hello everyone and welcome to this
tutorial we're going to start getting to
the basics of electronics now for this
first video what we're going to do gonna
and have try and have a basic
understanding of electricity and how
electricity works and the basic
components of electricity
now i'm going to start off with a little
bit of history a little bit of science
and also just give you a few basic
analogies to understand the different
types of electricity IE AC and DC so i'm
going to talk through these just to
start getting planted a few seeds in
your head before we get down to some of
the theory we're going to do a very
basic theory on some paperwork and with
some practical examples as well to show
share your few bits and pieces now I
don't want you to get too caught up i'll
see on the history is therefore interest
and the science side of it again it's
just good to have a little bit of
background but basically will get down
to the fundamentals when we start
looking at the bits of paper basically
electricity was discovered a long time
ago now
it was discovered apparent key many many
years bc in fact in the form people
started seeing electricity in the form
of static electricity or in fact even
they started realizing with things like
soup catfish and what happy when they
touched them they've got a shock through
their bodies
so that's when the notion of electricity
apparently started coming about static
electricity
obviously when certain objects with
charge that and reacted that kind of led
to describe you on electricity and
static electricity and what have you and
the first real work on electricity and
calculations and theorizing came around
in the sixteen and seventeen hundreds
and kind of the more practical
applications of electricity started
happening in the 18
ribs so as an example let's say the
practical like electrification of houses
because of the invent the invention of
the incandescent light bulb came around
the eighteen eighties
in fact in 1881 apparently this was news
to me
cycle it was America first but believe
it or not in sorry
in the UK believe or not that's where I
was born and there was the first central
power station which provided electricity
to a little village a little village had
a vote because at that point in time
they were running on gas power the gas
power wasn't economical so they decided
to implement this new thing called
electricity and they did implement that
first power station but apparently it
wasn't very economical so actually
reverted back to guess but the main the
kind of main power station to come
online and start feeding streetlights
and houses happened in the states in New
York and if that was in eighteen eighty
to say year later and that was the
essence
pull street station and they started off
with using DC so direct current and they
only later switch to AC now so let's
just talk a little bit about AC and DC
now basically once again once we get
down to the piece of paper i'll start
explaining this but DC direct current is
electricity just flying in one direction
constantly while AC is basically
electricity in a conductor game
backwards and forwards pushing backwards
and forwards almost like a piston on a
steam engine backwards and forwards and
because of that reason there's far less
effort involved pushing something back
and forwards then constantly trying to
push in one direction
another analogy to give you an
understanding of JC vs DC if you picture
someone sewing a log
you've got a saw and you're pushing it
back and forth
you push it you've got to pause you pull
it back you've got a pause you push it
you go to pause so there is this pause
and that is a creation of a sinus
hallway where electricity goes after
certain value comes down to zero . and
then goes negative and then comes back
again i'm going to demonstrate this on a
little scope as well we'll look at the
mains electricity
whereas if you can picture that same
person are having a circular saw with a
handle that they're having to crank
around at constant pace constant pace
your arms going to get a lot more tired
doing that then had that sword that's
going back and forth where you've got a
pause but if you picture the saw blade
on the log
whether you cranking a handle round on
that circular saw
or you've got that saw blade coming back
and forth
it's still doing having the same result
on the wood isn't doing the same that'll
work and catching through the wood
whether using and AC or DC to constantly
cut on there so I just want to plant
their season you're at the moment now to
get down to the science and and again I
certainly don't get bogged down in 22
minutes scientific stuff or even
formulas at this point in time that's
going to come in due course when we
start working
get down to working with components and
putting circuits together
that in essence electricity is a flow of
electrons through a conductor
now we're going to be using fluid
dynamics of fluid mechanics to explain
this because it is a very fluid
mechanics and dynamics of I've got a
very good correlation to the way
electricity works but in a conductor and
metallic conduct or something that can
conduct electricity you've got atoms and
electrons in there and basically it is
the flow of electrons from negative to
positive that provide
at a current potential or electricity
now so that is the converse of what we
generally work in where conventional
electricity we think safe flows from
positive to negative so don't you get
confused i just want you to understand
the science behind it
in fact that electrons flow from
negative to positive that's the sign
side of it but for all intents and
purposes
what people use day today and what we'll
be using an explanation is conventional
electricity flow which is from positive
to negative in terms of direct current
obviously as you'll see with alternating
current it's a change it's actually
going back and forth and cycling in two
directions
ok so let's get stuck down have a look
at the piece of paper and I've got there
ok so let me explain this diagram that i
have here then and we'll start going
through the individual components of it
Bubba to have an understanding what it
all means
so basically this in essence is a big
water pipe this big round circle
rectangle over here
this over here is a pump a water pump
over here we have a valve which can be
closed all open to allow water through
over here is a paddle or basically in
essence and appliance in this case it's
a paddle driving a shaft into a mill
well let's pretend that basically we
milling or grinding flour or wheat into
flour then we've got over here out
gauges are pressure gauge is telling us
the pressure of the water in the pipe as
you might literally in a in a pipe
system
and then over here there's a paddle
which basically is measuring the flow of
water in the pipe and displaying it it's
spinning around and it's displaying in
essence like if you like on a rev
counter on a meter over here
right so let's first we'll start without
our pump
now over here you'll notice we if you
like this to an electrical circuit the
pump over here is in essence our power
source naive note see here I've got
power source and inverted commas because
ultimately again if we talk about the
science of electrons do you can't really
create or destroy energy so it's not a
source per se but it is the piece that
actually generates the flow of energy in
our circuit so I recorded the power
source or the pump in essence it could
be a battery or could be your mains
outlet in your house but this is what in
essence creates the pressure and the
flow to get water flying around this
pipe system and in essence that pressure
and flow ultimately is the electricity
flying around this circuit or this pipe
system now on this pipe system as I said
we've got these and pressure gauges over
here and these present pressure gauges
are measuring the pressure of the water
they don't have to be inside the pipe
itself you only need a small little tap
into your pipe to actually pick pick up
the pressure
now the pressure of the system equates
to your voltage so when we referred to a
voltage and a circuit that in essence is
the pressure which is there to push the
water or in essence to push the
electricity through your circuit
as you can understand and this is
something we're going to cover off
probably in the next session where if
you've got obstacles inside your pi e
like a valve or and act hair and the
plants or what have you
they are going to create a restriction
to the flow of the water around your
circuit and that restriction in essence
big is the resistance so the you need
enough pressure to overcome that
resistance they and their those
restrictions to allow you to have water
flowing or electricity flowing through
your circuit now let's come down to this
device over here
so if we want to measure the flow of
electricity through our system or the
water flow throughout our pipe system
we literally have to then we can't just
have a little simple tap into the pipe
to read the pressure as you can in a
water hose or what have you
you actually have to place something in
a little pedal or a to buy a watch heavy
inside the flow of the water to start
measuring it and it's likewise when we
have a multimeter and you want to
measure current you need to place your
multimeter in circuit to do this and
it's exactly the same with measuring
water you have this pedal in there and
that spins around and that then on a
dial gives us the flow now flow of
electricity equates to the current which
is aunt and so there's something quite
important to understand
let's pretend that I go and close this
valve over here so that I have no flow
of water
do you understand that this this
pressure gauge over here is still going
to show you a pressure the water is
pushing against it's going to be pushing
up into that gage you still going to
have pressure that pressure member is
voltage so you still have a voltage
potential pushing hard against over here
that water pressure when you start
opening this valve that starts aligned
water flow then when you've got flow
you've got current and current is amps
so flow through a circuit is current
which is amps so there's something
important also to note about flow when
you start talking about flow rate rate
implies time and as soon as you start it
adding time to the equation flow rate
then you talking about consumption or
amp hours and this is important because
again what we're going to do I'm going
to have a practical demonstration now
also in some of the normal videos i'm
going to be posting soon on batteries
and battery testing all these components
relate to each other and you will have a
good understanding of what I'm doing for
that battery testing if you're following
what's going on here
so the flow rate is basically your flow
over time is an amp hour and that is
what equates to consumption
what you're using if you had a little
bakit catching your water at the end of
this and that bucket is filling up that
feeling of the bakit would equate to
your consumption how much electricity
you're using or how much energy you
using also so quiet it's quite quite a
nice analogy here with using the pipe
this closed pipe system with a pump and
a valve and pressure gauges and
something is measuring the flow
it's like an electricity circuit it
needs to be complete
it needs to be intact that intactness is
something we would relate to something
called continuity and it's off see
continuity is something that you can use
a multimeter to measure now I i'm
talking about a multi me to go and see
my my video series on how to use a
multimeter for beginners
I then equate a lot of this and how you
measure these bits and pieces with a
multimeter so if you are new to this
than those videos will help you as well
and I'll annotate
and with one of those here right so that
going back to that continuity
you need the pipe intact to lie or water
to flow through the pipe system
likewise you need your foot to allow
electricity to flow
you need an intact system of conductors
IE your electrical wires
if you have a break in your electrical
wire over here just like--why's you
broke the water pipe and the water the
water would in essence start spilling
out and then your plant or you're more
over here would stop working because you
wouldn't have water flow now in reality
of you cut a while you're not going to
see you like electrons flying out the
edge hope hopefully but the analogies
the same if you break the pipe and the
waters basically flowing and not getting
back up through the system then you're
not going to gain to have the water flow
to power your mole
likewise with the wiring system if you
have a breaking your wiring system the
electrons are going to stop flowing your
plants is going to stop working so let's
now pretend we have we go back to having
a complete working system
let's go to the ultimate reason we have
electricity and that's ultimately to
power a device and to do work
so here as I said we've got this pedal
which is driving a shaft which is
turning and milling stone here which is
milling our flower let's pretend so in
essence that equates to an appliance
that you might have in your house now
basically if you've got taking the
energy out of the system to apply it
that is the work being done by or water
or the work being done by your
electricity and that equates to power
so there is a closed direct relationship
between your pressure your flow and the
work being done and that is a direct
relationship between voltage current and
power and we'll start looking at this in
particular when we start looking at
resistors and Ohm's law those
relationships and how they interact but
but from here all I want you to
understand basically is that the end
result and what you're looking for in
terms of electricity and the flow of
electricity is the work being done your
plants being connected to your wiring
system which in essence is using power
which is a combination of your voltage
and your current likewise although
innocence in this system a pump let's
pretend our pump is pumping our water
around in a single direction that would
equate to direct current a single
direction and of your electricity flow
constant push through the pipe system
now equally could have you could still
get your work done as I was explaining
with a saw cutting the piece of wood
if this pump had a piston in it that was
pushing backwards and forwards instead
of pumping in one direction as you can
imagine your pressure gauges would be
dancing around going back and forth and
that's exactly in essence what happens
with alternating current your voltage is
in fluctuating and up and down
positive and negative but even though
you've got that flow of electricity
going back and forth as you can see your
pedal is still going to be flipped
backwards and forwards
it's still going to grind your flower at
the end of the day
so in electronics and that's why we are
going to focus after this mainly on
direct current because that's what we
use for the most part in electronics but
understanding electricity you can see
that direct-current can power things and
alternating current which is used in
your house can power things even though
it's going back and forth in essence
going on and off because it it still
does work at the end of the day
now let's quickly actually discuss why
alternating current is used as opposed
to direct current for your house
as I said there's a lot more takes a lot
more energy to for to use direct carrot
on a big system once you getting
stocking to the high voltage higher
voltages and what have you
your losses across a piece of wire
become far greater with direct current
because the amount of energy required to
push that constantly in one direction as
opposed to back and forth so that's the
one reason it takes a lot more energy
and your losses are higher
you need far thicker wire to make it
easy for the electricity to go through
for direct current
then you do alternating current the
other the other reason is the reason
AC is used is that and you can generate
far higher voltages with alternating
current and that's far easier to
transmit higher voltage over long
distances and then transform that down
to a lower voltage and get the current
back once you get to a neighborhood or
your house so you can transfer voltage
at high voltage at lope at low current
so you don't need thick wise you've got
less loss and then you transform that
back to a your normal voltage when you
get to your house
ok so let's actually put away from the
paper quickly and have a quick chat
about the mains electricity that comes
into your house and the one thing
obviously is it
you realize a see besides being more
efficient transmitted over a longer
distance
it's also safer because you've got that
pause while it's going back and forth
because it actually goes through 0 and
back again it's safer than DC because DC
is constantly honor
if you if you touch your collection
electrocuted by electricity and a see
you've got potential
it's gonna kick you and kick your way
where is DC or grab onto because it's
just constantly on any time to clinch up
and hold where is AC tends to throw your
way
so DC will potentially impart far more
energy into you as well then AC will if
you have comparable voltage and current
now the one interesting thing I
discovered and it's something to hire
obviously that around the world
different countries use different
voltages and frequencies
now the frequency is obviously as i'll
demonstrate is you'll see that that
sinusoidal wave as the energy
electricity is going on and off and that
happens at a certain rate now here in
South after we use 220 volts at 50 hertz
so 50 times a second
the electricity is going through a cycle
on and off in the States
it's 110 and and at a rate of its 110
120 and it's at a rate of 60 hertz so 60
times a second and one of the big
reasons for having the use of 110 or 120
in the states is that it's off see far
say that you've got low
you've got a low voltage and the
combination of the voltage and the
current because the current supply is
still roughly the same to the normal
household outlet
it's roughly 15 or 16 amps same and
inside at the same in the state
another one interesting thing to note is
there are limitations with that safety
factor in the states and that is you get
particularly when it comes to tools
which use need more power
so the combination of your volts on your
amps give you power and you've got less
of that in the states from a standard
110 outlet and I when we lived in the
states for two and a half years
I came to realize
as a snack I couldn't quite understand
something I told her then clicks about
not having enough power
I i really enjoy drinking cup of tea
I'm an Englishman even her live inside
that guy enjoy my kapiti and for that
reason when we got to the states and we
had to buy our appliances
I we went looking for a kittle now the
states I couldn't understand in people's
houses why everyone had skittles which
they put on this stove on a hop on the
top of a plate to heat up to heat the
water just didn't make sense to me
a cattle makes far more sense just ease
it for laughs
switch on it switches of automatically
whereas a stove doesn't switch off
automatically
but then I realized generally speaking
kettles require a lot of energy a lot of
power to work often a cattle will be
rated to run at 2,300 or 3000 watts and
in the states if you look at your how
much power you can get out of your 110
outlet
often it's not enough to drive normal
kettles which would find let's stay in
south africa
so for that reason I realized that's why
people have to do their heat the water
for their coffee or they are not that
people have coffee makers but 14 you'd
have something on a stone anyway I did
eventually found a kettle but I hunted
high and low in the state to find a
simple plug-in kettle
anyway let's get back to the energies
and examples i'm going to show you what
AC looks like
and we're going to do a demonstration
with DC to explain and pressure or
voltage between two sources and this
becomes important when again when we get
to the battery testing because to charge
a battery
you've got a battery with a certain
voltage or a certain holding pressure in
it as a vessel with pressure to charge
your charger needs to overcome that
pressure
it's like if you got a vessel with the
pressure you got a pipe going into it
and you want to push water into that
whistle you have to have a greater
pressure pushing to get inside there
also is just going to push back
likewise charging a battery or charger
has to be at a greater pressure or
greater voltage to charge your battery
equated to pumping filling up a balloon
with a when you feel that put blow air
into that balloon
you have to have a greater air pressure
in your cheeks to get the end of the
blue
likewise pumping up aight i'll buy a car
or a bicycle
you're going to have a certain air
pressure in that tire and you have to
have a greater pressure that you're
pushing in that pump to get a into that
tire
let's go have a look at some practical
examples right so let's have a look at
our mains electricity here in South
Africa
I've got this unity UT 81b if you are
interested in it
are there is a little review on it have
you not seen one before man or annotate
that here and basically it's a fairly
useful device its scope meter its a mix
of a multimeter and an oscilloscope
so we can get to see wave and
electricity signals basically now what
I've done here
I've these two probes as you can see i
come from
I've got a multi strip specially set up
with a connecting block there where I
take off the electricity or be very
careful about working with mains
electricity
I don't I certainly don't and advise you
to go get your multimeter and just
willy-nilly sticking the probes into
outlet mains electricity and bite you
it can blow things so please be careful
right uh-huh I'd rather hope that you're
watching this example then trying to do
this yourself because if you do it wrong
and touch things that you shouldn't you
can hurt and enjoy yourself
that's right
as you can see I've got this set to
measure voltage
I've set it to measure ac voltage and
we've gotta figure of around 230 volts
and now i'm going to change the mode of
this so we go into it's a solution
it's kind of scope mode or push the auto
button so that it's sizes things up for
us and as you can see there
we've got this sinusoidal wave happening
so let me just change the period that we
sing so what we can see here is a
sinusoidal way which is going positive
we got the script in essence is cross
hairs here and this is the zero line
so this is the voltage going up positive
and then coming back down negative a
positive down- and that's that
back-and-forth motion in essence which
is being being measured and as you can
see here we've got the voltage and we've
got the frequency here in South Africa
is at 50 Hertz and on this meter what
you can do so that's the frequency and
if you count the we've got the set to 10
milliseconds per division and if you
count the divisions we've got a
repeating cycle so their cycle starts
that's half of the cycle and then that's
the completed cycle over here
it's two divisions that's 20
milliseconds
that's the . or the time it takes to
complete a cycle 20 minutes seconds and
also you get 50 of those in a second
so that is what ac voltage looks like
now I'm not going to concentrate too
much more on AC voltage because I've
seen electronics we want to use DC but
i'll show you what DC looks like on a
scope right so I've got my variable DC
power supply set up in the background
its preset at 13 volts I've got a range
i can vary that I've got a preset to a
certain range of voltage because we're
going to do it man
demonstration with a battery after that
I've got the unity skype meter linked up
I've got to set two bolts at the moment
it's set on AC summer change it so it's
back to DC and then i'm going to now
switch on the output of and my power
supply and as you can see we're
measuring showing as a reading of 13.1
volts and obviously as I change that the
setting on the variable power supply you
can see the voltage all the pressure
changing now let's go over to the scope
so as you can see there's that line a
straight line
appearing on the skirt now try and get
that so conceived in the reflection and
as I vary the voltage you can see the
voltage level being noted there you can
see that straight line just going its
height is changing relative to the zero
line but it is dead straight it is
constantly on constantly pushing it is
that is direct current
it's not going on and off as we saw with
with AC and that's what a DC and a DC
signal looks like on an oscilloscope
it is just straight on the whole time ok
so what have we got here now we're
moving over to our battery
this is a 12 volt lead acid battery i've
got it connected up a the positive
opcion to the positive and the negative
on to the negative
that's the polarity now I've also got my
variable power supply SAT here and I've
got this what's up meet another what's
up meter car keys actually showing you
the voltage or the pressure the voltage
potential that is sitting inside the
battery
it's sitting at about twelve point nine
nine eight volts at the moment and as
you can see here is the meter that also
shows you with is a flow of electricity
measured in amps and that is at zero at
the moment
so what I'm going to do
I'm going to turn my power supply to
roughly match the voltage or the
pressure that's sitting in the battery
and then I forget exactly right I'm
gonna switch it on now and I've kind of
got it spot-on right because if you look
here
the dial over here the digits over here
show that basically there is no flow of
electricity and likewise there's nothing
going into the battery because the
pressures are the same
right so watch what happens as i start
to step up the voltage and the pressure
as you can see we start to get a flow of
electricity which is being measured in
amps in this case it's milliamps
so it's only small you can see there's
the power supply showing and the me to
the what's up meat over here is showing
that there's a flow so because now my
voltage or my pressure at this point is
higher than the battery
I can actually start pushing back energy
or electricity into the battery as
obviously step up that pressure increase
the pressure increase the voltage are
likewise in the flow start increasing
and I get more flow into the battery as
i said just think about the blowing up
of the balloon or the pumping up at the
tire then if i drop the voltage
actually let's just go take it up more
so we can actually get a real
representation of now got a kind of the
highest safest pressure that I don't
want to push back into this battery and
again an analogy here is that if you
blowing up that balloon you think of the
walls of the balloon are are not that
thick
if you had to have a very high air
pressure pumping into that blue and
potentially going to rip and shred these
walls of the balloon and burst it
and likewise it's the same with
electricity if you do things too quickly
but i have to higher voltage or what
have you can damage appliances
so here has a safe voltage or pressure
14.4 volts
I've set it up and we're pushing
and we've got a flow of electricity at
276 milliamp going into the battery and
slowly but surely that all bold up
because we've got a in essence a closed
I closed vessel here in essence with the
battery so it's actually pushing more
energy more pressure into it
it's pressure is going to build up IE
its voltage is going to build up and
that will give us an indication or the
level of energy storage and charge
inside the battery
now i'm going to do the the other I'm
going to drop the pressure or the
voltage on my power supply and just note
what happens
I'll see we've got a slightly higher
we pushed up the pressure in the battery
install got a slightly higher pressure
on the on the power supply at the moment
but look what happens as i drop below
what the battery is I've got a negative
reason reading on my pass by saying
effect now what the battery is doing
because the batteries got a higher
pressure or higher voltage than my power
supply
it is trying to push electricity back
into the power supply
now I liquid basically you can't really
push power back into the past players
not design for that but in essence as
you can see is doing it to a certain
extent and that all i want to show is
there is pressure differentials or
voltage differentials determine the flow
way how electricity is going to flow
that's that will be important certainly
once we start getting to looking at
electric and electronic circuits with
that different power sources and what
have you
I can it's just look at that in terms of
this diagram again in in terms of
different voltage potentials of
different pressures in the system
if I had to pretend that this valve over
here was also a pump but it was pumping
in the opposite direction to this pump
you can understand that
whichever pump was pumping had the
highest pumping pressure they would be
the one that would be winning
winning the kind of direction in which
the water would be flowing
likewise if you had a second pump air
flowing pushing in the same direction
you then get another scenario where you
going to get more higher pressure
through the system and once we get down
to looking at circuits with parallel and
c series power sources and resistors or
what have you will come back to that
analogy to start explaining exactly how
that all hangs together but just you
know the important thing to walk away
with from this session is under is
correlating is that fluid dynamics and
pipes are very good way to understand
how electricity flows and wires and to
understand that pressure equates to
voltage that your flow is your current
or your amps and it obviously those
close to relate to the actual energy and
parting to your appliance or whatever
you trying to power
ok so i hope you gained some value out
of that first in the series
thanks very much for watching again what
I asked you to do is certainly if
they're you picked up any mistakes or
errors in that do post comments down
below and I'll either annotate or
correct them with the fallout for the
video what have you also have a link to
this video in my forum so that we can
build up a series on the form words are
easier to have open discussion it's far
easier at the input from other people
who are certainly that's wise than i am
and can have had some good value to this
series and there if you would like to
support this work that I'm doing then
certainly what you can do on my website
and my you can there you can either make
a donation you can be active in the
forum
I have an amazon store that you can
purchase things from or literally just
rating the videos and
watching them supports what i do so I do
appreciate your participation and let me
just watching the videos we will
continue this series are plant literally
as long as there is support for them
I continue and will continue the next
thing we look at is obviously and
resistance we started with the
components like resistors Ohm's law and
diodes transistors logic gates and even
things like the triple five timer and
then start putting circuits together and
what have you
so say if you are gaining any value out
of this then certainly do subscribe and
follow the series and I certainly hope
you learned something from it
thanks very much for watching and I'll
catch you soon for the next one in the
series
