In article znr1087475157k@trad, Mike Rivers wrote:
In article writes:
I have found that Electricians who have gone through the apprentice schools
do, as Phil suggests, use a different way of describing the phenomenon of
electrical current flow. In several conversations with journeyman
electricians I've come to believe that their way of thinking about
electrical circuits serves them well for wiring buildings and adhering to
electrical codes. But, for those of us who learned our electrical theory
from an electonic perspective, its hard to communicate.
To an electrician, there's no functional difference between AC and DC,
and only specialized electricians today ever deal with DC, at least in
the USA. It's all "electricity" and the instantaneous direction of
motion of the electrons is of no concern to his job.
Unless he works with polyphase circuits and big electric motors. In these
cases, knowing something about AC circuit theory can be useful.
Most electricians don't really know much about the differences between AC
and DC circuits, and rather than talk about load reactances, they use a
weird "power factor" fudge number to estimate current lead or lag without
having to think about vectors. That's fine for most applications but it
can get you into trouble with nonlinear loads like switching supplies.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."