Jason Sostaric

[Jason Sostaric]

Also wondering what “wiggy” is?
Some type of meter or testing device, but could someone fill in the details and where’s the best place to buy one?

Thanks!

[Jason Sostaric]

Sam, it’s the way it’s labeled that messed me up (and that the library computer was shutting down as I was coming to these questions and had no time for more than a superficial consideration of what was really going on). As I see it now, it’s just one of our “L’s” from mains for L1/L2, and our standard N for N1/N2… and from there we are just checking the side downstream of the inductor wrt the upstream side. Is that about it?

[Jason Sostaric]

Hi Sam!

Thanks for the reply.
Yes, it does make sense, and I did see those things, but I looked at them through the lens of what I had already learned about L1, L2, and N which caused the confusion. I was wondering how we now had created two neutral lines and how they resolved and if that mattered! Heheh! I wish I could see the rest of the circuit, cause I’m still scratching my head a bit over the whole thing. I’d like to retake the test, but still don’t feel really confident. Anything else you can recommend I do to help what is going on here and the points of the question to sink in?

Thanks!
J

[Jason Sostaric]

I had assumed they were. If they are not, what is the point of having 2? They are serving different purposes, but what?

[Jason Sostaric]

Aren’t they one-and-the-same?

[Jason Sostaric]

Then am I right in thinking we test L2 wrt N2 since we are seeing if the voltage spikes (or is it unwelcome frequencies) have been eliminated from “upstream” ?

Cheers!

[Jason Sostaric]

OR….

Is it that we have 240 vac on the first coil (L1-L2) wrt Neutral (N1-N2) and the transformer’s only fcn is to smoothe the current coming from the 1 side and going to the 2 side?

Cheers!

[Jason Sostaric]

I get this, and yet, I don’t.

Theoretically, and in the isolated, concept-malware sandbox of my mind, I feel like I “grasp” the concept if I suspend belief about the story of how electrons are flowing in a wire. This is what makes me uncomfortable. I can’t see how that can be true, and at the same time, we have a wire (the secondary) whose center is the electrical equivalent of a white hole (or the opposite of a black hole) pouring out opposing electrical potentials in both directions away from its center.

If I start with 120 volts AC, and I increase the voltage bit by bit, I don’t do that by subtracting voltage, I must continue to add it positively on the positive peak and negatively on the negative peak, no? 120+120=240. Likewise, -120-120=-240. But that is not the situation here. Conceptually I understand the total difference of potential of -120 to +120, but it feels like something is missing.

How does the secondary, one continuous wire, send out current in opposite directions from its center?

What happens if we take an L1 from my house and an L1 from my neighbor, Homer’s house, connect them and send them down a third wire into a load? When we measure voltage, assuming all three wires are the same resistance, do we see it has doubled (since we have doubled the relative resistance)? What if our third wire is exactly double the thickness of the 2 L1’s (and thus shares their combined resistance)?

Might it, in fact, maybe a misnomer to call the voltages on L1 and L2 opposites? Are they not more like supplements (or complements) if they are to be additive? The direction seems more arbitrary (scalar?) (though in reality it seems it should not be) especially when we look at the “240 Volts AC in Household” graph…. because we could just as easily have started the 240 sin wave at the bottom instead of the top, right?

I feel like my answer lies in what is going on in the secondary…

By the way, why does the diagram (not the graph) show the secondary with more wraps than the primary? I’m being picky, I suppose, but doesn’t that indicate that we’d be stepping up the voltage and not stepping it down?

Sorry if these are all dumb newby questions with simple answers, and thank you ahead of time, if they are dumb newby questions for helping me to understand.

Cheers!
Jay

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