View Single Post
Community Council | Posts: 4,920 | Thanked: 12,867 times | Joined on May 2012 @ Southerrn Finland
#4
Originally Posted by pichlo View Post
EDIT: Thanks, juice, for a more detailed answer. You beat me to it
No problem

As long as we are on the subject, let's keep this going and try to teach people a bit. Might come handy at some point.

So. There are three basic measurable electrical properties usually involved, and 2 basic physical laws, Ohm's law and Kirchoff's second law.

Generally; when circuits are connected together so that energy is transferred from a source circuit to a drain circuit the following principles apply;
  • The output voltage of the source and the internal impedance of the drain determine the current that flows in the circuit, and the transferred power is the product of the voltage and the current; I=U/R, P=U*I
  • If the output voltage of the source is higher than what the drain is expecting, there will most probably be damage to the drain device.
  • If the input impedance of the drain is lower than what the source expects, there will most probably be damage to the source device

In both of the 2 last bullets the end result might be that you will have smelly blue smoke coming out from either the source or the drain.
This is why people in Electrical Engineering business often say that circuits work by smoke. When the smoke escapes, the circuit no longer works.
 

The Following 7 Users Say Thank You to juiceme For This Useful Post: