circuits
I just figured it out, a circuit is just a variant of conductive material and non-conductive material arranged specifically. If you want a straight run, there's just straight lines, like in house wiring. When you want to interrupt it, you put in a stop of NC, but then you need a way to start it again, that's a switch because it puts the C back in and takes it out. Transistors are digitally activated switches.
A capacitator is a kind of battery. it's got tons of both C and NC layered so the electricity that goes in gets stuck in a maze, or like a water tank, allowing you to pour in a whole bunch, then open the switch at the end and it all comes out KABANG in a release. Then there's resistors, they slow it down. I guess you mix the conductive and non-conductive so the stuff has to jump to get across and loses power, plus you'd need to allow for heating because the effort gets the electrons all overheated and they warm up the circuit that makes them jump and lose energy, in the form of heat. Whenever possible, you want to avoid resistors by stepping up electricity with capacitors instead of toning it down with resistors, because they are wasteful and heat up. the heat affects what sorts of materials you can use for them, and causes a heat problem for the entire project. So whenever possible you try and keep the eleticity stream as low as possible to run only the heaviest bits where the stuff is being really used to perform. That means starting with a small stream, or using a transformer before you begin to step it down to the least you can get away with.
Now they're making a conductive printing filament. That's right, you print conductive and non-conductive material in patterns. That's the C and the NC from above used to make..... capacitors, runs, switches, and resistors. The basics of every gadget we use. A home printer can't be expected to print a reasonable sized chip but it can print just about everything else needed for such basics and flashlights, LED pretty things, simple digital switches, and well, that's the extent of my electrical engineering knowledge thus far. I think, though, I'm beginning to understand what I need to know to understand electrical engineering. I can't learn it as an engineer because they teach the stuff like it's just a matter of having the database in your head, the rest just works because the data is in there. But for me, the data is just the details and I can't build the big picture from it. I can get the data from the big picture but if a teacher or curriculum can't paint that for me first, I will never learn the stuff. They understand that with children. They teach children the major concepts first and then drill down to mastery, but for things they think kids can't do they never develop such a curriculum. Generally the adults will have found that education at the knees of an elder outside of school. Something most girls just never got in my youth.
This has been boiling up since seeing a woman show off her tricks with salt and sugar based home-maade playdoh and the commercial stuff as well. Turns out, that gave her 3 different strengths of conductivity in a cheap moldable product that little kids can play around with. Frankly I'd like to mix it up myself but not sure when I have the time nor that I need to do that to get the idea of how each circuit is designed. What I really need now is more about how the numbers work, now, the stuff they teach in school, ironically enough. See, how much you bump it off, or step it down, how you direct annd redirect with switches, that's how the stuff works. Oh and of course there's lights and motors. The end devices, the motors or lights, and that's all there ever is on the end, that'll remain factory made. We could in theory print the windings of a motor or the filaments and housing of an LED but the magnetics aren't there yet.
Oh My God. In 10 years we will have magnetic filament too, incredibly fine detail printers, and the ability to print really fast. That means you'll walk into the shop and choose your model and while you're doing the paperwork, the store will print off your custom tablet for you. Or you'll order it on onnline and print it yourself, althought hat level of resolution and that many print heads at once would be too expensive for the ordinary home user.
You've got a power supply, usually a battery. Even if you've got input from a plug or solar panel or generator, there's a battery in the middle to hold the power and release it carefully in a specific stream. That's the watts and volts. I'm not sure anyone uses watts anymore, actualy. Just volts and milliamphours. That last is how long it'll deliver power before it gets fitful and weak. it relates to the construction and materials. You see, a battery is not a capacitor. A battery is a generator. Yes I know they go dead and you think of them as charging up again, and certainly some are able to do that several times. but they're actually generating electricity through a chemical reaction. when they're rechargeable it actually reverses the chemical reaction to restart it from the beginning. Eventually the ion releases do change the chemical components as they lose too many electrons out the top and the battery fails. It's no longer the same two chemicals you started with. they fought until they became something that could rest at ease together, like people in a marriage.
Now the power coming out of the battery is sent to a light, or a motor. These are turned on or off or reversed on or off, giving four potential states. A motor might activate a switch or a speaker cone, or a wheel, well you know, all the mechanical stuff. The lights represent the screen you look at, the indicators, the human interface, in fact. So much more complicated than that, yet so simple too.
I have so many ideas but not the engineering skill and resources to make them happen myself. I see that changing with the printer if I can just learn to use the software and how the circuitry design works.
A capacitator is a kind of battery. it's got tons of both C and NC layered so the electricity that goes in gets stuck in a maze, or like a water tank, allowing you to pour in a whole bunch, then open the switch at the end and it all comes out KABANG in a release. Then there's resistors, they slow it down. I guess you mix the conductive and non-conductive so the stuff has to jump to get across and loses power, plus you'd need to allow for heating because the effort gets the electrons all overheated and they warm up the circuit that makes them jump and lose energy, in the form of heat. Whenever possible, you want to avoid resistors by stepping up electricity with capacitors instead of toning it down with resistors, because they are wasteful and heat up. the heat affects what sorts of materials you can use for them, and causes a heat problem for the entire project. So whenever possible you try and keep the eleticity stream as low as possible to run only the heaviest bits where the stuff is being really used to perform. That means starting with a small stream, or using a transformer before you begin to step it down to the least you can get away with.
Now they're making a conductive printing filament. That's right, you print conductive and non-conductive material in patterns. That's the C and the NC from above used to make..... capacitors, runs, switches, and resistors. The basics of every gadget we use. A home printer can't be expected to print a reasonable sized chip but it can print just about everything else needed for such basics and flashlights, LED pretty things, simple digital switches, and well, that's the extent of my electrical engineering knowledge thus far. I think, though, I'm beginning to understand what I need to know to understand electrical engineering. I can't learn it as an engineer because they teach the stuff like it's just a matter of having the database in your head, the rest just works because the data is in there. But for me, the data is just the details and I can't build the big picture from it. I can get the data from the big picture but if a teacher or curriculum can't paint that for me first, I will never learn the stuff. They understand that with children. They teach children the major concepts first and then drill down to mastery, but for things they think kids can't do they never develop such a curriculum. Generally the adults will have found that education at the knees of an elder outside of school. Something most girls just never got in my youth.
This has been boiling up since seeing a woman show off her tricks with salt and sugar based home-maade playdoh and the commercial stuff as well. Turns out, that gave her 3 different strengths of conductivity in a cheap moldable product that little kids can play around with. Frankly I'd like to mix it up myself but not sure when I have the time nor that I need to do that to get the idea of how each circuit is designed. What I really need now is more about how the numbers work, now, the stuff they teach in school, ironically enough. See, how much you bump it off, or step it down, how you direct annd redirect with switches, that's how the stuff works. Oh and of course there's lights and motors. The end devices, the motors or lights, and that's all there ever is on the end, that'll remain factory made. We could in theory print the windings of a motor or the filaments and housing of an LED but the magnetics aren't there yet.
Oh My God. In 10 years we will have magnetic filament too, incredibly fine detail printers, and the ability to print really fast. That means you'll walk into the shop and choose your model and while you're doing the paperwork, the store will print off your custom tablet for you. Or you'll order it on onnline and print it yourself, althought hat level of resolution and that many print heads at once would be too expensive for the ordinary home user.
You've got a power supply, usually a battery. Even if you've got input from a plug or solar panel or generator, there's a battery in the middle to hold the power and release it carefully in a specific stream. That's the watts and volts. I'm not sure anyone uses watts anymore, actualy. Just volts and milliamphours. That last is how long it'll deliver power before it gets fitful and weak. it relates to the construction and materials. You see, a battery is not a capacitor. A battery is a generator. Yes I know they go dead and you think of them as charging up again, and certainly some are able to do that several times. but they're actually generating electricity through a chemical reaction. when they're rechargeable it actually reverses the chemical reaction to restart it from the beginning. Eventually the ion releases do change the chemical components as they lose too many electrons out the top and the battery fails. It's no longer the same two chemicals you started with. they fought until they became something that could rest at ease together, like people in a marriage.
Now the power coming out of the battery is sent to a light, or a motor. These are turned on or off or reversed on or off, giving four potential states. A motor might activate a switch or a speaker cone, or a wheel, well you know, all the mechanical stuff. The lights represent the screen you look at, the indicators, the human interface, in fact. So much more complicated than that, yet so simple too.
I have so many ideas but not the engineering skill and resources to make them happen myself. I see that changing with the printer if I can just learn to use the software and how the circuitry design works.