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Jon Elson[_3_]

wrote:

Thanks for the reply Jon. Do you think Tesla's generators at Niagara
Falls were made the way you describe? I wouldn't be at all surprised.
Eric
Everything made since about 1890 had some scheme to control the harmonic
problem. The first alternators had "salient poles" on the stator, which
were just blocks of stacked steel laminations with coils wound on them.
But, even with these, it was possible to shape the rotor flux field to
minimize the harmonics. Later, they went to slotted stator lamination
sections that made it possible to have coils that spanned several slots, and
this made harmonics much smaller.

Also, in the early days, they ran the alternators off steam engines, and the
AC had a definite pulsation with each stroke of the piston.

Jon