CIRCUIT

Please 'Boom' Responsibly As most of you have noticed, the noise ordinances have become much tougher lately. Most of this is due to idiots, yes IDIOTS, who drive through residential areas with their windows down while their system is playing at full power. To make things worse, the music they listen to has all sorts of foul language that's not suitable for small children, (who may be playing outside). There are even a few people, who are even beyond idiot status, that play their systems at full power through residential areas after 10:00 PM (when many people go to bed). I don't believe that this type of behavior is good for the industry. If the fines get too stiff, people will stop buying large systems. If this happens, more people will get out of car audio (who wants a mediocre system). People get interested in things because they're exciting. A deck and four 6.5" speakers are not going to interest many of the younger car audio enthusiasts. If car audio enthusiasts keep annoying more and more people, the fines will keep getting tougher. All of this will only reduce interest in the equipment that fuels the industry. If you want to listen to your system at full volume, get out on the highway where there's little chance of bothering anyone. When you get to a red light, turn it down. If the only thing attractive about you is your 'system', you have some work to do. Bottom line... Think about what you're doing. Think about other people. It's not the end of the world if you have to turn the volume down for a little while.

Circuit:: A circuit is simply an electrical path in which current flows. It can be as simple as a battery lighting a light bulb or as complex as some of the circuits in the computer you're using. A circuit may contain any number of devices as long as current flows into one terminal and out of another terminal back to the power source, it's a circuit.
Note:: Some people say that a bad (intermittant) connection is a short (circuit). A short circuit would cause current to flow through a path other than the intended path. Usually the short path has very little resistance, causing excessive amounts of current to flow out of the power supply. When a power wire shorts to ground causing a fuse to blow, that's a short circuit. If something turns on and off when you move a wire or connector, that's an intermittantly open connection (open when the device turns off).

Conventional Flow vs Electron Flow in DC Circuits: In the DC circuit demo above, the current flow is 'electron' flow. This means that it shows the 'electrons' (note the little E in the moving particle) flowing from the negative terminal of the power source (the battery). This is the way the current is actually flowing. Most of the time, people consider the flow of current to go from the positive terminal to the negative terminal. This is called 'conventional' current flow. If you need to imagine the current flow from positive to negative (much easier for most people), that's fine. When you hear someone arguing about current flow and it's actual direction of flow, ask them if they're talking about electron flow or conventional flow.

As a side note... In AC circuits, the polarity is continuously changing so you have electrons flowing both ways in the circuit. Keep reading through the directory in order and the AC/DC concept will be explained shortly.

Note: Unless otherwise noted (by the use of an 'E' in the moving particle or by a text note), current flow will be conventional flow. In some demos, there is a moving particle which indicates current flow but it has an 'O' in it instead of an 'E'. This means that the particle is not an electron and it shows conventional flow.

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