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Converting generator power to "clean" power for sensitive electronics

Home Improvement Asked on May 27, 2021

I have a Duromax "Beast" power generator that I’ve been using to run my home during power outages due to storms, etc. From the start, I decided to do things right and had an electrician install an input outlet with a manual transfer switch onto an exterior breaker panel which feeds the house; a high-quality cable runs power from the generator into the panel.

We had a recent hurricane and once I figured things out, the generator ran things near-flawlessly. However, in researching generators, I read about sine waves and how generators supply "dirty" power, so I was worried about using any sensitive electronics — TVs, computers, cell phone chargers, cable modem, etc: we unplugged every single one of those things and didn’t use them.

I have a relative who is an electrician, and he argues that if I have decent surge protectors on those outlets, then all of those sensitive electronics should be absolutely fine, and this is echoed somewhat on a couple of sites where I’ve been researching this issue. However, someone else argued what I was thinking: surge protectors guard against spikes in power, not sudden drops or brief spans of low power…and those could possibly damage sensitive electronics as well.

Which of us is correct? Am I being overly worried and good surge protectors are truly all I need? Or is that honestly just a makeshift measure and there are better solutions? Which one is likely to be the most effective…and economical?

Thank you in advance for all of your advice!

One Answer

This is a half answer, based on some parallel knowledge not directly related to small home generators, so bear with me…

The only generators I get near are those on movie sets, which are gigantic by comparison - see Aggreko for an idea of the sizes I'm talking about. These, of course, are smooth as silk so require considerably less external mitigation.

Basically, you need several levels of protection if these are not already built-in to your generator.

Power limiting - ie surge protection.
Brownout - power slump - protection.
Grounding protection & isolation.

Delicate electronics don't like any of those. A general purpose mains surge protector will be the least likely to come into play in this, but shouldn't be skipped; they're dirt cheap. The other two could be more insidious.
A UPS (uninterruptible power supply) is the standard method of protecting computers & other delicate electronics from brownout or even total power-loss. These are an entire topic to themselves, but start fairly cheap & run to 'ouch' prices.
Grounding protection/isolation may be built into these - pay more, get more. Essentially, grounding protection is built on the 'in-house' side of a 1:1 coil-wound transformer. These seemingly odd little boxes - 120v in, 120v out, (or 240v i/o as appropriate) seem to do nothing; but they isolate one circuit from another. You then correctly ground the 'in-house' circuit to achieve total isolation from the external power supply.

Answered by Tetsujin on May 27, 2021

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