Grade 8 Electrical Technology

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering safety regulations, drawing conventions, hand tools, basic electrical principles, magnetism, electronics, energy sources, digital logic, and domestic electrical installation from the Grade 8 Electrical Technology curriculum.

Occupational Health and Safety

A planned way of working to prevent illness and injury in the workplace by identifying hazards and risks.

Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA, Act No. 85 of 1993)

The South African legislation that regulates safety rules and procedures, placing a duty on employers to maintain a safe working environment without risk to the health of employees.

Workshop Layout

The art of planning and positioning machine tools, equipment, workbenches, assembly areas, and employee amenities to achieve optimal efficiency in the use of labour, machinery, and space.

Demarcated Areas

Marked floor areas that differentiate safe pedestrian walkways from working areas containing dangerous machinery where unauthorised walking is prohibited.

Emergency Stop Device

A dedicated safety switch installed on power machines and main electrical panels designed to immediately halt machine operation during an emergency.

Emergency Exit

A special exit in a structure designed for emergencies, such as fires, allowing faster evacuation and offering an alternative route if the primary exit is blocked.

Accident

An unplanned and uncontrolled incident caused by unsafe acts and/or unsafe conditions that may result in injury and/or damage to property.

Unsafe Acts

Actions performed by workers without adhering to workplace safety rules and guidelines, such as horseplay, bypassing safety devices, or using tools improperly.

Unsafe Conditions

Physical hazards in the work environment that have the potential to cause injury or damage, such as poor ventilation, slippery floors, overcrowding, or missing machine guards.

Good Housekeeping

The practice of maintaining a clean and orderly workshop where there is a place for everything and everything is in its place at all times.

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

A collective name for protective garments, helmets, goggles, and equipment worn or used to protect the body from physical, electrical, chemical, or biological hazards.

Safety Goggles

Protective eyewear that encloses the area surrounding the eyes to prevent particles, water, or chemicals from causing eye injuries.

Welding Helmet

A protective hood that shields the eyes and skin from severe sparks and vision-damaging ultraviolet and infrared radiation emitted by an electric arc.

Mandatory Safety Signs

Blue and white safety signs indicating specific actions or behaviours that must be executed within a designated work area to comply with regulations.

Prohibition Signs

Red, white, and black circular safety signs conveying a clear message that certain actions are unsafe or strictly not permitted.

Information Signs

Green and white safety signs indicating safe conditions, escape routes, emergency facilities, or areas designated for specific activities.

Emergency Evacuation

The urgent and immediate escape of individuals away from an area facing an ongoing or imminent threat to life or property.

Emergency Procedure

A planned sequence of actions carried out in response to a specific foreseeable emergency that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or the environment.

First Aid

Immediate assistance provided to a sick or injured person to preserve life, prevent the condition from worsening, and promote recovery.

Three Stages of First Aid

The sequential assessment and care stages carried out during an emergency: examination, diagnosis, and treatment.

Graphics Communication

An international technical language enabling the precise description of the size, shape, and features of physical objects using drawings and standardized symbols.

SANS 0111

The South African National Standard that governs line types, dimensioning conventions, and drawing practices in technical graphics communication.

Orthographic Projection

A two-dimensional technical drawing method where multiple principal views (such as front, top, and left views) represent true sizes and shapes using parallel projection lines.

Isometric Drawing

A three-dimensional drawing representation where horizontal axes are drawn at $30^\circ$ to the horizontal baseline and vertical dimensions remain vertical.

Flat Screwdriver

A hand tool featuring a wedge-shaped flat tip designed to loosen or tighten slotted screws.

Star (Phillips) Screwdriver

A hand tool with a cross-shaped point designed to loosen or tighten Phillips-head screws without slipping out of the recess.

Combination Pliers

A versatile multipurpose hand tool designed for gripping, twisting, bending, and cutting electrical conductors and workpieces.

Long Nose Pliers

Pliers with elongated, tapered jaws used to hold, bend, and manipulate wires in confined spaces that are difficult to reach by hand.

Round Nose Pliers

Specialized pliers with cylindrical, conical jaws used to form loops and bends at conductor ends for fastening to terminal screws.

Side Cutter

A cutting tool with diagonal cutting jaws used to shear electrical wires and strip cable insulation at right angles.

Hacksaw

A fine-toothed hand saw held in a C-shaped frame used to cut hard materials such as metals, conduits, and heavy cables.

Cold Chisel

A forged steel cutting tool with a bevelled cutting edge used with a hammer to chip, carve, and chase into brick, metal, or concrete.

Wire Stripper

A hand tool equipped with sized cutting notches used to cleanly cut and remove plastic insulation from electrical conductors without damaging the copper wire.

Engineering Square

A precision marking and inspection tool with a stock and steel blade set at exactly $90^\circ$ to lay out perpendicular lines and verify squareness.

Scriber

A hardened steel tool with sharp, pointed tips used to score fine, accurate layout guide lines onto metal surfaces.

Centre Punch

A pointed steel rod struck with a hammer to create a small dimple in a workpiece to accurately locate a drill bit and prevent slipping.

Multimeter

An electrical instrument capable of measuring voltage (volts), current (amperes), and resistance (ohms) across direct current ($\text{DC}$) and alternating current ($\text{AC}$) circuits.

Voltmeter

An electrical measuring instrument connected in parallel across a component or circuit path to measure electrical potential difference in units of volts ($\text{V}$).

Ammeter

An electrical instrument connected in series (in-line) with a circuit path to measure the rate of electrical current flow in units of amperes ($\text{A}$).

Ohmmeter

An electrical test instrument used to determine the electrical resistance of a de-energized component or path in units of ohms ($\Omega$).

Breadboard

A reusable solderless construction board with internally connected horizontal terminal strips and vertical power rails used for prototyping electronic circuits.

Entrepreneurship

The act of creating, building, and scaling a business venture by identifying opportunities and solving problems while assuming risk to generate a profit.

Entrepreneur

A person who identifies a problem in society, starts a new business to deliver a solution, and takes financial risks to achieve success.

Scalable Startup Entrepreneurship

A business model designed to expand revenue rapidly at an exponential rate while only requiring minimal, incremental additions of operational resources.

Social Entrepreneurship

An entrepreneurial approach where individuals or organizations develop, fund, and implement innovative solutions to social, cultural, or environmental problems.

Product Marketing

The complete process of understanding target customer needs, positioning, promoting, and selling a product in the marketplace.

Product Branding

A unique symbol, design, name, or identity that distinguishes a product from its competitors in the commercial marketplace.

Conductor

A material possessing high electron mobility and many free electrons, which easily permits the flow of electric current.

Insulator

A material that severely restricts or prevents the flow of electric current due to tightly bound electrons and a lack of free electrons.

Dielectric Strength

The maximum electric field that an insulating material can withstand without undergoing electrical breakdown and conducting current.

Ductility

The physical property of a material, such as copper, that enables it to be drawn or pulled out into thin wires without fracturing.

Hygroscopic Material

A substance that readily absorbs and retains moisture from the surrounding atmosphere, such as paper or unsealed wood.

Electricity

The continuous flow of electrical charge along a conductor, occurring when free valence electrons transfer between adjacent atoms.

Ohm's Law

A physical law stating that the current flowing through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the applied voltage and inversely proportional to resistance at a constant temperature ($I = \frac{V}{R}$).

Voltage

The electrical potential difference or pressure that drives electric charges through a conducting circuit, measured in volts ($\text{V}$).

Electric Current

The flow rate of electrical charge passing through a cross-section of a conductor, measured in amperes ($\text{A}$).

Electrical Resistance

The opposition offered by a material to the flow of electric current through it, measured in ohms ($\Omega$).

Bohr Model of the Atom

An atomic model proposed by Niels Bohr where a dense nucleus composed of positive protons and neutral neutrons is orbited by negative electrons in discrete shells.

Three Effects of Electric Current

The primary physical outcomes produced by the passage of electricity: magnetic effect, chemical effect, and heating effect.

Magnetic Material

A substance possessing magnetic dipoles that produces invisible magnetic fields and is attracted toward an external magnetic pole.

Permanent Magnet

A magnetic material that retains its magnetic properties and generates its own continuous magnetic field over extended periods.

Temporary Magnet

A soft iron or low-coercivity material that exhibits magnetic properties only while in the presence of an active magnetic field or current.

Laws of Magnetism

The physical principles stating that every magnet has north and south poles, unlike poles attract each other, and like poles repel each other.

Magnetic Lines of Force (Flux)

Continuous, non-intersecting imaginary closed loops indicating the direction and magnitude of a magnetic field, passing from North to South outside the magnet.

Electromagnet

A temporary magnet created when an electric current flows through a wire conductor coiled around a magnetic core.

Electrical Circuit

A closed, uninterrupted conducting loop containing a power source, conductors, load, and switch through which electric charges circulate.

Resistor

A passive two-terminal electronic component designed to introduce a specific electrical resistance to control current and drop voltage in a circuit.

Thermistor

A thermally sensitive variable resistor that exhibits a predictable, precise change in electrical resistance when subjected to changes in body temperature.

Capacitor

A passive electronic component composed of conductive plates separated by a dielectric that stores electrical energy in an electrostatic field, measured in farads ($\text{F}$).

Fuse

An electrical safety protection device comprising a metal strip or wire that melts and opens the circuit when current exceeds a predetermined rating.

Light Emitting Diode (LED)

A semiconductor diode that emits visible light when forward-biased electric current flows through its junction.

Kirchhoff's Voltage Law

A circuit law based on the conservation of energy stating that the algebraic sum of all potential drops around any closed loop equals the total supplied voltage ($V_T = V_1 + V_2 + \dots + V_n$).

Resistor Colour Code

A standardized sequence of colored bands marked on fixed resistors to indicate nominal resistance value, multiplier, and manufacturing tolerance.

Kinetic Energy

The form of energy possessed by an object or charged particles due to their motion.

Potential Energy

The stored energy held within an object or system by virtue of its position, state, or chemical configuration.

Renewable Energy

Energy collected from natural resources that are replenished naturally on a human timescale, such as solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, and hydro energy.

Non-Renewable Energy

Energy obtained from finite natural resources that deplete over time and cannot be replenished within a human lifespan, such as coal, oil, and nuclear fuels.

Primary Cell

An electrochemical cell where the chemical reactions are irreversible, meaning it cannot be recharged after use and must be discarded.

Secondary Cell

A rechargeable electrochemical cell where the internal chemical reactions are electrically reversible by passing a reverse current through the terminals.

Digital Signal

An electronic signal that represents information using discrete binary levels, typically switching strictly between Logic High ($5\,\text{V}$) and Logic Low ($0\,\text{V}$).

Analogue Signal

An electronic signal that represents information as a continuously variable quantity changing smoothly over a range of values.

Binary Logic

A base-$2$ numerical system operating solely with two distinct digits ($0$ and $1$) to represent low/high or false/true circuit states.

Logic Gate

An electronic circuit element that executes a logical Boolean operation on one or more binary inputs to produce a single binary output.

AND Gate

A digital logic gate that produces a Logic High ($1$) output only when all of its input signals are simultaneously at Logic High ($1$).

Truth Table

A systematic mathematical table setting out every possible combination of input states for a logic gate along with its corresponding resulting output.

Domestic Electrical Installation

The system of electrical cabling, distribution boards, switches, circuit breakers, and socket-outlets that supply power safely inside a residence.

Earth-Leakage Circuit Breaker (ELCB)

A specialized protective safety device that monitors balance between live and neutral currents, tripping the circuit immediately if stray leakage voltage or fault current is detected.

Miniature Circuit Breaker (MCB)

An automatic electromechanical switch designed to interrupt current flow and protect individual branch circuits against thermal overloads and short circuits.

Isolator

A mechanical switch used to isolate a selected section of an electrical circuit from the power source under no-load conditions for safe servicing.

Socket Outlet

A domestic electrical fitting installed in a wall that provides power to plug-in equipment by connecting portable appliances to the alternating current grid.

Open Wiring (Surface Wiring)

An installation method where electrical cables and protective conduits are secured directly onto surface walls using saddles and clips, remaining visible.

Concealed Wiring (Flush Conduit Wiring)

An electrical installation method where conduits and wires are embedded inside walls or concrete slabs and covered by plaster so they remain hidden.

Cable Gland

A mechanical cable entry fitting that secures a cable to an enclosure, providing strain relief, mechanical protection against sharp edges, and a liquid-tight environmental seal.

Conduit Box

A circular junction box installed at conduits ends or intersections to facilitate wire pulling, branching, and joining across electrical sub-circuits.

SANS Domestic Conductor Colour Codes

Standardised wire insulation identification in South Africa specifying red, white, or blue for Live; black for Neutral; and green-and-yellow or bare copper for Earth.

Three-Pin Plug (16 A)

A standard domestic electrical connector comprising three round brass pins configured to safely connect Live, Neutral, and Earth conductors to a matching wall socket.