Does backfeeding of the excitation current going to the field coils of an electric generator ever occur?
Damn fine question alright… I am sure there is some induction into the field windings, but the relative power ratios are such that it isn’t an issue in the “normal” generator we know. These are known as synchronous single fed generators. Yes the field is usually from an exciter, but that can be the AC load in certain cases, (see below) or taken from the AC output and rectified to provide the DC field. Some have all this sorted out so they need no brushes. The exciter armature and the generator field are in the rotor, along with the diodes. There are double fed machines, where the “field” is excited by AC, the load, and also generates about half the total power. The output frequency can be different to the rotational speed. There are induction generators (asynchronous) which are like induction motors. The field is induced from the armature windings. It starts to generate when going slightly faster than synchronous speed. I guess (without giving a straight answer) that it depends on wh
