liveforphysics
100 TW
I don't understand what 'electricity' is, or how any electrical components actually work.
I can give you the generally accepted concept of an inductor in my own words though, but understand it can only be a model.
For any and every bit of motion of current, a magnetic field is created proportionately to the magnitude of the current. Even if you instantly apply say 1000vdc to just shorting a tiny 1cm piece of big fat 0000awg cable, there is a delay where a magnetic field must grow before that current can flow in this short. This is the current rise time in the circuit. People often represent it as change in current over change in time, or dI/dT. It just means the rate current is rising.
If you have a device that only sends spikes of voltage (like these DIAC/TRIAC/QUADRAC) chopper circuits provide as output, and you simply connected some big resistive/capacitive load right on this output with no inductance in the circuit (which would be impossible), each spike would cause current spikes proportional to the V=IR heating of that voltage of the spikes. This could mean you are making a 10A average current to the battery by sending 1000A current spikes on a 1% duty cycle. The SCRs get hammered. The power factor is hammered. The losses are massive and the electrical noise radiated would look wild of your had a good spectrum analyzer to gain the illusion of observing it.
If you take the same circuit, but add in a inductance value great enough as to prevent the inductor from saturating, the spikes in voltage will no longer be causing 1000A spikes, rather they will just be absorbed completely into the resulting magnetic field imposed in the core of the inductor. Then when the voltage spike ends, rather than current falling off, the core of the inductor has energy stored in its core, that now begins to collapse. As it's field collapses, the field lines cutting through the windings result in a BEMF induced voltage much the same as when you move your motor tooth by a magnet. The energy of this field collapsing induces the BEMF voltage to continue to drive current during the whole "off" period for the SCR.
The end effect for your circuit:
What was once 100A-1000A destructive inefficient spikes becomes smoothed, steady DC with the optimal inductor.
This is a situation where even a non optimal inductor would help quite a lot though. I have seen your work and know you have made being cheap into a sport/virtue. You can make your own inductor by simply coiling wire. However, you will need to make a very large coil if it doesn't have a core to equal the same effect as a small core on an iron core.
You can make one by chucking a 1/2 drive extension in a cordless drill to wrap it with 10awg. It's a poor core material though due to eddys.
I can give you the generally accepted concept of an inductor in my own words though, but understand it can only be a model.
For any and every bit of motion of current, a magnetic field is created proportionately to the magnitude of the current. Even if you instantly apply say 1000vdc to just shorting a tiny 1cm piece of big fat 0000awg cable, there is a delay where a magnetic field must grow before that current can flow in this short. This is the current rise time in the circuit. People often represent it as change in current over change in time, or dI/dT. It just means the rate current is rising.
If you have a device that only sends spikes of voltage (like these DIAC/TRIAC/QUADRAC) chopper circuits provide as output, and you simply connected some big resistive/capacitive load right on this output with no inductance in the circuit (which would be impossible), each spike would cause current spikes proportional to the V=IR heating of that voltage of the spikes. This could mean you are making a 10A average current to the battery by sending 1000A current spikes on a 1% duty cycle. The SCRs get hammered. The power factor is hammered. The losses are massive and the electrical noise radiated would look wild of your had a good spectrum analyzer to gain the illusion of observing it.
If you take the same circuit, but add in a inductance value great enough as to prevent the inductor from saturating, the spikes in voltage will no longer be causing 1000A spikes, rather they will just be absorbed completely into the resulting magnetic field imposed in the core of the inductor. Then when the voltage spike ends, rather than current falling off, the core of the inductor has energy stored in its core, that now begins to collapse. As it's field collapses, the field lines cutting through the windings result in a BEMF induced voltage much the same as when you move your motor tooth by a magnet. The energy of this field collapsing induces the BEMF voltage to continue to drive current during the whole "off" period for the SCR.
The end effect for your circuit:
What was once 100A-1000A destructive inefficient spikes becomes smoothed, steady DC with the optimal inductor.
This is a situation where even a non optimal inductor would help quite a lot though. I have seen your work and know you have made being cheap into a sport/virtue. You can make your own inductor by simply coiling wire. However, you will need to make a very large coil if it doesn't have a core to equal the same effect as a small core on an iron core.
You can make one by chucking a 1/2 drive extension in a cordless drill to wrap it with 10awg. It's a poor core material though due to eddys.
