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Using a boiler to stay warm when the power is out with heated floors

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Comments

  • Leonard
    Leonard Member Posts: 903
    edited February 2018
    Check the gen output, might be cleaner.

    Nice waveform for an inverter. Has a little THD distortion, but doesn't look like % will be very high. Very close to a sine wave. Would guess your motors won't notice the difference, or make noise

    Would be interesting to put it on a FFT meter and see amplitude of the harmonics, likely won't be much. Definitely less than the GROSS THD of the stepped sine wave of post # 10 (NY-ROB scope pic)
  • Total1
    Total1 Member Posts: 44
    Here is the UPS that I have HERE
  • NY_Rob
    NY_Rob Member Posts: 1,370
    Total1 said:

    I had to get my old 20 mhz BK oscilloscope out of storage to check the UPS waveform . It sure looks like a sine wave to me .. Also when the generator is running the ups always keeps checking the incoming power and it thinks we are running the grid power not the generator .. .

    How does the waveform from your power utility look on that scope?




  • NY_Rob
    NY_Rob Member Posts: 1,370
    We have a big (6KVA) PowerWare (now Eaton) 9170 at work.. it's output waveform on battery is almost perfect.
  • HomerJSmith
    HomerJSmith Member Posts: 2,587
    Well, whether you can use a generator to power computers or mod/com controllers depends on the several things. Many electronic component depend upon the 60 Hz cycle for timing.

    What you should be concerned about is the THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) of the sine wave. The THD of your power suppler is about 2.5% and generators can be as high as 12-15% THD which can interfere with sensitive electronic circuits. If the generator manufacturer doesn't advertise a low THD it is probably high.

    I bought a dual fuel generator with 7000 running watts that advertises a THD of less than 5% at Costco. To me THD was the determining factor in my choice of a generator. Dual fuel was an added bonus.

  • HomerJSmith
    HomerJSmith Member Posts: 2,587
    Total1, it's not the approximation of a sine wave, but a true sine wave with out harmonics that counts . You need to sharpen your display image and magnify the image and look at all parts of a single wave. There could be under shoots or over shoots that you are missing. The costs of a good THD meter is about $3000, which is why I don't own one.
  • Total1
    Total1 Member Posts: 44
    HomerJSmith said:

    Total1, it's not the approximation of a sine wave, but a true sine wave with out harmonics that counts . You need to sharpen your display image and magnify the image and look at all parts of a single wave. There could be under shoots or over shoots that you are missing. The costs of a good THD meter is about $3000, which is why I don't own one.

    Thanks , information is always good . That UPS when new was around $ 10000 new , never had a issue with anything connected to it , had a direct lightning hit with no issues .

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