We recently had a transformer blow in our neighborhood and now my 3 year old is asking me how it works and I honestly don’t know. Can anyone electrical transformers?
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To understand what they do, you need to understand the electricity grid. High-voltage lines are like slow, steady rivers carrying lots of water, while your home power supply is like a narrow creek.
A transformer takes a big stream and transforms this into narrow streams supplying the entire neighborhood.
But that’s just *what* they do. *How* they work a pretty genius application of electromagnetism and AC current, explaining that is basically impossible if you don’t know how what a magnetic field or electric current is.
Basically, the AC current is like a swing, going back and forth. High-voltage lines swing really high, but with the magic of electromagnets you can “attach” a second swing that swings at the same rate (all power lines in the US swing at 50 times/second), but with much less intensity. This is your 120V end-user power supply).
To do so, you let current flow through a coil, and have a seperate cable mixed into this coil (ie two coils in one). The swinging in one coil creates a magnetic field, which creates swinging in the second coil. But since the second coil is less tightly wound, it swings less intensely there, thanks to ✨electromagnetism✨
To understand what they do, you need to understand the electricity grid. High-voltage lines are like slow, steady rivers carrying lots of water, while your home power supply is like a narrow creek.
A transformer takes a big stream and transforms this into narrow streams supplying the entire neighborhood.
But that’s just *what* they do. *How* they work a pretty genius application of electromagnetism and AC current, explaining that is basically impossible if you don’t know how what a magnetic field or electric current is.
Basically, the AC current is like a swing, going back and forth. High-voltage lines swing really high, but with the magic of electromagnets you can “attach” a second swing that swings at the same rate (all power lines in the US swing at 50 times/second), but with much less intensity. This is your 120V end-user power supply).
To do so, you let current flow through a coil, and have a seperate cable mixed into this coil (ie two coils in one). The swinging in one coil creates a magnetic field, which creates swinging in the second coil. But since the second coil is less tightly wound, it swings less intensely there, thanks to ✨electromagnetism✨
I think a more ELI5 response would be to compare it to something hot. If you have one piece of metal that is red hot, if you put it close to another piece of metal it will get warmed up too, but not as hot. You can figure out how hot to make the second piece of metal based off the distance between them, the material that makes it or other factors.
This is like how the magnetic field of the primary of a transformer transfers electricity to the secondary. It creates a magnetic field that induces another magnetic field on the secondary whose voltage is dependant on a variety of factors such as distance, number of turns in the wire that makes up the coil etc.
I think a more ELI5 response would be to compare it to something hot. If you have one piece of metal that is red hot, if you put it close to another piece of metal it will get warmed up too, but not as hot. You can figure out how hot to make the second piece of metal based off the distance between them, the material that makes it or other factors.
This is like how the magnetic field of the primary of a transformer transfers electricity to the secondary. It creates a magnetic field that induces another magnetic field on the secondary whose voltage is dependant on a variety of factors such as distance, number of turns in the wire that makes up the coil etc.
I think a more ELI5 response would be to compare it to something hot. If you have one piece of metal that is red hot, if you put it close to another piece of metal it will get warmed up too, but not as hot. You can figure out how hot to make the second piece of metal based off the distance between them, the material that makes it or other factors.
This is like how the magnetic field of the primary of a transformer transfers electricity to the secondary. It creates a magnetic field that induces another magnetic field on the secondary whose voltage is dependant on a variety of factors such as distance, number of turns in the wire that makes up the coil etc.
I’ll try ELI3- the power plant spins a wheel that makes wires go past magnets. This makes the elections in the wire wiggle back and forth (alternating current). They are wiggling back and forth so strong (high voltage) that it makes all the other elections down the wire also wiggle. It is also so strong it would kill people and destroy your appliances if it went through them.
But, if we put some of those wires next to a second set of wires (without touching) then the wiggly electrons can push the elections in the second wire just a little bit. These electrons are not strong enough to break things in your house but they will still hurt you.
If something connects those two sets of wires then a breaker pops so that nothing else breaks.
I’ll try ELI3- the power plant spins a wheel that makes wires go past magnets. This makes the elections in the wire wiggle back and forth (alternating current). They are wiggling back and forth so strong (high voltage) that it makes all the other elections down the wire also wiggle. It is also so strong it would kill people and destroy your appliances if it went through them.
But, if we put some of those wires next to a second set of wires (without touching) then the wiggly electrons can push the elections in the second wire just a little bit. These electrons are not strong enough to break things in your house but they will still hurt you.
If something connects those two sets of wires then a breaker pops so that nothing else breaks.
I’ll try ELI3- the power plant spins a wheel that makes wires go past magnets. This makes the elections in the wire wiggle back and forth (alternating current). They are wiggling back and forth so strong (high voltage) that it makes all the other elections down the wire also wiggle. It is also so strong it would kill people and destroy your appliances if it went through them.
But, if we put some of those wires next to a second set of wires (without touching) then the wiggly electrons can push the elections in the second wire just a little bit. These electrons are not strong enough to break things in your house but they will still hurt you.
If something connects those two sets of wires then a breaker pops so that nothing else breaks.
A transformer is basically a bunch of coils that convert one AC voltage to another, based on the output side having a different number of coils than the input side.
Neighborhood transformers “blow” because they use a whole lot of mineral oil as a cheap coolant, so when they suffer a catastrophic failure, the coolant burns/explodes.
A transformer is basically a bunch of coils that convert one AC voltage to another, based on the output side having a different number of coils than the input side.
Neighborhood transformers “blow” because they use a whole lot of mineral oil as a cheap coolant, so when they suffer a catastrophic failure, the coolant burns/explodes.
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