Electricity... hmm.. Yes, I want to write some about that today... I did nail in three more rows of outside boards are on the wall now. The big news of the day, however, is The electrical is now all complete. I finished wiring in the last box and tested each, and magic, I have 110 volts in each wall socket. BREAK OUT THE CHAMPAGNE!

This made me think about that old WAV formula, and I'm not talking about sound files. In case you forget that standard old formula from high school physics, here it is:

Watts = Amps x Volts or WAV W=AxV

Watts are the basic unit of power, and other than being equal to the product of volts and amps, is defined as equal to one joule per second. If you want to convert Watts to Horsepower, multiply by 1.341E-03.

so remember that Watts is a unit of power having the dimension of time (energy per unit of time) Your power bill has a number of KWH or kilo-watt-hours or thousands of watt-hours. Volts are the unit of force, kind of like the force of pressure in a water hose (but let's not mix water and electricity, please!)... The thing is .. if your consumption of electricity increases rapidly, the power company compensates but "pushing" more electricity down to the substations and to the power transformers on the poles and eventually into your house! That's their job...

so W = A x V + A x V (of newly turned on appliance) + and so on

W = A x 110 + A2 x 110 + A3 x 110 + etc.

or, simplified

W/110 = A + A2 + A3 + etc.

the more things you turn on, the more watts (or thousands of watts = kilowatt) you turn on because each appliance is contributing it's own amperage "component" to the circuits in your house. When we say a circuit is rated for 20 amps, what we are saying is that the fuse in the fuse panel is going to blow or melt or trip or whatever at 20 amps of current flowing through that circuit. This is good, because if too much current flows because of this and that appliance being turned on, then the wires heat up to much and at the extreme, could cause a fire. (think of this like the water hose, but with the idea of more pressure being pushed down the hose as the appliances are turned on-- eventually, the hose would burst).

My power supply for my own laptop computer is rated or listed as 100-240V 1.5Amps, 50-60hz with the 50-60hz being the frequency at which the alternating current cycles back and forth. When I plug this into a 110 volt outlet, the W=110x1.5 = 165watts. It also lists that power it supplies to the laptop is 19.5volts, 4.62amps, 90watts and voila 19.5x4.62=90.09! So, where are the missing watts going! Feel the power supply, it's warm and indeed some of the power does get wasted in the transformation of power from one voltage level to another, thus the heat as the wires in the transformer get warm.

BTW, who is the Watt named after? What country was he/she from?

Hope you enjoyed the electricity lesson :-)