"Don Foreman" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 3 Jan 2006 17:20:12 -0600, "Robert Swinney"
wrote:

IMO, you need to lose the thinking of a RPC as being a form of generator.
It isn't. Think more of the RPC as a network in which parts of it rotate
in
order to supply current throughout. Part of the RPC is the load motor.
The
idler generates nothing without the load as part of a network.

Sure it does. With the idler spinning, a voltage is generated in
the third leg that is in quadrature to line voltage, even if there are
no capacitors anywhere. Transformer action can not produce a
quadrature voltage so it must be (and is) generated by the rotating
rotor field -- which always is in quadrature with the stator field.

No load, no generation, Don. An idler running with no load motor does not
constitute a RPC. The network and supported current flow through that
network makes a RPC. Remember the idler is running as a single-phase
machine and the 3rd leg is open, that is, until it is connected into a RPC.

IMO, a
flywheel on the idler cannot act as anything more than additional dynamic
load on the network. It would be aprox. the same to put the flywheel on
the
load motor instead. Forget flywheels and spend the money on enhancing the
idler-load network with proper capacitance. Complex current flows in all
parts of the RPC. In simplistic terms, the idler-load current paths can
be
viewed as series resonant circuits.

If there are capacitors. But idlers without any run caps still work.
In fact, they work quite well if they're large enough.

OK. So they aren't series resonant circuits when there are no run caps -
granted. But the interconnection of idler and load and their associated
current paths are the same, even without run caps.