I’m in networking and still can’t wrap my head around this. How does changing some bits manages to physically move a hardware, be it small or big?
In: Technology
It’s just a couple stages of amplification.
You can imagine a small digital signal turning on an LED yeah? Well take the same energy used to light an led and have that switch a bigger transistor that might control a 480V motor directly. The only real problem is making sure noise from the high power high voltage stuff doesn’t screw with your low voltage digital stuff.
Like the power doesn’t come from a processor directly. Power comes from high voltage power, pneumatics, or hydraulics. The software is just controlling where the energy goes.
Also some of the amplification might be mechanical. As a real world example you can have a 3.3V digital signal switch a 24V control signal that activates a 24V solenoid pneumatic pilot valve that activates a high flow pneumatic valve.
Or a 3.3V signal that drives a 24V, 2A low current relay that drives a 480V 50A contactor that runs a 20kW motor.
It is a -lot- more important that you don’t mess up your software or electronics though. There is a lot more magic smoke waiting to be released if you break something industrial.
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