Comment on Why is amperage more "obscure" than voltage (or watts)?

• givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  It’s been a minute since I learned electrical stuff, so I might be off on details.

  Like maybe a pretty steady amperage from the cord and it’s regulated inside thru resistance or something more complicated?

  But that’s the general gist of why not all parts of the equation can be static.

  The advertised Wattage is also “max” it can use/produce.

  Like a 850watt power supply can handle an 850 power watt draw, but if all the computer is doing is playing YouTube, it’s going to draw a lot less amps, and produce a lot less watts as a result. If it needs more watts, it “pull” more amps to make them

  Steam turbines are actually self regulating because of this. The more power being used, the more amps are automatically produced. Once you spin it up it manages its own speed.

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  • cecilkorik@lemmy.ca ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Steam turbines are actually self regulating because of this. The more power being used, the more amps are automatically produced. Once you spin it up it manages its own speed.

    This is sort of true, within a narrow operating window and an idealized environment, but also pretty simplified. That sort of application of Ohm’s law only works according to the naive interpretation when you’re talking about ideal DC devices. In reality, inductance and capacitance become significant and muddy the waters a lot when you start getting into real power grids with huge inductive loads like motors and transformers all over them, and steam turbines trip and/or bypass all the time to avoid overload or overspeed.

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