What in VERY simple terms is an AMP and how is it used in everyday household use?

Answer 1

It's an Electrical unit of power... Think of water, voltage equals speed of flow, Amp equals the pressure behind it.... Very simple terms..

Answer 2

An AMP in electrical terms is a shortened term for ampere, which is the measure of the flow of electricity.
1 Amp = 1 Volt flowing through a 1 Ohm resistor.

In every day use it is used to indicated the amount of electricity needed to run a household appliance.

Knowing the voltage and the current you can work out the power.
Power (Watts) = Voltage x Current.

Hope that helps ;)

Answer 3

If you mean an Amp in electricity, then you mean an Ampere, the unit of current in your home's electrics. In scientific terms, the definition is thus:

"The ampere is that constant current which, if maintained in two straight parallel conductors of infinite length, of negligible circular cross-section, and placed 1 metre apart in vacuum, would produce between these conductors a force equal to 2×10^-7 newton per metre of length."

Basically, it is the amount of electrical charge per second in a wire.

It is most popular in fuses more than any other parts of an appliance, where you can see a 3A, 5A or 13A fuse in a UK standard wall plug. The way the fuse works is to protect the appliance more than the human. Electricity flows through the fuse, which is like a special weak pipe in water pipework. Should your appliance short circuit or somehow draw too much electricity, the fuse heats up and burns out, like a weak pipe breaking if you have too much water flowing through it. This then breaks the circuit and saves on a fire.

Note: The fuse protects the appliance, not the human. For better protection, use a circuit breaker.

Answer 4

The AMP is a unit used to measure electrical current. Current is itself the flow of charge carriers - think of it as "how many" charge carriers (the little blobs that have a + or -) pass through a point in one second. In metal conductors, it's electrons that carry this "charge".

The number of electrons being "pushed" through a conductor per unit time represents "how much" current (much like water current) is flowing through that conductor.

In household use, appliances that are high-power (e.g. electrical stove, iron, drills, etc..) generally have higher current flowing through them (since the voltage will generally be the same i.e. supply = 220V). Remember, power = voltage x current, so if two appliances have diff. power ratings, but connected to the same source (which means voltage is the same) then they must be drawing diff. currents (or AMPS) from that source. If this happens for similar loads/appliances, then the appliance that draws less current does so because it "resists" the flow of current being "pushed" by voltage through it, less.

So for 60W and 40W light bulbs (diff power rating, same supply voltage), the 60W bulb draws more current - which is why it's brighter. IF the lengths of filament (the actual coil wire that lights up) WERE EQUAL, then clearly the 60W bulb would be drawing more current because of a lower resistance.

Hope this helps. I've intentionally simplified it in order to bring out the concept.

Answer 5

ampere( A or amp) is the SI unit of current.
simple definition - 1 amp is the current when the rate of flow of charge is 1Coulomb per second.
Household use - If there is a large amount of current flowing, then the wires may catch fire. To prevent this there is something called a fuse. A fuse stops the flow of current if it increases too much, thereby preventing overheating. Thus we need to measure the amount of current and use the appropriate fuse.

Answer 6

AMPLIFIER

Something that takes miniscule electrical signals (like the tiny ones picked up off a vinyl record, tape or from the head of a CD player, or maybe the pickup from a guitar) and multiplies them up into big fat juicy electrical signals. You shove the big juicies into a cunning little arrangement involving a coil of wire, a magnet and a paper cone (sometimes called a "speaker") and sound comes out.

AMPERE

A measure of the flow of electricity. If you want more power, you need more amps to flow. For a lot of amps to flow, you need a nice fat wire. Your TV doesn't need many amps (skinny wire) but your hairdryer does (fat wire). If you push too many amps down too skinny a wire, it will melt and your house will burn down.

Answer 7

One Coulomb of charge per second...

If you want to use the water metaphor...you might think of amperage as the volumetric flow through a pipe and voltage as the difference in pressure between two points in the pipe.

Voltage is a relative thing....amperage (current) is not

Answer 8

an amp is a measurement of current, the term is mostly used in audio equipment (Amplifiers are called amps).

Answer 9

electrical component as in 13amp fuse