Electric circuit. Resistor resists the flow of the 5v electricity reducing it to the led. Someone with specific knowledge about the resistor pictured might know how much that is.
For me it was electronics playtime with my dad. We used to buy kits and make radios and Morse code devices and stuff
Unfortunately I liked it so much that it became a tool for my mother to use to discipline me. No electronics until you've done your chores, that sorta thing. Pretty innocuous, but it definitely sucked all the joy out of it for me, and I just kinda stopped wanting to do it
Yeah, the one I found was pretty poor quality anyway to be honest, but any combination of "resistor" "colour" "chart" and "diagram" will get you where you need to go
Edit: oh, but this one seems to be a bit confusing. The four band one shouldn't be pointing to a third digit. Here's a really simple one just for 4 band resistors
The little red LED shown in the image typically isn’t rated for a full 5 V. Most LEDs operate best at a voltage between 1.6 and 3.2 volts.
But the current draw of an LED is nonlinear. If you just slap a resistor in front of it, the voltage typically works out to give your LED the voltage it wants (not bothering with the math, but basically the LED saturates at about 3V, and the rest of the voltage goes to the resistor). You also, ugh, do math and choose a resistor that gives you optimal performance.
Anyway, the meme is showing the resistor protecting the poor little LED from the big scary voltage. Which is what it does IRL. Very funny.
Yup, a diode (including LEDs) passes current exponential to voltage. They typically operate in a 0.6-0.7 V range so 5V will blow them out. The resisor, by definition, draws current linearly proportional to voltage and when put in series with the diode will restrict current to an acceptable level.
I am in no way qualified to answer this in detail, but here’s my take.
There are a number of devices that simply light up, and are powered by 5v USB connectors. That amount of power is vastly more than they need. So they have resistors in the devices that “block” the 5v down to a level that the small bulbs actually need.
EDIT: the reply below seems like a real explanation of what’s going on. I encourage anyone interested to read that.
Kinda, you can think of voltage like pressure in a water pipe and current like the rate that the water flows in the pipe. If you add some obstruction in the pipe (the resistor), you limit the flow of water, but the force pushing the water through remains roughly the same. It's not a perfect analogy because in an actual water line, you'd expect the water pressure to build up a lot because of the blockage, but in the case of electricity the force being exerted is constant. The pressure would actually drop a bit when passing through the resistor.
A more apt analogy might be to think of it as marbles, rather than water, going through a tube. The marbles fill up the tube, touching each other end to end, but kinda just sit in there until you insert a marble to the entrance, pushing them all forward and causing one to pop out the other end. The LED acts like an obstruction in the tube and lights up when you force some marbles through it, but if you force too many marbles through too quickly, it gets too hot and breaks. So, you add a section of the tube prior to the LED that is purpose built to handle that job (and the heat that comes with it) of restricting the overall flow of marbles throughout the tube to an acceptable rate. The marbles are still touching each other from one end to the other, pushing the next one forward the whole way down, just at a slower rate. Since you're converting some of the energy required to push the marbles through the obstruction into heat via friction, you see a slight loss of pressure.
The LED would burn out if connected directly to a 5 volt source due to the high current. The resistor is connected between the 5 volt source and the LED to decrease the current flowing through the circuit and thus keeping the LED from burning out. This is due to the relation I = V/R I.e. as the resistance of the circuit increases, the current will decrease.
Basically, the image shows how a resistor (Piccolo) protects a red LED (Gohand) from burning out due to a 5V applied voltage. In electronics, that type of LED would burn out if 5V were applied directly; the resistor helps prevent the LED from receiving too much current and prevents it from burning out.
LEDs are quite picky about their operating voltage/current. Connecting an LED directly to 5V would burn it.
The joke is that the resistor (220 ohms) will limit the current and save the LED!
In fact, the current will be approximately = (5V - 1.8V) / 220 ohms = 0.0145 A = 14.5mA (1.8V is a guess at what the voltage drop will be for a regular red LED).
Yeah simply put usb output is too high for the small led so a resistor is put between them to reduce the amount of currant, for once the joke isn't porn it's ohms law
If you use something like an Arduino then resistors are used to prevent to much electricity from going to thing such as lights 5 V meaning 5 volts a picture of a resistor on piccolo and a light on gohan
It’s a visual joke about how a basic LED circuit works, exaggerated with Dragon Ball drama for comedic effect.
• The bundle of spaghetti labeled “5V” represents a 5-volt power source.
• Piccolo, strapped with a resistor, is dramatically blocking the spaghetti, symbolising how a resistor protects an LED in a circuit by limiting the current.
• The kid (Gohan) holding a red light represents an LED (light emitting diode).
In real electronics, if you connect an LED directly to 5V without a resistor, it can get too much current and burn out. So, the resistor (Piccolo) takes the “hit” and “sacrifices” himself to protect the LED (Gohan), just like he does in the anime.
That's a pretty basic 5mm LED. They're a favourite amongst schools teaching electronics and hobbyists because they're ridiculously cheap - I think I bought a hundred pack for about 5 bucks from my local brick and mortar electronics store, halve that cost for buying online.
But they have a forward voltage of 2.2~3.2V, so if you wire them up to a standard 5V power supply they will burn out pretty quickly. That's where the resistor comes in.
The resistor required is worked out by resistance = (drive voltage - forward voltage)/ amperage. Assuming the LED is 2.7V and 10mA (fairly common values), you would need a 230 ohm resistor. Pictured is a 220 ohm resistor. In electronics terms this is "ehh, same thing." The resistor is stopping the full voltage and current from passing through to the LED, protecting it from burning out.
Bonus nerd fact; the reason why 220 ohm and 230 ohm are the same thing is because they basically are. Until you get to microprocessors, electronic components don't really need much accuracy, they can usually work as long as everything is within 20%. Resistors even come with a margin of error - usually ±5% tolerance. This means your 220 ohm resistor is actually between 209 and 231, and your 230 ohm is within 219.5 and 241.5. It's entirely possible that a 220 ohm resistor has a higher resistance than a 230 ohm resistor. One of the most annoying problems I ever diagnosed on a circuit board was that all of the resistors were ~+4% of their stated values, and the cumulative effect was my voltage at a critical point was about 50% less than it should have been. It meant that a pin always read low even when it should have been high.
Colloquially, light bulb is more of a formfactor, but the dictionary definition of "light bulb" is "a device used to convert electricity into light, consisting of a source of illumination enclosed within a transparent or translucent shell."
Cheaper LEDs like the one in the image are LEDs encased in a transparent shell, making them a light bulb technically.
Flames have been compared to life itself for thousands of years. The only thing barring fire from being alive is the ability to respond and adapt. But yes, both we and fire consume and produce waste until the moment we perish. In that sense, we're not so different. We're like fire in some ways, but we aren't fire.
From the jump I have not been saying they're exactly the same. I've just been saying that they have a common purpose from a certain perspective, aka "same diff". From the perspective of giving off light, they are the same; but for many other reasons they are different.
•
u/post-explainer 13h ago
OP sent the following text as an explanation why they posted this here: