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Re: [LUG] Wanted: Lister or Staromatic diesel/oil engine to allow off grid laptop use

 

You'd have to satisfy western power that the power you feed back is
clean enough from harmonic distortion so as to not cause problems for
other users, which means you should be looking at true sine wave
inverters rather than the "modified sine wave" ones you normally see.
Not only that, but you'd have to find one smart enough to synchronise
with the mains. I suspect it won't be cheap.

I know nothing of these lister or staromatic generators you mention,
but if they can deliver 50Hz AC that'd make your life easier. 3phase
would be better and more efficient. They tend to synchronise anyway
although you still have to satisfy WPD that the supply meets their
requirements.

With inductive loads it's more likely the inverter will have trouble.
The power factor could be as bad as 0.6 so your inverter will need to
be nearly twice the rating you'd expect and with the inductance, you
have to make sure the inverter always has a current path available or
it could wreck the transistors. If you do have an inverter that can
handle it then you may have overheating problems in your inductive
loads.

You may want to look at wiring up a 12V dc "ring-main" for small
electrical equipment. inverting then rectifying seems a bit silly to
me, particularly for equipment with external power converters.  There
are plenty of devices that you can get car adaptors for and there are
plenty of 12V devices out there for car/caravan use. As for the
kettle, the engine is probably hot enough to boil water or failing
that there are 12V kettles in halfords.

good luck!

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