Stupendous Man wrote:
One attaboy to you!


I'm just happy the smoke didn't come out. I can wire a car from scratch, but
don't really get electronics.

When you wire a car correctly from scratch, you show that you have a good 'gut level'
grasp of electrical theory. If you are interested in electronics, you can pick up some of
the more subtle effects just by measuring carefully. This is a lot easier when you ignore
people who insist that electronics is more complicated than the stuff you already know.

I was happy the other day to run 3 phase
power to a new sanding machine and not get a firework show.

With the cars and your sanding machine, you solidly connected the things that should
conduct electricity and carefully insulated the things that should not conduct
electricity, yes? The rationale behind that process has only been known to humankind for
about 230 years. It was a scientific secret, then!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohms_Law

There is a ton of useful information available to you on the web. Stuff like:
http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/resistor/res_1.html

Here is an opportunity to buy more tools!

If it interests you, electronics is a heck of a fine hobby.

--Winston