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I want to know if there is any difference between UK and Europe about teaching electronics. e.g. conventional current flow and probably units and stuff?

Thanks.

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You mean UK isn't part of Europe? – AndrejaKo Jun 4 '11 at 22:16
1  
Wales isn't... news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/3715512.stm – Majenko Jun 4 '11 at 22:33
@Matt Jenkins Must be cool living in the underwater habitats there... :) – AndrejaKo Jun 4 '11 at 22:51
@AndrejaKo well based on their weird measuring systems they are not! – Sean87 Jun 5 '11 at 11:53
You mean weights measured in leeks, and distances in daffodils? – Majenko Jun 5 '11 at 12:29

3 Answers

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I've worked from a couple of European books and found that the differences are mainly in names of things so it is quite easy to get your head round. In my experience the differences are no more severe than if you were to read a UK or US book written pre 1950 (condenser instead of capacitor and that kind of thing).

I may have been lucky in that the books had no fundamental differences in them - to be honest though electronics is a fairly write or wrong topic so it is unlikely things can get too different!

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Pre 1950s? A friend of mine was working on developments of High Density Condensers back in the 60s. – Dean Jun 5 '11 at 1:14
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I don't know what UK books look like, but here in Serbia I've noticed several differences compared to western sources.

We almost never use term "voltage" and I haven't even heard "amperage". Instead we prefer tension and current. Voltage is usually marked with U and potential in reference to ground or infinity is marked with V.

Current flow is opposite of electron flow. For consumers, current goes from positive terminal to negative terminal while for voltage generators it is opposite.

As far as I've seen, all electrical units are from SI, but conductance seems to be used a bit more in textbooks.

I've noticed that curl and divergence operators aren't used (or at least I haven't seen them in any textbooks so far).

Nothing else comes to mind at the moment. Still, it wouldn't be surprising to see differences between this and other parts of Europe.

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Is "tension" in English or did you translate the Serbian word? In German we have "Spannung", which means voltage but would translate to tension in other contexts (mechanical, political). – starblue Jun 5 '11 at 8:25
@starblue I thing that we just translated German word. Engineering in general and electrical engineering in particular was under heavy German influence in Serbia until 90s and many terms are just direct translations. We also use DIN circuit symbols. As for English, the term went out of fashion and is currently used (as far as I know) only in phrase "high tension line" meaning high voltage electric transmission line. – AndrejaKo Jun 5 '11 at 11:19
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In Europe, we have different schematic symbols to the US. Apparently, ANSI/IEEE 315 is the definitive reference, but I can't find a free copy to link to.

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