electricity with Mekkor today: sorry, but we also need the transistor

Hello and welcome to another post about electricity *wohooooo*

i actually wanted to post that yesterday but then my internet connection broke down.
So i had to wait half a day to post something new. Damn storm.

Well, last time i said we would make something incredibly interesting. But i have to disappoint you. Sorry, we have to learn some things about another electrical component first.

But this component is really something usefull.
It is the:
Transistor *tadaaaa*

What is an transistor?
A transistor is like a switch where you can regulate how much current flows through it.
A transistor is also an amplifier.
To understand how a transistor as an amplifier works, we would need more info than i already gave you + there are so many different transistors that your head may explode if i explain them all to you.
So we just use the transistor as a switch.

I personally think that this picture explains it really well.

Look, the more water flows though the little red gate, the more it opens the big red gate.
That means:
The more voltage is onto the "Basis" the more opens the "Kollektor" to let more current though.
If there is no voltage onto the "Basis", the "Kollektor" is non-conductive.

Imagine that you have to controll when a current circuit is conductive and when not. You would always have to push a button.
With a transistor, you can controll that without any buttons. The transistor is only conductive if there is voltage onto the "Basis". Thats easier and faster than pushing a button.

But way dont we just use a normal switch instead of this thing? Let me explain it like this:
If we had a perfect switch, what properties should it have.

- endless resistance if non-conductive
- no resistance if conductive
- no wear
- react immediately


A normal switch has:
- endless resistance if non-conductive
- a little resistance if conductive
- wear
- reacts slowly because you have to push a button/flip a switch/whatever and that takes a few milliseconds

A transistor has:
- almost endless resistance if non-conductive
- a little resistance if conductive
- no wear
- reacts immediatly

Now you see, that a transistor is a faster switch than a normal switch, has no wear and can also be used as an amplifier. Clear victory for the transistor.

Now we know (a little) about transistors. Next time we are going to build something... hopefully ^^

Bye :D

electricity with Mekkor today: the all mighty capacitor

Hello to everyone who actually reads this ^^

*BOOM* there goes the 100-follower-wall down.  :D

SOOOO, today i'll teach you about capacitor and after that i'll give you a little preview on what we are going to build the next time :o

At first, capacitor have the unit farad. (wow, now everyone understood what capacitor are)
With that said, let me explain how a capacitor works.
There are 2 plates with a non-conductive material between them.

Now we put the + pole on one side and the - pole on the other on our power supply of a few volts.
(for the love of god, please dont put a condensator in your power socket. PLEASE DONT BE SO STUPID! The thing will explode before you even recorgnize it!!!)
 You may think "there is no way that current could flow there, capacitor are non-conductive." Right and wrong.
Because of the 2 plates, electrons from the plus pole push on the one plate while electrons from the - pole are pulled out of the plate. Through the capacitor flows no current but everywhere else.
Q:
"Does that mean, there is a permanent flow of current because of that capacitor ?"
A:
No! Remember what i wrote about voltage? Its the potential difference between 2 points and on the biggest resistance stands the biggest voltage.
=> The capacitor is non-conductive so it is the biggest resistance and so the condensator will charge up to the whole supply voltage.

Q:
"But how long does it take till the voltage stands on the capacitor or is this instantly?"
A:
You can imagine the capacitor as a battery. It charges upon the supply voltage. That is determinated by this formula:
t (time) = R (resistance) x F (farad)

For Example:

We have a capacitor with 1mF (MilliFarad) and a resistor with 1kOhm. Our supply voltage is 5V.



t = 1kOhm x 1mF
t = 1

After 5 times that time the capacitor is "fully charged". So you see, the bigger the resistance of the wire/resistor is and the higher the capacity is, the longer the capacitor charges.
And after the same formula the capacitor discharges itself if you connect the 2 poles of the condensator.



Some of you might think now: "2 plates with a non-conductive material between them... does that mean 2 simple cables are a capacitor, too?"
Yes, you are right. But the less the surface of one plate is and the higher the distance between those plates is, the less is the farad of our "capacitor".
There are areas of use where this is very important but not for our purposes.

With that we can make frequenzys, we can let things blink, we can have our own little battery and we have a little buzzer.
In my apprentienceship, me and the others charged capacitors with around 20 volt. You put the 2 poles on someones arm/leg/neck/whatever and brizzl, the poor victim gets a little electrical shock ^^

aaaaaaaaand now, the thing that could be your thing after you build the thing next time.

Tadaaaaaaa.... wait, what is that? Only one way to find that out ;D

Bye :D

McSugar and the sickness of life

Hi there followers,
yesterday was a fine day. A rainy sunday. I love these days. My room is in the loft, so in the summer it can get really hot in there. My old computer died that way.  Also it was to rainy to get outside so my father couldnt work in the backyard and i didnt have to help. Spent the whole day playing video games.... i love these days...
As afternoon came, i got a phone call from one of my friends. An old friend had his 20th birthday and it would be so much fun if we celebrate it in McDonalds. Playing like little kids in the ball pool and chilling outside under the stars (remember: it was raining = no stars at the sky).
I couldnt refuse that offer.
I talked with the others and we decided that we would buy a cheese burger with a candle at midnight and sing "happy birthday" for him.
So at midnight i ordered a single cheese burger with a candle on top. But the Mc personal have had a better idea.
A Big Mäc cake!
rolls from a Big Mäc, with marmelade, covered in sugar, covered in smarties with a burning candle on top of it. It looked so COOL and it was for free. They said, its a present from McDonalds for my friend.
But after we ate that thing, another Mc employee came to us with a 1,5L cup filled with vanilla ice cream, chocolate souce, caramel and smarties.
I had the sugar flash of my life. After we tried to finish the ice cream but failed because of all that caramel at the bottom of the cup we left McDonalds and drove home.
I was lying for about 3 hours in my bed and couldnt sleep. The sugar kept me awake. Because of that, i only got 2 hours of sleep and had to stand up at 5 am to get to work. I still feel so sick. I ate only bread and water for lunch. Everything that has sugar is so disgusting at the moment.
And what did i learned?
Celebrate you damn birthday at Burger King, maybe they'll deep-fry a Whopper just for me ;D

Bye :D

Finally a new game

Hello and welcome to todays game review :D

At first i want to say.... WHAT? Over 60 followers already? Niiiiiiiice :D

Back to topic.

i wrote a lot that has to settle into your brain and after all that learning i think a new game will be the right thing

With that said, lets talk about:

Borderlands

Borderlands is an rpg-shooter-game.

The story:
On the planet "Pandora" exists an old tale. The tale says, that there is, somewhere on Pandora, a chamber which is filled with gold, high-end alien technology and glory for whoever finds the chamber. But no one ever found it and those who searched for it are now crazy after all that time searching the whole planet or dead.
But an angel will help the choosen one to find the chamber and watch over him while he has to make his way though all the dangers on Pandora.
End


After you listend to that old tale, you have to choose between 4 "heroes".
Pandora is not a safe, nice planet where you are welcomed with flowers and a free drink. On this planet only the strongest survives. 99% of the living on pandora tries to kill you.
When you arrive, a ghost or more like a vision of an angel appears and says that the chamber exists and you should find it.
There are some small villages and even a town but they are terrorized by a big group of bandits.
So you help the villages fighting the bandits, trying to stay alive since almost every animal that lives on pandora wants to kill you, and you make some friends.
Luckily an archaeologist found a lot of hints where the chamber could be.
While still dealing with the monsters and bandits you try to find crystals which are leading to the chamber. But the crystals are guarded by giant monsters or alien creatures.
After getting the last crystal, the imperial army takes over the planet, cuts down every communication, steals all your crystals and makes it way to the chamber.
But not while you are still alive.

Dont want to tell you to much (which i already did). Its all very post-apocalyptic and the graphic might not be everyones taste.
But the game is great.
- its an ego-shooter where you have to kill everything that stands in your way
(every mother with an overprotecting complex should have already stoped reading)
- over thousand! of weapons
- a story which is acutally more or less interessting
- you can play it with up to 3 friends
- each class is different and has a unique skill
- a ton of sidequests
- add-ons (extra costs) that inculde a zombie island, a arena to fight via internet with friends/strangers and a new area where you fight the imperial army

Watch this video and if you still think "damn, that is just what i need" buy it. On steam it costs 20$ or so.
I bought it right after it came on the market and played for 2 weeks or so. Did almost every sidequest that was possible. After that, i started the game again with a different class. I forgot almost everything of the first half and had to guess again what i have to do to get this or that item. ^^

Thats it for now.
Bye :D

new post, new infos

Hi there,

so today i dont have that much time to write a post where you have to scroll 5mins to reach the bottom.
So im going to make that quick and finish the electronic basics.

Frequenzy:
The amount of how many times something happens in 1 second.
For Example:
Your heart beats, if you are relaxed, around 1 - 1.2 times per second.
To know the frequenzy you have to divide 1 through the seconds.
Example:
In my country (i dont know if this is everywhere in the world) the sinus wave of the voltage of my power socket has 50 Hertz.
Now we know that the sinus wave repeats itself 50 times each second.
To know how long 1 sinus wave takes, we have to calculate like this:
t (time in seconds) =  1 /  F (frequenzy in Hertz)
t = 1 / 50
t = 0.02 seconds (20milliseconds)

If you put your finger into the power socket, the current is not the worst that will happen to you. You may have some burnings but the frequenzy is way more dangerous.
Because the current is higher than your body signals, it will force your heart to beat 50 times each second!
Believe me when i say: You wont survive that for to long.

Now i maybe scared some of you guys off from current, voltage and resistance but thats just what i wanted. I think its better to first scare you before i will tell you what you can do with the knowledge you now have. (its not much but enough to do some things).
If i told you from the beginning "oh, its so great you should try that too. so easy, so fun." Some of you may have had hurt themselfs because they were to thoughtless.

Next time... dont know, you have to wait and hope it will be something interessting ^^
bye :D

efficiency of everything!

Hi followers,

today im going to write something totally different, so be pepared to read some crazy stuff ^^

Okay, yesterday i had a conversation with a friend of mine (yeah, i have friends.... weird). It was about the efficiency of different motor types because he is a auto mechanic.
Then whe have seen a piece of bun on the floor and i asked "ever wondered what the efficiency of a bun is?"
After that question we had a huge discussion what you have to research to find that out.
I couldnt resist so i have done some research:
effeciency = energy you can use from it / energy you put into something
Example:
A 60W light bulb has a efficiency of 5%. You put 60W of power in it and only 5% are formed into light. the rest is warmth.
I thought buns would be better but read this:

So a normal bun has around 1053 kJoule of energy for your body.
not much because a normal adult man needs 7100 kJ each day. That doesnt mean you should just eat 7 buns each day. But theoretically it would be enough.
Check.

Lets say we already have all incredience at home and wont calculate what energy there would be needed to make the incrediences. That would be to much.
Your body needs for 10min of making the pastry around 55kjoule.
While you just watch 20min of backing the buns your body needs around 58,8kjoule.
A normal oven uses 1500 - 2000 Watt each hour. We bake our bun for 20min so lets say we need 300W just for the oven.
Remember:
Until now, we just have the energy we need for our oven and our own energy.
We dont have the energy which is needed to create all the incrediences. But after 15min of googling i gave up.
300Watt/20min are 1,8MJ (this was also googled) ^^

efficiency = energy output / energy put
efficiency of a bun =  energy we get from the bun / energy you put in to create it
efficiency of a bun =  1053 kJ / (55KJ + 58,8KJ + 1,8MJ)
efficiency of a bun =  1053 KJ / 1.9138 MJ
efficiency of a bun =  0,0055%


Talking about diesel motors would be bad with an efficiency of 30%....
Buns are killing this world!

Bye ;D


Edit:
Made a mistake but corrected it with a mistake. 7000 buns a day? Nonsense! just 7. But i calculated wrong in the first place with the numbers but in the end the result was the same. Fighting mistakes with mistakes. Yeah!

Current and the crazy world of electronics

Hi again my dear followers ^^

Sorry that i didnt wrote something in the last few days. My 300 € Mainboard just gave up. Looks like a little SMD-Resistor burned through. Just a few weeks after my garantee canceled. Accident?
I once heard a rumor that things like a vacuum cleaner are build to break a few weeks/month after the garantee canceled so you have to buy a new one. It would be easy to take some components that have a reduced lifespan.
So now i have a laptop till next month when i get my salary to buy myself a new mainboard and if the worst case comes my CPU may have died to.

But enough of my problems with computer hardware. Im here to tell you about current after i told you last time about voltage.
We remember:
Voltage is not real. It's just a unit. But current is real. Real enough to kill you if you get to much. Current has the unit Ampere and describes the flow of electrons through a medium.
Physic-basics 1:
- Electrons are negative loaded
- unequal loaded poles attract each other

So, now we understand why the current flows from the - pole to the + pole. To make each pole equal. Thats also the reason why batteries can be unloaded.
Technically the current flows from the - pole to the + pole but on all blueprints its from the + pole to the - pole. Thats because as the current was discorvered the "electricans" fucked some things up and made some rules which were false. After they had discovered their mistake it was to late and they said "wayne, lets keep it like this."

So if you lick at a 12V battery, your tonuge conects the + pole and the -pole. Theoreticaly your body has a resistance between your hand and your feet of 1000 Ohm. In the reality its way more (most times around 2.000.000 Ohm and more) but the people who had to work out safety-rules had to assume a worst case senario like you are standing in the rain, barefoot on wet earth and your skin is soggy that your body resistance is lowered.
So your tonuge is connecting the 2 poles and current can flow.
Lets calculate:
We want to know how much current flows. So we take the formula:
I (Ampere) = U (Voltage) / R (Resistance)
I = 12 V / 1000 Ohm
I = 12mA
So,  if you have no skin and would touch a 12 V battery, then you may already have problems to let the battery go.
Good to know:
The human body signals work with 0,000000000004 - 0,008 Ampere (wide range, i know but its good to not feel every signal your brain gives to your bodyparts) and your body withstands around 0,05 Ampere ( 50mA) before you are risking serious inner burnings.

Now you know about the risks with electronics. Next time:
resistance, frequenzy and some new formulas.
Bye :D