Your computer screen has suddenly gone black or your phone is not charging. What would be the first thing you would do? Usually the answer to this question is to turn the device off and then on again or unplug it and plug it back in.
Even if plugging it back in immediately after unplugging solves the problem, it can cause major problems in the future. Therefore, it is quite important to wait a bit after unplugging.
Before we move on to why the suggested 30-second cooldown is important, let’s take a look at how this suggestion came to be.
The design of toasters produced by General Electric in 1908 was quite different from today’s toasters. As you can see in the photo, the exposed resistance wires of the machine glowed red during frying and caused the user’s hands to burn when touched.
For this, the manufacturer recommended that the red color return to its normal color, that is, wait for the machine to cool. This waiting time was about 30 seconds on average, as we wrote above.
The 30 second rule is still recommended today. So why?
In order to clearly understand the answer to this question, we need to learn what the electrical circuit and the elements called capacitors are. We will briefly describe this couple without bogging you down into technical details.
As you may remember from primary school science lessons, an electrical circuit consists of active and passive elements. Active elements provide current to the cell, that is, it gives electricity to the device.
Passive elements, on the other hand, are the elements that regulate the current flowing through a ready circuit or work on the circuit. That is, passive elements do not produce their own current.
Capacitors are elements that regulate voltage and store electrical charges. These elements are at the beginning of the elements necessary for the correct operation of the devices.
Capacitors prevent devices from being shorted or damaged by erratic voltages or power imbalances.
Here are the capacitors that make it necessary for us to wait 30 seconds after unplugging.
Because even after pulling the plug, there may still be electrical charges left in this element. In this case, reconnecting the plug may cause sudden and re-enabled electrical loads, resulting in electric shock or overloading the device. This will cause immediate damage to the user as well as to the product in the future.
For all these reasons, it is important to wait 30 seconds after unplugging. In this short time, all electrical charges on the capacitors are completely discharged and the device will operate safely when the plug is re-plugged.
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