Curious about those cheap 12vdc-120vac inverters you can buy now.
"Jim Land" schreef in bericht news:Xns9890CF35A61BFRrrrFfffTttt4396hotm@216.168.3.44...
Usually so called modified sine wave. That's no sine at all but an alternating pulse with a pause between them.
Some older equipment and motors do not like these pulses and dimmers using phase control may have big problems. And yes, they can become seriously damaged. Equipment using SMPS will usually run well as the incoming AC will be rectified anyway.
Blown fuse.
petrus bitbyter
They put out an ugly squarish wave.
I run my laptop from one, it works just fine.
Usually the inverter will just shut down.
You can make a cheap sine wave inverter out of an old APC Smart-ups.. I did and it works great. The key is it has to be a Smart-ups.. Back-ups models ouput a square wave.
- Mike
-------------------- I'm under the impression that most modified-sine-wave inverters put out a stairstep approximation to a sine wave. Not necessariy very many steps, but certainly better than pulse-pause-pulse.
Bill
Hi!
Dunno for sure...I've seen references to modified sine wave units.
Yes, it could be. I have a StatPower Portawattz (or something similar) inverter that I bought reconditioned several years ago. The manual that came with it had several things to say about this topic. I don't recall what all was mentioned, but cordless drill chargers with notices printed about high voltage present near the charging contacts were on it.
The only thing I've ever burned up or damaged on it was an X-10 remote control module. (Don't ask. :-) ) I've run computers, TV sets, box fans, printers, clocks (with varying results in terms of clock accuracy), a stereo receiver, laptop power bricks, and even a few lamps. They all worked acceptably well.
The inverter I have has been pretty good about this. It simply shuts down with a loud beep and a red LED if it is overloaded or the battery voltage falls below 10VDC. Any behavior is possible, but bad things generally shouldn't happen. The worst case scenario that I'd consider acceptable would be failure of a fuse in the inverter. Anything else failing inside it would seem to indicate poor design.
William
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