistors, some of them have fixed values and some are variables.

What resistor is made up of?

Resistors are made up of special resistance wire, graphite (carbon) composition, or of metal film. Wire wound resistors are usually used to control large currents, while carbon resistors controls current which are relatively small.

Vitreous enameled wire-would resistors are constructed by winding resistance wire on a porcelain base, attaching the wire ends to metal terminals, and coating the wire and base with powdered glass and bake enamel to protect the wire and conduct heat away from it.

Fixed wire wound resistors with a coating other than vitreous enamel are also used. The example below is the example of this one.

Wire-wound resistors may have fixed taps, which can be also used to change the resistance value in steps, or sliders, which can be adjusted to change the resistance of any fraction of the total resistance. The picture below is the example of this one.

Precision wound resistors of manganin wire (a special wire that does not change resistance very much with high temperature) are used where the resistance value must be very accurate, such as in test instruments. The picture below is the example of this one.

Carbon resistors are used for low current applications. They are made from a rod of compensated graphite (carbon) that is mixed with clay and binders. By varying the amount of each component, it is possible to vary the resistance values obtained over a very wide range. Two lead wires are called pigtails are attached to the end of the resistance rod, and the rod is embedded in a ceramic or plastic covering, leaving the pigtails protruding from the ends. Take a look for a sample below.

You will find other type of resistor called a deposited film resistor used for special applications. These resistors are made by depositing a thin film of resistance metal or carbon on a ceramic core and then coating the resistor with either a ceramic or enamel protective coating. In many cases you will find that these resistors have radial leads meaning the leads come off at right angles to the body of the resistor. In some cases the deposited film is laid down on the core as spiral, similar to winding a wire around the tube, in order to increase the length of the resistance element without making the resistor too long. The example of this one was shown below.

Resistor Tolerance and Values

Let's consider this topic before we go on the color code for resistors. You need to find out the something about resistor tolerances and something about the preferred values of resistance that you will find in the circuits. Special resistors may have tolerances of as little as 1% , 0.1% or even 0.01% but most resistors that you will see have much greater tolerances. Large wire-wound resistors usually have tolerances of 10% or 5%. Carbon resistors are available in 20%, 10% and 5% tolerances.

So what are those tolerance mentioned above means? Let's take an example...

If you had a 10 kilohm resistor with a tolerance of 20%, the actual value of the resistor could anywhere from 10 kilohm - 10 kilohm (0.20) = 8 kilohm to 10 kilohm + 10(0.20) = 12 kilohm. That is how you will going to use the tolerance given for a specific resistor.

You will wonder how many different resistance values you can get for a resistor. It depends on the tolerance. Considerations such as this have led to the establishment of a set of preferred values of resistance in each tolerance where the highest tolerance of one value is about equal to the lowest tolerance of the next highest value. The table of preferred resistance was shown below. Later, you will find that resistors are available in different power ratings as well.

The numbers on the chart above show only the first two digits. Thus, it means for example, 33 means that 3.3, 330, 3.3 kilohm, 330 kilohm and 3.3 megohm resistors are available.

On my next post I will show you how the resistor color code is being used for carbon resistors and how the resistance is being measured.

I will tee off shortly. Stay more here in Learn Electrical Engineering for Beginners.

Cheers!