
Additionally, DC current is required for many electronics according to : “Direct current is used in any device that has a circuit board because the chips within these devices require a steady, unidirectional flow of electrons to operate and store data.” This means that your desktop computer, gaming system, and TV all use DC current, and contain a full bridge rectifier to transform the AC power from the wall outlet to DC power. It was much more economical to transform AC to DC and some equipment could generate very high DC voltage. The big turning point for DC power was in the 1970s when semiconductor electronics were invented. This is the same with laptops, which is why they have a brick between the wall and the computer - the power needs to be converted to DC for the internal battery.īut it wasn’t always this way, AC dominated for a long time. However, with a phone, AC current flows to your house, which then charges your phone that has a battery running on DC. AC power is more convenient for reaching the high voltages for transmission long distances, so our lamps and most household electronics that plug into the wall use AC current. The wave pattern is actually the Hertz, or number of oscillations per second. AC has an oscillating repetition that looks like a wave pattern on a graph, compared to DC that looks like a flat line. Unless you’re an electrical engineer, now you’re rolling your eyes). You can think of this as the battery with the positive and negative ends, it must be installed one way so current can flow through it (I know what you’re thinking, spring to the flat end of the battery. The main difference between the two types of current is direction: DC is direct, meaning it only flows in one direction. At its simplest, electrical current is the flow of electrons. Let’s take a look at a direct comparison of AC to DC. If AC power won out over DC in 1893, why do we use both today? For a while, AC was the dominant form of electricity, but today we use DC every day, especially in portable devices.
