12-02-2014, 12:58 PM
(12-02-2014, 12:34 PM)pwdrive Wrote: In all of this I still can't see where the flow of current is reversed on the waveform.
That's down to semantics then. You can call a waveform whatever you like. One which changes polarity symmetrically about zero, most people would call AC. One which stays always positive, but rises and falls cyclically without ever going negative, I suppose isn't 'alternating', but it is convenient to considerit as having a steady average value, with wiggles which add and subtract from this average. And it's this wigglyness which gets called the AC component of the waveform.
Sometimes it does not pay to take abbreviations too literally. Describing the mains as 240V AC is horrid if you expand AC into alternating current. But if you regard AC as behaving like an adjective, confusion disappears.
