Aluminium costs nothing in the form of drinks cans, just look in the recycling box. There is no degradation when no current is drawn, the plates are kept dry, only dipped in when power is wanted. If you dont like the ali cells there are plenty of other options.
NT
Laptops couldnt care less about the waveform, and are tolerant of very wide voltage swings too. You can feed them with 300v dc and they'll be happy. What they dont tolerate so well is high voltage surges, and this is one situation where surge absorbers have a genuine use.
NT
While I was at Marconi we were investigating Al batteries as standby in exchanges. They had a long life as the Al was not in the hydroxide until needed. They were primary cells though and after use the hydroxide and Al were replaced. I don't think they were actually used but I don't know why (its not a project I worked on).
NT wrote: [snip]
Utter bollocks. Many switched mode PSUs will fail within a short time of being connected to the pseudo sine wave output from cheap inverters. They are also intolerant of the output from cheap unregulated alternators.
No that's bollocks as well. Most will handle 90-270V AC only. The ones that run on DC are at best 9-30V and have a four wire connection to the PSU with a separate DC input. The cannot take DC on the AC input.
What I don't tolerate well is bollocks.
Yes, put one in your gob until the desire to talk shit goes away.
I agree, it isn't something I would recommend in all but the most desperate of situations!!
I have one of the 2.5 kva generators that Aldi sold about 8 years ago for £149. It has had periodic use as standby and a few weekends powering lights at events. It runs everything in the house with no problem, but not all at once mind. Computers, TVs, Central heating, Kettle and of course lighting. The only problem I can't solve is that on very low loads the engine has decided to constantly hunts up and down on the last two occasions I have used it. When used to power the house I find that switching all the outside lights on is enough load to keep it stable, and that helps wind up the neighbours that we have power and they don't :-)
Mike
In the good old days when power factor wasn't an issue I can well believe that. Current rules have a harmonic content which means that AC current must faithfully follow AC voltage. I'd be surprised if a laptop power supply would work with DC - BICBW.
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Not a cat in hell's chance. To get them to synchronise and to get them to share load are two different problems. Synchronising and getting them to stay in synch is fairly complicated, but probably possible. Getting them to share the load equally is probably impossible in this price range. There is too much variation between sets, they don't have enough mechanical inertia (to damp oscillations) and they don't have electronic governors. In addition a typical basic load sharing module costs well over 3 times the price of one of these sets! You would also need synchronising gear and reverse power protection to prevent a failed set being driven as a motor.
I used to design this stuff. ;-)
I would suggest to the OP that if his motorhome expects a good quality mains supply then he can probably rule out most of the portable generators as the load stability of most of them is very poor even compared to a poor mains supply, unless they are ludicrously over-rated. For feeding a battery charger the Aldi unit should be perfectly OK in most circumstances.
PV panels produce DC. They are in series chains paralleled up via diodes to produce a common DC supply of several hundred volts that feeds the inverter. That converts the DC supply to AC 230V and synchronises it with the incoming mains supply (actually I think it just "sags" and lets the mains lock the frequency).
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That's not unusual for the simpler generators with mechanical governors. Modern electronic governors tend to give far better low load performance, but they cost a lot more! You usually need to have a minimum load of
5-10% to keep a mechanical governor happy. If the set has been ok previously then look for contamination somewhere in the fuel supply/carb or a worn plug.
Every SMPS front end rectifies the mains supply and gives it a bit of smoothing before driving the mains side oscillator. I can't see any reason why a stepped "sine" wave or poor power factor of the supply would make any difference at all. Big spikes on the supply would probably kill it, but that applies to so-called "clean" mains supplies too. Just put some 275v L-N, L-E & N-E VDRs (belt and braces!) on the input to protect against that.
The BBC Micro had an SMPSU, Way back when, I knew someone who soldered
100 NiCads in series (housed in a length of drainpipe) with a 13A socket on one end, it happily powered the BBC micro ... OK so it's not a modern laptop.
Laptop supplies are always switched mode. Mains input goes thru a bridge rec to reservoir cap(s), at which point its 330v dc. The following switch mode supply can handle a wide voltage range, designed tht way so it can handle 100 to 240v ac without a sswitch or risk of damage. Whether you feed the beast with 120v ac, 240v ac, 170v dc or
330v dc doesnt make any difference to its operation.Portabel gens are ill regulatde and inductive sources. Load dump can kill some electronic items, and surge absorbers, which are a waste of time on mains, actually have a use in this situation.
Provide some overlooked and relevant data, or dont, but grow up.
NT
Make that 200
Provided that the bridge rectifier diodes where speced for at least
100% duty cycle not just to handle the expected 50% when fed from AC.
Governing is inherent since as soon as the speed drops, one or both gennies will be running full tilt. It's not the same as normal load sharing you may have designed for.
Connecting neutrals together and a neon between lives would be sufficient to provide and indication of synchronism. The old technique for synchronising 3 phase machines was a variation on this theme.
We are at least agreed that supplying power to the failed genny would try and keep it turning.
Most electrical equipment is remarkably forgiving to fluctuations in frequency and voltage.
You're entirely mistaken. There are rules for the harmonic content of current for supplies over 75W since 2001. IEC/EN61000-3-2 sets some very strict rules which entirely rule out the use of simple AC rectification using a standard bridge rectifier.
Given the age that wouldn't surprise me. Using a bridge rectifier to produce the internal power supply is cheap and efficient.
There is a thought that the newer directives are counter productive since they inherently produce less efficient solutions!
That seemed like hard work... Once upon a time, I used a BBC B to 'drive' an experimental Automatic Guided Vehicle round a factory floor. The AGV had a pair of 12V lead acid batterys and I just wired the 12V from the battery into a 5V regulator and used that to power the unit. I think it needed -5V for something, but I've forgotten what now but it seemed OK without it! I'd have the AGV next to my workbench, plug the Beeb into a monitor & the Econet, load up the software, then unplug it, sit on the AGV and drive it round using the F keys for speed and arrows to steer (ok, not quite automatic, but it was proof of concept :)
Gordon
I thought the 6502 was a NMOS CPU which required a -5V supply? It would have taken very little current, would it have been sourced by a charge pump of the +5V?
Where does the 216.08v come from? How can you have two decimal places of precision for something connected to the mains that has a
+6 -10% allowable tolerance on the voltage?The voltage across the smoothing capacitor(s) after the full wave bridge rectifier could be anywhere from 300 to 354v DC with a nominal value of 322v DC. Ripple will subtract from the DC voltage when on load.
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