In today’s world, all electrical devices in the home, including lighting, run on direct current (DC) power, but the electricity that comes out of the wall socket is alternating current (AC).
Therefore, devices need to convert the AC to DC power and reduce the voltage to the levels used in digital circuits.
This requires out-of-date equipment to be installed, which wastes a lot of energy and makes it hard to power portable devices on the move.
The AC versus DC battle was sparked in the early days of electrification, with Thomas Edison favouring DC circuits and Nikola Tesla preferring AC circuits.
Whilst DC may be simpler, Tesla won the argument as AC is easier to transform to different voltages, and can easily be sent long distances without loss of current.
Transformers work on the principle of Faraday’s law of induction, which states that a change in the strength of a magnetic field inside a loop of wire will produce an electric current.
Aluminium coils can be used to change the voltage of an electrical current, by using a primary coil with a certain number of loops, and a secondary coil with a different number of loops.
