Sci @ Home : ELECTRICITY, about circuits.

[unknown person]

What is circuits used for at home, anything to describe when you present them and do it as a news report? Thank you very much (:<br><br>Edit:<br>There is two type of circuits- parallel and series. Parallel is used in households instead of series. If you install a new appliance in a series circuit and some how it breaks, the whole circuit goes off. Using a parallel circuit, the total current is equal to the combined current of each branch. <br>Advantages: In a parallel circuit, if one of the component goes off, the rest of circuit still works. Total resistance is less than the individual smallest resistance across the circuit.<br><br>is it okay to write like that? possible for a 3 minute video if i read the whole thing out? thankyou for your time.<br><br>

Edited July 21, 2010 by unknown person

[the tree]

Right, the vast majority of applications of electricity primary involve circuitry - for all intents and purposes, all of them.

 

Lighting is the most simple circuit you're going to use - a power supply, a fuse, a switch and a light bulb. The type of thing you'd make with a kids science kit really is a scaled down version of exactly how that works. Even with added complexity such as two way switches or more complex components such as dimmer switches it's all incredibly simple and all the circuitry involved can be mapped out on half a post it note.

 

A simple heater, or refrigerator for that matter, doesn't really vary in terms of circuit diagrams of a light and a dimmer switch - replacing the light with a heating or cooling component.

 

The next step up in complexity is probably analogue timers, like those in a toaster. Once a (variable) capacitor is filled to the brim then a circuit breaker is activated, taking away current from the heating coils and the mechanism holding everything down, so that the toast can pop up. Still, very simple.

 

Transistors are the key to further complexity, rather than cutting current on or off - it can be redirected - allowing for digital timers, digital clocks, transistor radios. Further components aren't strictly speaking required for a more or less unlimited increase in complexity: the silicon chip is essentially thousands of transistors, forming an immense circuit with loads of sub circuits that create logic gates necessary to run a computer, television, games console, digital radio, burglar alarm and thousands of other pieces of consumer electronics.