How does a transformer make clicking sounds when being powered ON or when it is bucking/boosting voltages, without having any moving parts inside?
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Some transformers have moving parts. This allows them to adjust for changes in the bulk electric grid while maintainging a set output voltage. They have a mobile tap that can effectivly change how many windings are being used. Basically one side of the transformer has a conection that can move up and down the windings.
Monitoring equipment can make some noise or move about as well.
Usually electronics that have no moving parts but make noise do so due to the electromagnetism inherent to current and wire that causes something metal to move.
In fact, sometimes things that *appear* to have no moving parts in fact do, insomuch as they deliberately use this magnetic effect to achieve something. For example, relays allow you to use a very low voltage circuit as a switch for a much higher voltage one by having the low voltage circuit create an electromagnetic effect which physically pulls a (hidden but audible) bit of metal such that another, entirely separate circuit is now complete. This way the two circuits remain physically isolated from each other, but this low voltage circuit needs to be maintained for the magnetic effect to hold the other circuit together. But you can hear it clicking on and off!
Why do you think there is no part that moves?
There is no part that should that does not mean there is no part that does move. You have two coils with a lot of wire loops and usually an iron core too. The current creates a magnetic field and then they interact with the other parts you get forces too, that is how electric motors work.
Iron is ferromagnetic and is attracted to magnetic fields. A coil with a current is an electromagnet so there is forces between it and the iron core
The transformer that is mounded to are not rigid bodies, they can bend and the magnetic field result in them doing that to a small degree. That causes the sound you hear.
So parts do move even if it is something we designed them to do, we try to stop them from moving.
Clicking sounds are usually relays which are like switches that can be turned on electronically. So when the relay is turned on, there is a voltage applied to a coil inside it which creates a magnetic force that pulls a magnet to connect a circuit, and you hear a click. In fact you can hear these relays even in your gaming consoles sometimes. I think they are more of a safety measure.
Clicking sounds are usually relays which are like switches that can be turned on electronically. So when the relay is turned on, there is a voltage applied to a coil inside it which creates a magnetic force that pulls a magnet to connect a circuit, and you hear a click. In fact you can hear these relays even in your gaming consoles sometimes. I think they are more of a safety measure.
Some transformers have moving parts. This allows them to adjust for changes in the bulk electric grid while maintainging a set output voltage. They have a mobile tap that can effectivly change how many windings are being used. Basically one side of the transformer has a conection that can move up and down the windings.
Monitoring equipment can make some noise or move about as well.
Some transformers have moving parts. This allows them to adjust for changes in the bulk electric grid while maintainging a set output voltage. They have a mobile tap that can effectivly change how many windings are being used. Basically one side of the transformer has a conection that can move up and down the windings.
Monitoring equipment can make some noise or move about as well.
Clicking sounds are usually relays which are like switches that can be turned on electronically. So when the relay is turned on, there is a voltage applied to a coil inside it which creates a magnetic force that pulls a magnet to connect a circuit, and you hear a click. In fact you can hear these relays even in your gaming consoles sometimes. I think they are more of a safety measure.
Well, because depending on how you want to think about it they do have moving parts. Buck/boost converters use coils around a ferrous material, transformers are slightly different but similar. When current flows through it it creates a magnetic field which exerts a small amount of force. This usually causes the parts to “move a bit”. The mosfet or silicon doing the switching may also make some noise, that I don’t have an explanation for. Transformers in substations hum at the sound of the AC frequency of the main lines, in the US this is 60hz. For a buck/boost controller I’m guessing we hear an octave (is that the right term?) because they usually operate 10’a or 100’s of kHz which we can’t hear.
A buck/boost controller won’t have literal moving parts like a relay because the switching speeds are way too high.
MRI scanners are notoriously loud despite not having moving parts other than the table. The commonality here is magnetic coils.
When you run a current through a coil, it creates a magnetic field, which pulls on some metals and any other magnetic coil in the system. Since both MRI scanners and transformers use more than one magnetic coil, they pull on each other. This moves them a bit in place, leading to vibrations the same way striking an object does.
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