Difference Between Volt and Amp

Volt vs Amps

Volts and Amps are very common references when you are looking at mobile devices. This is because these terms describe the power use or capacity of devices or batteries. Volts is a unit of measurement that is used to quantify the voltage needed or provided by specific devices. Amps is an abbreviation of the term Amperes which is the unit of measurement for current or the rate that electricity flows. Volts and amps are not independent of each other as they are related by Ohm’s law along with resistance. Given two fixed variables, you can always compute for the third.

Most power sources like charger or batteries indicate how many volts it provides. This is to ensure that the user can make sure that the voltages of the device being powered and the power source match. If the voltages do not match, you run a very big possibility of damaging or even totally frying the circuitry of the device. Although you cannot be sure of how much current would be drawn until you know of the circuit that would be attached to it, these devices also have a current rating, measured in amps. This is because the power it provides is not infinite and you can only draw a certain amount of current.

When you are looking at batteries that are used in most mobile devices, you would usually notice that batteries of the same kind also has approximately the same voltage. But you would also notice that there is another unit that varies greatly with each battery brand or type; the mAH or milliampere hour. This determines how much current you can draw from the battery for how long. For example, a battery that is rated for 1600mAH can provide 1.6 amps for an hour, or 0.8 amps for 2 hours, or .1 amps for 16 hours. It is then quite easy to determine that higher current ratings would last a lot longer when used in the same device.

Summary:
1.Volt is the unit that measures voltage while Amps is the unit for current
2.Volts and Amps are correlated by Ohm’s law
3.Power sources are often labeled by how many volts it has while you can only get the number of amps when you apply the power source to a circuit
4.Most batteries have a fixed voltage but their amperage varies with higher amperage batteries lasting longer

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