AboutDave Nyce Expertise I have been an electronics engineer for 25 years. I can answer questions on analog and digital circuits and my specialty is sensors.
Experience I am the inventor on 23 US patents, and also some foreign ones. Developed sensors for over 25 years. Licensed private pilot (airplane and rotorcraft), have HAM radio license. I'm not an expert in computer networking.
Expert: Dave Nyce Date: 5/21/2008 Subject: DC to AC Inverters
Question Hi Dave:
How concerned should I be that a modified sine wave inverter, converting 12v DC to 120V AC, will shorten the life of household electronic equipment such as: Bose radio/CD, or flourescent light balasts, or a personal DVD player, or a TV, or a stereo?
I run a non-profit; one penny per mile, inc. Our mission is to design and install small scale Photovoltaic systems, free of charge, at grantee sites. the modified sine wave invertors are 1/3 the cost of the pure sine wave inverters in the 1000w to 1500w size range, for a demo PV installation. I am trying to figure out if we should spend the extra $ on the pure sine wave machine. Xantrex 1500, for example. Many thanks for your help.
Answer I don't think there would be any problem with a radio, CD player, TV or stereo, since they convert the AC to DC inside the appliance anyway. It's hard to say though, with the fluorescent lights. An old-style ballast might get a little hotter, but probably would be OK. It would be difficult to say for sure without some testing.
One other thing: most modern appliances use an internal crystal oscillator for running a clock that they may have, but older clocks sometimes used the 60 HZ from the power line to run the clock. In such an old-type clock circuit, the clock time will not be as accurate if the inverter frequency varies. The same goes for an old-type black & white TV, some of which derive the scan frequency from the power line: so the picture on such a TV would skip.
