VAXen at home

Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote: "Rotary converters" are often not just a motor and a generator. Very often they make double-use of windings so that energy flows through them without being converted to mechanical motion (although of course mechanical motion is a necessary part of the amchine, otherwise it would just be a transformer). For applications where they can be used, they are smaller and lighter and cheaper that motor/generator sets. Many/most rotary converters will NOT make full output when the input is disconnected but the shaft is turning at full speed. So they are not usable for riding out a brief interruption like a motor/generator is. It may be European vs US usage, but in the US "motor" almost always means electric motor in this and other contexts. So what you call a "motor-generator" would be here just plain called a "generator" with the assumption that there was a power plant burning something in there (so you'd see "gas powered generator" or "diesel generator"). In the US "motor-generator" implies a motor, and a generator, and usually in computer usage some sort of flywheel too, with full conversion of electrical to mechanical energy at the motor end and another conversion back at the generator end. Tim.