The main requirement of this assignment is for us as a group to work collaboratively to test the power consumption of an output device, but before starting here are few definitions and information about electrical power:
POWER: is measured in watts, and is the energy available to do work. The formula to calculate power in watts is Power(watts) = Voltage X Current. A 20A 120V circuit theoretically has 2400 watts of power available.
OHM's LAW: states that the current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the voltage across the two points. V=(IR) where I is the current through the conductor in units of amperes, V is the voltage measured across the conductor in units of volts, and R is the resistance of the conductor in units of ohms
POWER CONSUMPTION of a device can be broken down into the continuous component – the amount of power a device always draws whenever it is turned on, sometimes called idle current, and the intermittent component – additional energy required when the device is doing work, such as lighting a lamp, or amplifying a signal to be sent to a loudspeaker. For Lighting systems, including both tungsten and LED, have a small continuous power requirement to operate the control circuitry and a comparatively large intermittent power requirement when the lamp is on.