It has always been a question of mine that ive never gotten answered in a way that I understand. Like, how do you go from motion in my generator to electricity for my toaster? how does the energy go from spinny-magnet in the box outside to lightning in my walls? I don’t understand.
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Well, electric motors exist. They make electricity into movement. You make electromagnets that when powered push/pull on static field magnets, and set them up in a ring so the electromagnets activate in sequence to pull the magnetic parts around an axle.
Well it turns out the process also works in reverse. You can “run” an electromagnet in reverse – instead of inputting electricity and getting magnets to move as a result, you can “input” magnet movement, and get electricity out as a result.
When you move a magnet near metal, you create a current in that metal. Or, when you move metal through a magnetic field, you create a current. (This is the basis behind those sensors under the road tarmac that trigger traffic lights when a car shows up. A car is a big hunk of metal, and when it rolls over the magnetic coil buried under the tarmac, that movement causes a current in the coil, and that current is used as a sensor so the traffic light knows a car has just rolled up to the line.)
Imagine electrons as little blue pixies.
These pixies don’t like the “noise” (moving magnetic field made by the generator) so they try to run away from it. The bigger the noise the harder they try to move away from it (voltage) and the more they will push on the pixies ahead of them to do this.
They only have this tube to run away down though (a wire) and when it’s big this is OK as there’s lots of room for the pixies to run BUT we put a small wire (like the one in your toaster) in the way and they all bunch up and can’t get through as easily and they “rub together” as the pixies behind them are pushing them through the small wire. This creates a lot of heat that we use to toast our bread
The spinning of the magnet produces “electrical pressure” in the copper wire attached to it. All the stuff in the wire that are effected by the magnet get pushed in one direction down the wire. More wire and bigger magnets have more stuff being pushed. When you turn your toaster on the built up pressure from all this stuff being squeezed in one direction is released through it.
In the case of the toaster it’s released into a relatively tight wire. This built up energy meeting the pressure in the tight wire makes the wire hot (kind of like friction).
The stuff in the wire is/are electrons.
Think of electricity as pushing electrons. The generator spins a big magnet, which pushes the electrons in a coil of wire. Those electrons push the electrons in power lines, which push those of the wires in your walls. Those electrons can then be pushed through a wire surrounding a magnet, aka an electric motor, or can be used to vibrate a heating element, like what’s in your toaster. Light bulbs work by using those electrons to vibrate gasses in such a way that they emit light.
Just imagine you having a marble inside of an hose, and you want to move it to the other side without lifting the hose, you squeeze the hose and follow the marble through.
Thats just like a generator, only the generator does not move a marble, but electrons in the atoms. An atom can only hold x amounts of electrons and push the electrons to your toaster (just like water in a hose). Since the wires are connected in a loop, they will continue untill the magnetic field in the generator stop moving.
Moving magnetic field creates electric field. That’s the law. If you move a magnet, it creates a field which drags electrons. Electrons being dragged is electric current.
So spinning some magnets around coils drives current through those coils. Connect your toster to the coils and you got yourself a toast 🙂
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