A basic electrics question.

[Dave7]

If I have an appliance plugged in e.g. kettle/vacuum cleaner............and the wall socket switch in "on" but the appliance switch is "off".............does it use ANY electricity ?

 

[subaqua]

simple answer No.

long answer, depends if it has an indicator lamp to show powered . we had a hoover that had a red light for power available green light when switched on

 

[cosmicbike]

But surely when it is initially turned on at the socket it uses a tiny tiny bit to make the bit of copper in the plug and lead live...

 

[ClichéGuevara]

Potentially.

 

[cosmicbike]

Potentially.

That's very good

 

[Dave7]

well............I am so much wiser now
I thought those good, wise CCrs would surely know the answer

 

[classic33]

well............I am so much wiser now
I thought those good, wise CCrs would surely know the answer

We're you expecting a different answer?

 

[ClichéGuevara]

Current affairs should be on the politics thread. Resistance is futile.

 

[pclay]

The appliance will not use any power. Unless it has an LED or so other indicator on it (e.g. TV left on standby)

 

[Drago]

Is the question a current issue?

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Confuseing isn't it?

 

[the_mikey]

An open circuit won't conduct electricity, in the case of the vacuum cleaner, it depends on whether there's any circuit between the power cord and the on-off switch on the cleaner, if it's a basic cleaner with no other features than simply on and off, then it's unlikely that it will draw any measurable current.(although there's always someone who will acknowledge there's some teeny tiny bit of capacitance in the power cord and some very teeny tiny almost immeasurable amount of current may be drawn by it, unless you have a few km of power cord....)

 

[I like Skol]

How fast do electrons travel?

 

[swansonj]

A quick google suggests the capacitance of a power cable is of order 100 pF per metre. So as alluded to by @the_mikey , a metre of cable, even if terminating in an open switch with no indicator lamps, would still draw a current, but of less than 0.01 milliamperes

 

[swansonj]

How fast do electrons travel?

Very slow, in a wire - you'd be surprised - of order a mm a second or less. Think ping pong balls in a pipe. Push one at one end and the one at the other end moves almost instantaneously- but any individual ball moves hardly at all.