Originally posted by twist3r
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If you connect a 1.5V battery across a capacitor and then disconnect the battery, the capacitor will have.... guess what? 1.5V across it. If you do the same with a 9V battery, then the capacitor will have 9V across it.
Now imagine you put a resistor between the battery and the capacitor. If you "very quickly" connect and disconnect your capacitor to the battery with the resistor between them, the capacitor will not be at the same voltage as the battery - it will be lower, because the resistor limits the rate of current going into the capacitor, and thus allows it to charge up slower. However, if you leave the capacitor connected to the battery (again with the resistor in between them) "long enough", eventually the capacitor will reach the same voltage as the battery.
In the case of the circuits around IC602 and IC924, think of the SW pin as the battery and capacitors C621/C3045 as the capacitors in the above experiment. The main difference here is that instead of using a resistor like in the above experiment, the circuits use an inductor (L600/L902.) Why an inductor and not a resistor? Because with a resistor, there will be a lot of losses as current passes through it and generates heat. But with an inductor, the losses will be much smaller, because it can "store" some of the current that passes through it (at the peaks of the square wave pulses), and then give it back to the circuit (to capacitors C621/C3045) when there is nothing output between the peaks of the square waves.
Originally posted by twist3r
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The reasons circuits are called "circuits" is because there is always a return path (or multiple return paths eventually all recombining back into a single return path.) Again, going back to batteries, since they are easier to understand... you CANNOT have a current go out of one terminal of the battery and not go back to the other. The battery is a electro-chemical reaction waiting to happen. By drawing current from one terminal of the battery and returning it to the other, you are essentially allowing the chemicals inside the battery to react and become more neutral. While doing so, however, you can use the current to do useful work for you. In the case of connecting a simple light bulb across a battery... as the current passes through the filament of the bulb, it makes it heat up so much that the filament starts glowing, which is what produces light. But the current does NOT get lost in the filament of the bulb. If let's say 0.5 Amps of current goes out of the (+) terminal of the battery and makes it to the bulb, then the same 0.5 Amps will continue to flow through the bulb and out of the bulb, back to the (-) terminal of the battery. So current CANNOT get lost. However, the voltage can... or rather, it gets reduced as it passes through the bulb. This is called a voltage drop.
So in the case of complex circuits, like the ones surrounding IC602 and IC924, you have different components that manipulate the current to produce the desired functions you want the circuit to do. Some components will store current and release it later (like L600 and L902). Others, like the resistive divider formed by R604 and R606 simply "waste" power and turn it into heat... but it's needed so that the ICs can "read/see" the output voltages properly on their FB pins. And moreover, these resistors waste very little power, because they have relatively high resistances given the voltages in the circuit. And capacitors C621 and C3045 may seem like they waste power when they allow spikes of current to pass to ground when they charge up... but remember: as these capacitors charge up, they then can act like little sources/batteries themselves, thus returning the current that they seemed to waste initially.
That said, here are some videos on the matter that you may find useful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4EUwTwZ110
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbCXKhhzBN0
Originally posted by twist3r
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It's not. It's connected to ground... which is basically just a common point that other parts of the circuit use as a "reference" for the voltage levels they see/get.
In other words, if we are both standing next to each other on the 1st floor of a building and look up to a window on the 3rd floor, we will both agree that this window is xx meters above us. But if I'm standing on the 1st floor and you're standing on the 2nd floor and we look at that same window on the 3rd floor again, we will not agree that the distance between us and that window is the same xx meters. You may say it's 3 meters and I may say it's 6, and we may both be right.
So ground is just a common reference point for voltages. In the case of capacitors C621 and C3045, when they charge to 3.3V and 1.2V respectively, other parts in the circuit will see those voltages ONLY if both of these capacitors and the other parts of the circuit are using one same point as a reference. In this case, it's ground (though it doesn't have to be, and this will vary with different circuits.)
Originally posted by twist3r
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So basically, this phenomenon is called inductive kickback.
Diodes D600 and D942 simply provide a return path so that the inductive kickback from L600 and L902 doesn't generate extremely high voltages that can damage IC602 and IC924. Moreover, these diodes allow the inductive kickback from L600 and L902 to supply current into C621 and C3045 between the voltage pulses from the SW pins. So L600/L902 and C621/C3045 are used in tandem as energy storage devices to transform the square wave pulses into a smooth DC voltage and provide power to the rest of the components on the logic board.
Again, look up how a buck regulator circuit works, and it may get more clear.
Originally posted by twist3r
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But when you have resistors, capacitors, inductors, and other elements going to ground, that doesn't mean they are uncontrollably passing current to ground. Rather, it's exactly the opposite of that - they pass current in a controlled manner, again with the idea to manipulate it to do various function in the circuit. In the case of caps, they'll store charge. In the case of inductors, they'll maintain current. In the case of resistors... they may waste power, but divide voltages or limit currents going to other components.... and so on.
Originally posted by twist3r
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