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FourierXFM t1_ixdbot3 wrote

Reply to comment by VulfSki in How exactly is the "direction" of the flow of power measured in a alternating current system? by Landhund

>Then you learned it wrong. (Or just a simplified explanation) I have a bachelor's in EE, the standard convention for the terms is that any signal that is not DC is considered AC.

I don't mean to get into a pissing contest, but you're being rude, so I will. I have a masters in EE with a specialty in power electronics focusing on AC/DC conversion. I promise I did not learn it wrong.

Alternating means back and forth, or positive and negative. A full bridge rectifier with no capacitive filter at the end is still called DC even though it's oscillating up and down.

At some point of ripple you would be more right to say it's DC with an AC component, but nobody in industry calls that alternating power... because it's not alternating.

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VulfSki t1_ixdcxxb wrote

Yeah that's not what I'm talking about at all.

Yes I said it makes sense to consider that DC power. I never said otherwise there.

You seem to have misread my comment. What I said was that as a matter of convention, anything that isnt DC we called AC.

The phrase flowing back and forth can mean a number of things. My point was that it doesn't need to be negative to be considered AC.

When I work on power electronics, and still do, we often refer to the ripple at the output of the supply as an AC ripple as part of the DC. But yes of course we would never consider that an AC power supply. Of course we would still call that DC power. Sure.

Just to be clear. I said anything that isn't DC we refer to as AC. And you picked one very specific example to say "no everyone I talked to calls a DC power supply DC even if it has a ripple" which yeah or course they do. But that's not really related the point I was making

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