On Sat, 7 Jan 2006 18:11:10 -0600, "Robert Swinney"
wrote:

Don, in as much as you've railed against some of the definitions I used in
trying to explain my understanding of the RPC, I offer the following.

Generators and consumers: Motor windings, (elements of a RPC for example)
consume energy and give it up as torque. Those same windings also generate
energy in the form of counter EMF. In essense current is flowing in 2
directions through the winding.

So my ammeter needs two needles?

In electronic parlance, you might say there
is both a voltage rise and a voltage fall.

Whoa! My voltmeter needs two needles too?

Just kidding, Bob. I know what you mean: sometimes its easier to
think of voltages and currents as vector sums of component voltages
and currents,

I have sense and education
enough to know average current flow in an AC circuit is zero, but you have
tap danced all around the point, by even mentioning it. (Patronizingly,
perhaps)

I know you do. In the following sentence I suggested that perhaps
you meant power flow which made sense in context.

Aggregate current: That which flows in a network as a result of everything
going on in the network.

Well, in that context the aggregate current in a balanced threephase
system is zero though the currents in various branches are certainly
non-zero.

Convoluted current: In a manner of speaking, that current which flows in
the load side of a RPC.

BTW much of the definition you question was duly addressed in the little
paper I sent you awhile back. At the time your comments were to the effect
the paper was well researched, well written, etc.

I didn't recall the definitions, but I do recall the comment and I
wouldn't have said it if I didn't mean it. That must have been two
computers ago because I can't find your writeup in this machine or
the last one.