Electrician U

Resistance is a very important element of an electrical circuit. As electricians we use the term impedance more than we use resistance, as impedance refers to AC circuits – whereas resistance refers to DC.

Resistance and Impedance are both methods of slowing down current enough for it to be usable. When current is unimpeded (meaning no resistance in it’s way) it can create an immense amount of heat, which may melt the insulation off of the wires or cause the wires to start welding themselves together. This is a very dangerous and dramatic event when it does happen.

So putting a coil of wire in the middle of the circuit slows the current down to a usable level. Most appliances on electrical circuits operate because there is a coil of wire on the inside of them. When current leaves the source and travels into the appliance, it has to travel through instructors and capacitors on its way out of the appliance and back up to the source. In an AC circuit the direction alternates this happens 60 times per second. This works the same way in a standard DC circuit, except with the DC circuit there are resistors, so we call these circuits resistive circuits.

Impedance in an AC circuit has 2 parts that make it up. Inductive reactance and capacitive reactance. I will get more into these in a later video, but for now just understand that there is a definite relationship between a capacitor and and inductor in how they affect current in an AC circuit. An inductor and a capacitor act to cancel some of the effects of each other out if they are both introduced in a circuit. However if only one is in the circuit it will act opposite than the other one would. For example if an inductor is in the circuit, you would have an inductive circuit that would make the Voltage waveform lead the Current waveform. Conversely in a capacitive circuit, the opposite would occur – you’d have a Current waveform leading a Voltage waveform. More on this later.

Want to learn more about becoming an electrician or mastering the craft? Visit ElectricianU.com for courses, resources, and everything you need to succeed! 

For those of us that are more visual learners, I’ve made this show one that can be followed visually.  In this episode I draw out on the white-board how switch loops work, and how to wire them. The part that confuses most people when wiring a switch loop is that you’re twisting together a black and a white wire.  They don’t think about each wire as a conductor, they think of them as a hot and a neutral.  At some point in your career you’ve got to stop thinking in terms of hots and neutrals, and start thinking in terms of conductors and paths.

Essentially a switch loop takes an incoming hot and neutral into the ceiling box, then passes the hot conductor through the box on the white conductor going down to the switch.  From that switch box current travels on the black conductor back up to the ceiling box.  At the end of it you should have 3 sets of wires to concern yourself with in that ceiling box.  1) One independent white wire (neutral from electrical panel), 2) One independent black wire (switch-leg from switch box below), and 3) A wirenutted black and white conductor pushed in the back of the box that’s made up of the incoming hot from the panel (black), and the outgoing (white) to the switch.

That’s it!  Now we just hang the fixture and hook the fixture black and white wires, to our ceiling box black and white wires.  Don’t forget to hook up ground if it’s a metal fixture.  Grounding is still very important and will always be.

Want to learn more about becoming an electrician or mastering the craft? Visit ElectricianU.com for courses, resources, and everything you need to succeed! 

This episode is all about breakers, from the outside-in. I cover the differences between single-pole, two-pole, and 3-pole breakers. I talk about how a breaker is a simple spring-held mechanical switch that operates by an internal electromagnet.

Finally I take a Square D single-pole breaker apart and show you how a breaker trips, and how the mechanics of the inside of a breaker works.

Want to learn more about becoming an electrician or mastering the craft? Visit ElectricianU.com for courses, resources, and everything you need to succeed! 

This episode goes over the many different types of electrical test-equipment that we use out in the field. There are many more brands and types out there, but this is a good place to start if you’re getting into the electrical trade and are wondering which tester you should buy.

Want to learn more about becoming an electrician or mastering the craft? Visit ElectricianU.com for courses, resources, and everything you need to succeed! 

Welcome to Electrician U! Electrical Wizardry taught by an electrician, to electricians! No more having to suffer through engineering and physics lectures to try to gain insight on how electricity works, and which components do what.

Want to learn more about becoming an electrician or mastering the craft? Visit ElectricianU.com for courses, resources, and everything you need to succeed!