I'm not exactly sure what your asking but think of electrons as a line of billiard balls stacked single file within a circular track. If you push on one of the balls the other balls will move in a loop.

The transformer on the pole is the actual generating source of power for your home. It is not electrically connected to the grid. It is magnetically connected. The primary coil of the transformer (utility side) induces current into the secondary coil (house side) via the principle of magnetic inductance. It's no different than the way an alternator works.

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I'm not exactly sure what your asking but think of electrons as a line of billiard balls stacked single file within a circular track. If you push on one of the balls the other balls will move in a loop.

The transformer on the pole is the actual generating source of power for your home. It is not electrically connected to the grid. It is magnetically connected. The primary coil of the transformer (utility side) induces current into the secondary coil (house side) via the principle of magnetic inductance. It's no different than the way an alternator works.

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The electrons don't get burned up or used like gas in your car. Think of how an old time watermill worked

no water is used up, the water just turns the wheel. In fact, there's just as much water downstream of the wheel as there is upstream. (See Kirchoff's current law.)

 

The electrons don't get burned up or used like gas in your car. Think of how an old time watermill worked

In fact, no new electricity has been generated since 1927. And the utilities have been getting away with this for years, because few people take the time to examine their electricity closely.

 

Whether it's conventional or electron flow, where does electricity actually go in a circuit? If you use a 120V motor, then the current travels through the windings and then back on the neutral and then back up the pole correct? But if the motor is supposed to draw 1A and you clamp on your neutral, then 1A will still be flowing like it hasn't been used.

Furthermore, where does the electricity flow from there? Utility wise?

Don't think of electricity as pressurized water running through a hose, used to do work, like power wash your sidewalk, and then it just sits there until it finds the drain, and disappears into the earth.

 

Whether it's conventional or electron flow, where does electricity actually go in a circuit? If you use a 120V motor, then the current travels through the windings and then back on the neutral and then back up the pole correct? But if the motor is supposed to draw 1A and you clamp on your neutral, then 1A will still be flowing like it hasn't been used.

Furthermore, where does the electricity flow from there? Utility wise?

"Drift velocity, the average speed at which electrons travel in a conductor when subjected to an electric field, is about 1mm per second. It's the electromagnetic wave rippling through the electrons that propagates at close to the speed of light."

The higher states of charge in the molecule, pushing electrons to higher charged states, is what increases the electromagnetic effect resulting in higher power levels. You get into the Bohr model and Coulomb's Law (the effect of the inverse square.)

 

Whether it's conventional or electron flow, where does electricity actually go in a circuit? If you use a 120V motor, then the current travels through the windings and then back on the neutral and then back up the pole correct? But if the motor is supposed to draw 1A and you clamp on your neutral, then 1A will still be flowing like it hasn't been used.

Furthermore, where does the electricity flow from there? Utility wise?

Some very basic info

 

That looks like an in-house guide...looks good. Where or what is the reference for that?

 

Here is a good description with different views

What is Electric Current » Electronics Notes

Electric current results when electric charges move - these may be negatively charged electrons or positive charge carriers - positive ions.

www.electronics-notes.com

 

All good advice from the previous posters but try not think of electricity as just being a pushing force or you will never understand AC. (works ok on dc)

Try to think of it as being able to be pushed (120) and pulled (120) and sometimes pushed and pulled at the same time (240)

 

I usually explain it using a bandsaw and a sawzall as an example. Think of the teeth as the electrons. On a bandsaw they move the same directions constantly (DC). On a sawzall the teeth are constantly switching directions (AC). The current would be the number of teeth that go by per second. The teeth don't disappear or get used up they just move round and round(for the sake of this example).

The reason that metals are such good conductors is that the electrons are delocalized. The valence electrons don't belong to any one atom. This allows them to easily move between atoms in the presence of a voltage.

 

I usually explain it using a bandsaw and a sawzall as an example. Think of the teeth as the electrons. On a bandsaw they move the same directions constantly (DC). On a sawzall the teeth are constantly switching directions (AC). The current would be the number of teeth that go by per second. The teeth don't disappear or get used up they just move round and round(for the sake of this example).

The reason that metals are such good conductors is that the electrons are delocalized. The valence electrons don't belong to any one atom. This allows them to easily move between atoms in the presence of a voltage.

But what makes a good conductor are lattice structured (ionized) molecules. Molecules like copper and aluminum have a molecular structure that allows the free flow of electrons to travel from atom to atom. Electrons have a negative electrical charge and they are attracted to positive ions which are missing an electron. These molecules are called conductors.

Insulators are molecules that have a molecular structure that impedes the flow of electrons. Molecules like glass, porcelain and plastic are examples of insulators.

However, ALL molecules, including the air we breath can become conductors when the voltage potential between two electrodes is high enough. This phenomenon is called ionization. Lighting is an example of ionization, where the clouds of a thunderstorm develop a static charge via friction (think about your feet on the carpet and touching a door knob). The voltage force of a lighting strike can be anywhere from 3,000,000 volts (3 MV) to a whopping 1,000,000,000 volts (gigavolt). The higher voltage strikes are very rare positively charged strikes. Most lighting strikes are negatively charged and carry about 30,000 amps of current. About a million times the amount of current that can kill you.

This is also how spark plugs work in an internal combustion engine. But the ignition coil only generates a couple thousand volts. Even those click-light lighters do the same thing.

A cool phenomenon about ionization of the air is some of the oxygen molecules become heavy oxygen ions called ozone. Which you can smell when there's a thunderstorm.

Large power stations that operate as high as 1 million volts have motor actuated disconnect switches. It's quite a spectacle to watch one being opened as the entire stored capacitive and inductive stored energy of the whole grid passes through the air until the arc breaks with a deafening snap.

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Think of your completed circuit like a bearing. You can push an individual ball forward but another moves up to take it's place. The same electrons are recycled over and over.

 

That is one heck of a bearing

 

Law of conservation of energy

 

Think of it this way. Everything is made up of atoms. Outside forces like a magnet can make those atoms move. So when you wave a magnet across a piece of metal or a coil of wire, the atoms will move in one direction and then return to their original position once the magnet is taken away. Introduce the magnet in a reversed position and the atoms will move in the opposite way. The atoms have not left the metal in the wire. They just shifted. So if this wire is connected to a motor, it will just make the coils inside attract and/or repel to it's internal magnets every time the above scenario happens. With a light bulb, the filament shows an example of the atoms in the wire moving very rapidly.

 

And just to give you an idea of the power of electrons check this out.

This is why we take arc flash hazards so seriously.

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Think of waves in the ocean. When the waves stop, we still have as much water as we started with.

 

Whether it's conventional or electron flow, where does electricity actually go in a circuit? If you use a 120V motor, then the current travels through the windings and then back on the neutral and then back up the pole correct? But if the motor is supposed to draw 1A and you clamp on your neutral, then 1A will still be flowing like it hasn't been used.

Furthermore, where does the electricity flow from there? Utility wise?

The 1A is flowing back and forth 60 times a second, it is a circuit, so the current can be measured at any point.

Here is a decent animation of what the power is doing. (Ignore the rectifier/cap etc), If you look at the output of the transformer, the arrows are a good representation of what the electrons are doing (as said, they move very slowly. The 'charge is instantaneous thou, like the ball bearing example.)

I thing it was Rephase that said it's like having a rope around a tree, and if you move it back and forth in a sawing motion, that's how AC flows. The rope only moves a foot or so, but the energy from one end of the rope to the other is instantaneous. And it does 'work' ie in joules or newton-meters.

 

Is that a FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER?

 

Full wave bridge rectumfrier 😆

 

DC is negative to positive
AC is both ways hence alternating


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Right. It goes negative to positive because electrons are negatively charged and are attracted to positive ions.

Well, unless it's an antimatter conductor....

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Whether it's conventional or electron flow, where does electricity actually go in a circuit? If you use a 120V motor, then the current travels through the windings and then back on the neutral and then back up the pole correct? But if the motor is supposed to draw 1A and you clamp on your neutral, then 1A will still be flowing like it hasn't been used.

Furthermore, where does the electricity flow from there? Utility wise?

Electrons flow out of the negative terminal, via the circuit, and into the positive terminal of the source in a process known as electron flow. Electron Flow and Conventional Current are both employed. nothing is wasted or overflowing.

 

When I was an apprentice, I was told never to leave an extention cord plugged into a receptacle without a tool plugged in the other end, because the electrons would run out the end and you would be wasting electricity.

Sorta like leaving the water valve on to a hose with nothing on the other end.

Is this still true?

 

That's what those plastic things you plug in when not in use are for, to stop it now a days.

 

Whether it's conventional or electron flow, where does electricity actually go in a circuit? If you use a 120V motor, then the current travels through the windings and then back on the neutral and then back up the pole correct? But if the motor is supposed to draw 1A and you clamp on your neutral, then 1A will still be flowing like it hasn't been used.

Furthermore, where does the electricity flow from there? Utility wise?

@Funkadelicfred
ON the neutral side of that motor: yes 1A is still flowing, but the voltage is gone.
The voltage is the pressure to make it go through the motor that is doing work (which is a resistance to the flow)
From there it goes back to your panel, then meter, then the poco transformer, then the transmission lines, then back to the generator that created the voltage which gave the push to move the 1A flow through the motor.

the 1A wants to go back to the generator because when the generator pushed out that 1A, it left a "hole" so to speak and that is where the sent away electrons have to go back to. to put it another way, when the motor used the voltage it placed a negative charge on the 1A which made it attracted to the inlet side of the generator it came from

obviously it is not the same electron all the way through the whole circle. one electron pushes the next and so on, they only move a few places over, and then back again when the AC reverses polarity

for DC the electrons continue to move down the line all the way thru the whole circuit back to the source. They can even make the trip again if you leave it on long enough

To illustrate that the voltage is what is used: you know that a battery is "dead" when the volts get too low. it still has all of the electrons it had when you bought it, but not the volts.

For AC you can turn off your main breaker. the supply side has volts, the out put side does not.

The 1A only goes where the voltage pushes it to and that is determined by how you wire the circuit, and whether it is a complete circle (all switches closed) so that it can get back to the generator that made the voltage to begin with

All of those explanations are very simple and technically incomplete, (mostly so i dont have to type as much) but generally speaking they represent what happens

Now if you want to get into how a transformer works, and how generators work, then you have to ask some one else or look it up for your self
I will answer questions you may have but im not going to type all of that out here LOL

 

@Funkadelicfred
ON the neutral side of that motor: yes 1A is still flowing, but THEORETICALLY the voltage is gone.
QUOTE]

There fixed it for you.
If you get get in series with the electron flow on the neutral, the voltage is there.
Been there, did that, 277 volts will make your joints hurt for days.

 

In fact, no new electricity has been generated since 1927. And the utilities have been getting away with this for years, because few people take the time to examine their electricity closely.

you can't buy electricity you can only rent it

 

After this discussion I changed my book to add the usage description.