>From a purely technical standpoint yes you are correct. But I have 
>yet to
see an alternator without a bridge rectifier built into it.

Any alternator intended to produce AC output, as the one which started 
this discussion is, will not have any rectification in its main 
output. There may be rectification in control circuits for fields etc 
but these are auxiliary to the main intent.

Alternator, as Olin says, is traditionally meant to refer to something 
which produces "Alternating Current" output = AC.


        Russell McMahon

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