Boost technology in a regulated mod; who can explain how it works?
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The efficiency differences are relatively minor, but certainly a buck regulator is simpler (and therefore less expensive) than a boost/buck regulator.
Kinda sorta. They let a portion of the each AC half-cycle through using a pair of thyristors.
No. They use a potentiometer (aka variable resistor) to adjust the voltage going to the light. There is no modulation at all. There is no need to make a complex circuit when all you are doing is reducing voltage (dimming). When the resistance is adjusted (by knob or slider) to 0 Ohms the light is at full brightness. As the resistance is increased the light gets dimmer and dimmer as the voltage it receives get less and less.
You could do it with a variable resistor, but then you would have a serious power dissipation (heat) problem at the dimmer switch. So, no, dinners don't work that way, and they haven't in many decades.
I did say domestic dimmer, soaking up mains voltage with a resister would need a heat sink the size of a sink. Letting through a portion of an AC cycle is PWM but for AC rather than DC no?
OK things have apparently changed since I last used one. The last one I used was actually a speed control knob for a ceiling fan use to "dim" the voltage to the fan to control the speed. I was quite literally, a potentiometer stuck through a wall plate. Of course that was probably 25 years ago.
Seems like chopped up waveform would cause light bulbs to fail prematurely as well. I mean if you think about it, most of the time a household light fails is when you turn it on. So turning it off and on faster, just seems like a bad plan.
If someone could just draw a simple diagram and post that.
Pretty sure a noob isn't going to understand a single previous post. I don't !.
Although i do understand a thread like this could be started just for the fun of the outcome.
I posted a thread about the potential for a "clockwork box mod" a while back. I kept a straight face and enjoyed playing along. But i'm still not entirely sure if readers realised the whole thing was a "wind up".
Well i thought it was funny !. I still do.
Pretty sure a noob isn't going to understand a single previous post. I don't !.
Although i do understand a thread like this could be started just for the fun of the outcome.
I posted a thread about the potential for a "clockwork box mod" a while back. I kept a straight face and enjoyed playing along. But i'm still not entirely sure if readers realised the whole thing was a "wind up".
Well i thought it was funny !. I still do.
That's because the filament gets from cold to hot very fast when you first turn it on, kind of like the first hit on a massive coil. If it's already hot the shock isn't big, especially when you pulse much faster than the filament can cool down.
What do you mean with "simple diagram"? The wiki page linked on the 1st page has some diagrams and explanations. However if you're completely unfamiliar with electronics it will still be hard to understand.
Keep in mind though that what's on our boards is far more complex than just the basic circuit, our mods are optimized for efficiency (at least some of them are
) and will likely also smoothen the signal.If you want a real world analogy, think of a car jack. At each lever pull you're putting potential energy into the car, after a few pulls it will be more than one pull of the jack is able to put out. (it's a bit of a stretch but the principle is very similar).
Here's a video showing the operation (with a manual switch instead of an electrical one)
and a short fun clip showing the underlying phenomenon of the "jack" (well at least part of it), electricity and magnetism interact.
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It does not. I have a bunch of "can lights" in the ceiling in my house. Most of them are on electronic dimmers and are rarely set to more than half brightness. Used like that, the bulbs last pretty much forever. But a few are on regular switches. Used that way, I can count on replacing the bulbs every year or two.
A conventional light bulb is a essentially a restive load, and interestingly enough, the filament has a substantial TCR. This means that when you first turn it on using a conventional switch, it pulls a huge amount of current for the few milliseconds that it's at ambient temperature and heats up really fast, whereas the electronic dimmers "soft start" them. Moreover, the waveform chopping happens 120 times per second (each half cycle of the AC wave) which is fast enough that it doesn't produce much temperature change within a cycle.
A motor, OTOH, is an inductive load. And much like the inductor used as the basis of a boost converter, unusual things happen when you "chop" the waveform applied to them.
I'm going with this explanation, less confusing.But in truth, you're right, it -is- just magic.
And the winner is....
I truly appreciate everyone's input, but being that I have little to no knowledge of electricity. "I flip switch, light comes on. I flip it again, light goes off." That's about the extent that I know.
No one was really able to dumb it down for me. I looked at the wiki page @Rossum suggested. Like @evan le'garde remarked, unless one already has an understanding of electrical science then it is just a big chemistry formula to me. And based upon the varied discussion that followed throughout this thread, maybe there is no simple answer.
The reason I started this thread is because I've had several new vapers ask me how a regulated mod can generate more power than the battery in the mod has to give. My stock answer has been either boost converters or magical unicorns, and don't ask me how either one works.
I truly appreciate everyone's input, but being that I have little to no knowledge of electricity. "I flip switch, light comes on. I flip it again, light goes off." That's about the extent that I know.
No one was really able to dumb it down for me. I looked at the wiki page @Rossum suggested. Like @evan le'garde remarked, unless one already has an understanding of electrical science then it is just a big chemistry formula to me. And based upon the varied discussion that followed throughout this thread, maybe there is no simple answer.
The reason I started this thread is because I've had several new vapers ask me how a regulated mod can generate more power than the battery in the mod has to give. My stock answer has been either boost converters or magical unicorns, and don't ask me how either one works.
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If I put Two 18650 Batteries together in Series, what happens? The Voltage doubles. Right?
This is a Good Example of being able to tell someone "What Happens". But explaining Why It Happens can be Much Harder.
BTW - What Happens if I put Two 18650 Batteries in Series but One Battery is at 4.2 Volts and the Other Battery is at 3.6 Volts?
The correct answer is: it doesn't. It will even draw more power from the batteries than it puts out on the firing side.
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