Re: bbc four - the secret life of the motorway

awavey wrote:
no, generally diodes only conduct current in one direction, thats anode to cathode, the triangle/arrow points to the cathode, the line indicates the barrier to the direction of current flow.

Yes, the symbol tells you about the diode, it doesn't tell you which direction the circuit will attempt to push current though it. That depends on the state of other components in the circuit - for example logic gates, microprocessors, or input/output states. In the case of a microprocessor it can be the result of a software decision, in the case of I/O states it can be the result of something external to the circuit, some kind of sensor perhaps. The circuit diagram does not tell you the direction of flow.
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