If I were to take a standard AC to DC converter, say a laptop charger, and hook up the input side (which expects 120VAC at 60Hz) to a DC power supply of some sorts, will the electricity still be “converted,” or will it just not work at all? I am clearly very uneducated when it comes to electronics (albeit working on it) so I would very much an ELI5 answer Thanks!
If I may, could I ask some more clarifying questions?
What does a transformer do? Does it lower the voltage of the power lines coming into the house?
So the rectifier converts the power from AC to DC?
What is the filter filtering out? It seems like maybe it makes the positive current stay powerful enough to maintain a minimum positive charge.
Does a regulator work by assessing the need of the device using power and then provide the power according to the needs?
Transformers raise or lower voltage of ac circuits. They also do the opposite to current, e.g. Raise voltage, lower current.
The rectifier makes all the voltage positive (or negative, but all the same). So yes, AC -> DC
The filter basically uses inductors and capacitors to act as storage. Using capacitor as an example, it’ll start charging when the wave starts to rise. once the wave goes down, the capacitor discharges which keeps the output more positive. You can see that in the image by full humps before and partial humps after. It’s still bumpy, but it never goes to zero.
The regulator can do a couple of things, mostly it’s used to ensure a constant output. In it’s most basic, it’ll be another diode that if voltage goes above a certain threshold, it shunts it away from the load. So if the output of the filter had a minimum of 5 volts and the regulator was set to 5, you’ll end up with a constant positive 5 volts because the diode is shunting away all the extra voltage.
Regulators can provide both over and under voltage protection in case there is fluctuations in the circuit.
Thank you!