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question regarding the boundary behavior of electric current

Hi,

I have a cable and I send electric current through it. I want to know the moment when the current has arrived at the other end of the cable.

Can I visualize this moment by using an oscilloscope ?

If the answer is yes, I have another question for a more complex experiment.

I have a very simple network with 2 nodes (A and B). There are 2 cables which are connecting these nodes. The cables have different lengths L1 and L2. Assume that L1 is shorter than L2.

I have draw a small picture here:

--A*-------L1---------*B-- | | | | |______L2_____|

I apply electric power to this device. Because the cables have lengths greater than zero I assume that it will take a while until the current traverse the path from A to B.

More than that, in node A, the current is split in 2, because there are 2 cables linking A with B. Because one of the cables is shorter I assume that "a part" of the current arrives earlier (denote this by moment M1) than the other "part" because it has to traverse a shorter path. Am I correct ?

The other "part" of the current which has traversed cable L2 will arrive later in B. Lets denote this by moment M2.

Can I measure these 2 moments by using an oscilloscope? Or what other options for measurement I have ?

Are there some fluctuations of the electric current at moments M1 and M2 ?

Are there high precision oscilloscopes for this experiment? Or should I use very very long cables?

I'm not interested what happens after those moments.

Thanks, Laura

Reply to
laura
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Yes.

Yes - a signal in a wire (particular coax cable) travels at about 2/3 the speed of light.

Yes.

Yes, these time delays can be measured using an oscilloscope, provided the scope has a sufficiently fast sweep rate.

The delay is about 1.5 nS per foot, so you don't need particularly long cables to observe this.

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Peter Bennett, VE7CEI  
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Peter Bennett

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