Cheapo generators & Basic Stamps
Archiver
Posts: 46,084
Bought a cheapo gasoline generator (<$400), of course
once I brought it home and opened it up there
was a warning about driving "solid state" equipment,
goes on to say "damage may result if the equipment
is not designed to operate within a ±10% voltage variation
or a ±3 hz frequency variation.
Any comment on this anyone?
Wonder if there's somekinda cheapo conditioner circuit
out there.
One thing I found out is that wallwarts vibrate right
outta my generator in seconds.
thanks,
techno masai
once I brought it home and opened it up there
was a warning about driving "solid state" equipment,
goes on to say "damage may result if the equipment
is not designed to operate within a ±10% voltage variation
or a ±3 hz frequency variation.
Any comment on this anyone?
Wonder if there's somekinda cheapo conditioner circuit
out there.
One thing I found out is that wallwarts vibrate right
outta my generator in seconds.
thanks,
techno masai
Comments
You are probably safe running most stuff, assuming it is tolerant of high or
low-voltage spikes. A laptop power supply is probably gonna be ok, as many
are designed to work from 100-240 volts without having to switch anything.
Not sure how a desktop power supply would deal with it. Anything that
derives a time constant from the power line would not be very stable.
Original Message
Bought a cheapo gasoline generator
One thing I found out is that wallwarts vibrate right
outta my generator in seconds.
with a generator but it would likely condition the line.
Original Message
From: <auto106947@h...>
To: <basicstamps@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2001 8:21 PM
Subject: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] Cheapo generators & Basic Stamps
Bought a cheapo gasoline generator (<$400), of course
once I brought it home and opened it up there
was a warning about driving "solid state" equipment,
goes on to say "damage may result if the equipment
is not designed to operate within a ±10% voltage variation
or a ±3 hz frequency variation.
Any comment on this anyone?
Mark:
The "lawyer thing" is probably the major reason for the warning. Almost all
modern equipment will tolerate those variations.
Ray McArthur
On Sun, 13 May 2001, Ray McArthur wrote:
>
Original Message
> From: <auto106947@h...>
> To: <basicstamps@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2001 8:21 PM
> Subject: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] Cheapo generators & Basic Stamps
>
>
> Bought a cheapo gasoline generator (<$400), of course
> once I brought it home and opened it up there
> was a warning about driving "solid state" equipment,
> goes on to say "damage may result if the equipment
> is not designed to operate within a ±10% voltage variation
> or a ±3 hz frequency variation.
>
> Any comment on this anyone?
Generators do tend to fluctuate a quite bit in voltage. Good for
running lights, pumps, motors, and things that aren't too sensitive to
such voltage/frequency changes. For computers, TV's, and anything overly
sensitive, I always use a constant-voltage transformer (if the frequency
is stable enough) or at least a battery-backed UPS. The UPS will 'sense'
when conditions are too far out of spec and will drop you to
battery/inverter for those times when the generator is too far off, and
will return your load to the generator when the voltage is acceptable.
This will prevent a brief "bump" from taking down your sensitive
equipment.
I run a small Webhosting farm, email servers, and network monitoring
equipment. I protect it with two levels of UPS and a 4Kw Generac gas
generator. The system works pretty well :-) The big UPS keeps me up for
about 2 hours, afterwhich the small UPS's take over. This gives me enough
time to fire up the generator and recharge the big UPS's batteries.
+
+
AC MAINS
+ +
+ +
| LITTLE UPS |-- Load 1
| | | | +
+
O | BIG | |
/O
| UPS |---+ +
+
4Kw GENERATOR ----O/ | | |
| LITTLE UPS |-- Load 2
Transfer +
+ | +
+
Switch | |
+===========+ | +
+
| 24 Volt | +
| LITTLE UPS |-- Load 3
| Deep cycle| +
+
| Battery | ** Good for 30 mins.
| Bank |
+===========+
* Good for 2 hours runtime
--- Jay
+
+
| Jay Nugent jjn@n... (734)971-1076 (734)971-4529/Fax |
| Nugent Telecommunications [noparse][[/noparse]www.nuge.com] (734)649-0850/Cell |
| Internet Consulting/Linux SysAdmin/Engineering & Design/ISP Reseller |
| ISP Monitoring [noparse][[/noparse]www.ispmonitor.net] ISP & Modem Performance Monitoring |
| Web-Pegasus [noparse][[/noparse]www.webpegasus.com] Web Hosting/DNS Hosting/Shell Accts|
| LinuxNIC, Inc. [noparse][[/noparse]www.linuxnic.net] Registrar of the .linux TLD |
+
+
10:00pm up 77 days, 15:21, 8 users, load average: 0.01, 0.15, 0.09
suffer. Line operated television recievers will not work properly, a
big black bar will scroll up the screen most of the time, line
operated digital clocks (typically use the line 60Hz as timebase),
these will not be accurate. Use of the wallwart will not be a
problem, as the AC is rectified. As usual, proper supply regulation
and filtering is essential.
Rich
http://geocities.com/rbc1956
--- In basicstamps@y..., auto106947@h... wrote:
> Bought a cheapo gasoline generator (<$400), of course
> once I brought it home and opened it up there
> was a warning about driving "solid state" equipment,
> goes on to say "damage may result if the equipment
> is not designed to operate within a ±10% voltage variation
> or a ±3 hz frequency variation.
>
> Any comment on this anyone?
>
> Wonder if there's somekinda cheapo conditioner circuit
> out there.
>
> One thing I found out is that wallwarts vibrate right
> outta my generator in seconds.
>
> thanks,
>
> techno masai
I thought TVs have their own vertical oscillator, syncronized by the vert
sync pulse in the video signal, and do not depend on line freq, which can
vary on a short term basis. Our TVs work fine on our generator. That is
why most portable TVs work on the atrocious freq/voltage coming from the 12
volt auto inverters. Perhaps a video expert like Mike Hardwick would
comment on this.
Ray McArthur
>
Original Message
> From: <auto106947@h...>
> To: <basicstamps@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2001 8:21 PM
> Subject: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] Cheapo generators & Basic Stamps
>
>
> Bought a cheapo gasoline generator (<$400), of course
> once I brought it home and opened it up there
> was a warning about driving "solid state" equipment,
> goes on to say "damage may result if the equipment
> is not designed to operate within a ±10% voltage variation
> or a ±3 hz frequency variation.
comment or two...
Some possible causes for display problems on a TV powered by a generator:
[noparse][[/noparse]1] The TV set is situated too close to the generator, so it's magnetic
field is doing the dirty deed. This wouldn't be a problem with LCD sets.
[noparse][[/noparse]2] The AC waveform from the generator is so far off frequency (low) and/or
badly distorted that the TV's power supply cannot filter it adequately.
[noparse][[/noparse]3] The generator is radiating RF interference that the TV picks up via its
antenna connection.
>About the "bar" on a TV due to freq error:
>
>I thought TVs have their own vertical oscillator, syncronized by the vert
>sync pulse in the video signal, and do not depend on line freq, which can
>vary on a short term basis. Our TVs work fine on our generator. That is
>why most portable TVs work on the atrocious freq/voltage coming from the 12
>volt auto inverters. Perhaps a video expert like Mike Hardwick would
>comment on this.
Mike Hardwick, for Decade Engineering -- <http://www.decadenet.com>
Manufacturer of the famous BOB-II Serial Video Text Display Module!
Actually the wall wart I had hooked up to the generator was to
a cheapo black and white 5" TV/FM radio combo, the kind that
run on 9 'C' batteries or a wall wart.
The TV reception was fine, didn't notice any degradation at
all and the TV was about 2' from the running generator, couldn't
hear anything though.
Like Carl mentioned there oughta be all kinds of neat possibilities
with a cheapo generator and a Basic Stamp.
This generator cuts in and out pretty much, it really seems like it
over corrects and then overshoots as you watch the cooling blower
driven govener pull on the throttle. Seems like a frequency counter
hooked up to a linear stepper might be a pretty neat solution.
Just wish I had the time.
Thanks,
Mark
--- In basicstamps@y..., "Ray McArthur" <rjmca@u...> wrote:
> About the "bar" on a TV due to freq error:
>
> I thought TVs have their own vertical oscillator, syncronized by
the vert
> sync pulse in the video signal, and do not depend on line freq,
which can
> vary on a short term basis. Our TVs work fine on our generator.
That is
> why most portable TVs work on the atrocious freq/voltage coming
from the 12
> volt auto inverters. Perhaps a video expert like Mike Hardwick
would
> comment on this.
>
> Ray McArthur
>
> >
Original Message
> > From: <auto106947@h...>
> > To: <basicstamps@y...>
> > Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2001 8:21 PM
> > Subject: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] Cheapo generators & Basic Stamps
> >
> >
> > Bought a cheapo gasoline generator (<$400), of course
> > once I brought it home and opened it up there
> > was a warning about driving "solid state" equipment,
> > goes on to say "damage may result if the equipment
> > is not designed to operate within a ±10% voltage variation
> > or a ±3 hz frequency variation.
voltage if necessary. We bought a new one about a year and a half ago and it
worked fine at home, but a UPS was puking on 131 volts at field day. last
year. =]
Actually, put a scope on it if you can to cya.
Jason
Original Message
From: "Jay Nugent" <jjn@n...>
To: <basicstamps@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2001 11:00 PM
Subject: Re: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] Cheapo generators & Basic Stamps
Greetings,
On Sun, 13 May 2001, Ray McArthur wrote:
>
Original Message
> From: <auto106947@h...>
> To: <basicstamps@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2001 8:21 PM
> Subject: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] Cheapo generators & Basic Stamps
>
>
> Bought a cheapo gasoline generator (<$400), of course
> once I brought it home and opened it up there
> was a warning about driving "solid state" equipment,
> goes on to say "damage may result if the equipment
> is not designed to operate within a ±10% voltage variation
> or a ±3 hz frequency variation.
>
> Any comment on this anyone?
Generators do tend to fluctuate a quite bit in voltage. Good for
running lights, pumps, motors, and things that aren't too sensitive to
such voltage/frequency changes. For computers, TV's, and anything overly
sensitive, I always use a constant-voltage transformer (if the frequency
is stable enough) or at least a battery-backed UPS. The UPS will 'sense'
when conditions are too far out of spec and will drop you to
battery/inverter for those times when the generator is too far off, and
will return your load to the generator when the voltage is acceptable.
This will prevent a brief "bump" from taking down your sensitive
equipment.
I run a small Webhosting farm, email servers, and network monitoring
equipment. I protect it with two levels of UPS and a 4Kw Generac gas
generator. The system works pretty well :-) The big UPS keeps me up for
about 2 hours, afterwhich the small UPS's take over. This gives me enough
time to fire up the generator and recharge the big UPS's batteries.
+
+
AC MAINS
+ +
+ +
| LITTLE UPS |-- Load 1
| | | | +
+
O | BIG | |
/O
| UPS |---+ +
+
4Kw GENERATOR ----O/ | | |
| LITTLE UPS |-- Load 2
Transfer +
+ | +
+
Switch | |
+===========+ | +
+
| 24 Volt | +
| LITTLE UPS |-- Load 3
| Deep cycle| +
+
| Battery | ** Good for 30 mins.
| Bank |
+===========+
* Good for 2 hours runtime
--- Jay
+
+
| Jay Nugent jjn@n... (734)971-1076 (734)971-4529/Fax |
| Nugent Telecommunications [noparse][[/noparse]www.nuge.com] (734)649-0850/Cell |
| Internet Consulting/Linux SysAdmin/Engineering & Design/ISP Reseller |
| ISP Monitoring [noparse][[/noparse]www.ispmonitor.net] ISP & Modem Performance Monitoring |
| Web-Pegasus [noparse][[/noparse]www.webpegasus.com] Web Hosting/DNS Hosting/Shell Accts|
| LinuxNIC, Inc. [noparse][[/noparse]www.linuxnic.net] Registrar of the .linux TLD |
+
+
10:00pm up 77 days, 15:21, 8 users, load average: 0.01, 0.15, 0.09
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
generators on our trucks. We had an expanded-scale analog voltmeter and a
reed-type frequency meter inside the cab for each generator. They ran pretty
close to spec except when a large load (air conditioner, Blue-Ray machine,
etc...) was kicked on.
Original Message
> Also be sire to put a meter on the output of the generator and adjust
> voltage if necessary. We bought a new one about a year and a half ago and
it
> worked fine at home, but a UPS was puking on 131 volts at field day. last
> year. =]
> Actually, put a scope on it if you can to cya.