When working around mains voltages, it can be useful to know whether a given circuit is live or not. While this can be done by direct connection with a multimeter, non-contact methods are available ...

Capacitors behave differently than resistors, where resistors allow a flow of electrons through them directly proportional to the voltage drop, and capacitors oppose changes in voltage by drawing or ...

If you have ever read advanced textbooks or papers about electronics, you may have been surprised to see the use of complex numbers used in the analysis of AC circuits. A complex number has two parts: ...

The previous tutorials featured resistors in direct current (DC) circuits wherein the voltage and current have been assumed to be of constant polarity, flow and direction. The voltage, current and ...

Let's start with DC voltage, one of the simplest and most-used multimeter measurements. The DC voltage measurement is used to determine the difference in electrical potential between two points in a ...

This is the first of a two-part series on the processes used to find the short circuit current duties of circuit breakers and fuses. In Part 1, we’ll use a simplified power system to illustrate the ...

As the story goes, the rock band AC/DC took its name from a label on an old sewing machine in the Young brothers’ home. It must have meant that the machine could run on either alternating-current or ...

This video explains how inductors work and how they store energy in a magnetic field when electrical current flows through them. Inductors are passive components used to resist sudden changes in ...

Churning with voltage and resembling an explosion at the wire factory, the breaker panel exudes mystique. But it's just a big switch, filled with other smaller ­switches, which lead to the switches ...