I at all times questioned the right way to clarify to a layman the distinction between ‘Electrical energy’ and ‘Electronics’. Nicely, I attempted to elucidate to them on a lighter notice that ‘Electrical energy’ is a wild tiger and ‘Electronics’ is a tamed pet!
Merely press the button and {the electrical} energy is fed to the load. That’s ‘Electrical operation’.
Electronics is a myriad manifestation of Electrical energy. In ‘Digital operation’, you may alter the voltage, restrict the present, change the frequency, modify the waveform, modulate the heartbeat width, choose a mode of operation, invert the facility provide, time the operation, and so forth! Electronics use Electrical energy in a ‘tailored’ vogue. Electronics, thus, is a ‘decisionmaker’.
Right here I want to share an experimental circuit I assembled as a interest venture again in 1982 to attempt to clarify the distinction between Electrical energy and Electronics. It’s primarily based on a schematic I got here throughout in a e-book titled ‘ Sensible SCR and TRIAC tasks’ by M C Sharma (BPB Publishers). The venture continues to be working.
The goal of the article is simply to elucidate the distinction talked about above therefore the technicalities should not mentioned. The output within the venture is an incandescent filament bulb. There are two ‘push-to-on’ switches A and B. As per the schematic, when swap A is pushed, the bulb is switched on ‘electrically’. When swap B is pushed, the bulb is switched on ‘electronically’. From only a bodily remark we see that the bulb glows in each circumstances. Nonetheless, curiously, right here lies the distinction between electrical operation and digital operation.
When swap A is pushed, {the electrical} energy instantly rushes in randomly from anyplace within the half cycle of the sine wave and worse whether it is in the course of the half sine wave cycle. This causes undesirable and uncontrolled results like high-frequency spikes referred to as ‘radio frequency interference’ within the close by setting. The identical factor would possibly occur when swap A is launched to modify off the facility abruptly anyplace within the half cycle of the sine wave. The state of affairs is most annoying when there’s quick and repeated switching. That is ungraceful and ‘wild’ electrical switching.
When swap B is pushed, the SCR conducts solely when the triggering voltage is underneath roughly 10 volts on the rising of the DC pulse very near zero crossing. As soon as the voltage rises above 10 volts, the transistor pair conducts and latches and the SCR can’t be triggered however has to attend until the following DC pulse begins. So the bulb is switched on solely firstly of the rising DC pulse very near zero crossing the place radio frequency technology is negligibly low. The identical factor occurs when swap B is launched to modify off the facility. The SCR continues to conduct until the following zero crossing even when swap B is launched anytime and there’s no radio frequency interference in any respect throughout switch-off operation. That is swish and ‘tamed’ digital switching!
Electronics is thus a genteel model of Electrical energy!
