Generators OK for TV's (televisions)?

[deepNdirt]

if in doubt don't chance it ..just do as I'm going to do and dig out the old portable analog set with the converter and rabbit ears:thumbsup: I can deal without all my channels for a couple days if need be although this weekend direct is giving free Showtime

 

[George2615]

I have been running my entire house with all TV's (including a 42" flatscreen HD), furnace, well, and other appliances on generator during power outages for the past 20 years without any problems. I originally used a 5KW (6250 surge) generator but upgraded to a 10KW about 5 or 6 years ago. The smaller unit worked fine but would not run my window A/C's if needed.

 

[ruralNearDallas]

Agreeing with what eepete said, but also have a question:

*UPS are the best for getting the sine wave with phase, frequency, stability, and amplitude you want. And he points out there are two kinds. The kind that always runs on battery and is dedicated to just the concerned appliance would be the best. I think AC motors are more sensitive to frequency than electronics.

*The phase, frequency, etc. might not matter at all. Many electronic appliances don't care much because the first thing they are going to do is rectify the input into DC anyway. If that is the case, you just need to supply enough voltage so the rectifiers can work. Plenty these days have inputs that are designed to work worldwide so they accept voltages up to over 200 volts

That brings me to my question: What is the Mfg and model of the device. We might be able to search the www for input requirements.

 

[eepete]

The unit I have is a Tripp Lite SU3000XL. I looked it up on line, and they've change the packaging but the specs are the same. They run about $1100 or so. There is a 750 watt version (SU750XL) that runs around $380 or so. This would be great for running your whole media center.

In Trip-lite speak, this is an "online" style. Others call it a double-conversion since it takes AC and makes DC, then constantly takes the DC and makes AC (no relay to transfer the output). If you go to the Tripp Lite web site, "products -> UPS systems and batteries -> UPS by type ->On-Line" you can see all the offerings.

We had about 5 of the cheapie ("standby" type) UPSs and it was a pain to keep up with them and change the batteries. So when we built the new house, I ran dedicated outlets back to a small 6 position breaker panel and put the outlets in various rooms of the house where we'd have either computers or TVs. Now with the cheapie units down in the 50 to $100 range, what we did was not the cheapest but it's the easiest to maintain and it's a online type not the standby.

In the basement in the lower voltage wiring area, a 30 amp 120 circuit comes out in a twist lock receptacle. This is what the UPS plugs into/gets it's power from. There is a box on the wall with a dedicated wire coming out of it that has a 30 amp twist lock plug on it which plugs into the output of the UPS. That box connects to the small breaker panel box. Should the UPS fail or need work, I can just plug the 30 amp twist lock plug into the receptacle and everything works while the UPS is out of service.

It's not surprising that folks have had the whole house running on normal generators with no problems for 10-20 years. In general, all manners of devices are much better than they used to be at dealing with normal residential power problems. As far as the various electronic do-dads go, this is by and large due to the universal deployment of switching power supplies.

Due to the cost of failure, I hope posting "try it and see what happens" won't bite me if something has a problem. You should be good, lots of people have been good, but it's a try at your own risk situation. If we had more engineers than lawyers in this country, would I even have to say this ?

Pete

 

[k0ua]

One other item of interest, My APC UPS's have an adjustment to determine at what voltages/frequency to tolerate before switching to the run off of batteries mode. When I ran off of my generator, my UPS's would switch back and forth and not stay in the standby and charging mode. So I made the programming adjustment and the UPS's now stay in standby/charge mode when running off of the generator, and when re-fueling or other shutdown they switch to active mode and run the loads on battery backup. This adjustment is a simple programming change and is documented in the online manuals. I wish I had the wireing setup that eepete mentioned with a large centralized UPS instead of several smaller units. Sounds like it should be standard in every new house design to me.
James K0UA

 

[DennisArrow]

Thanks for the thoughts GUYS........Pete and others, VERY insightful and great information.....LOVE the consideration put forth...

Anyway, power went off last night at 11.......Put some wood in the stove, light a kerosene lamp, fire up the genset to power the pump to fill up some water jugs and the tub for the toilet, and sleep through the night...............A couple of times the power kicked in and fired off the road alarms.........UNPLUG THOSE DURN THINGS till one has power..........

5:30am the power kicked in and stayed on...........Time to get some coffee going and get the tv weather up to see what is happening...........OK......the thought is without spending forever describing my non-consequense day that I have a few choices to make.........

Yes, it would be great to put in a whole house UPS.......so would winning the lottery

I really DO NOT like the little cheapy things that do not guarantee taking care of the problem

Seems the technical way is to spend $200 or so per Computer/tv sytem......we have 4 to take care of.........

Use "old" technology for now and give the situation lots of thought

Use my Honda 3k inverter with extension cords for puter and TV........

Who knows..........we are warm and snug and God is good.........thanks......Dennis

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Anyway, power went off last night at 11.......Put some wood in the stove, light a kerosene lamp, fire up the genset to power the pump to fill up some water jugs and the tub for the toilet, and sleep through the night

[...]

Who knows..........we are warm and snug and God is good.........thanks......Dennis

That's what it's about. A cheap tip - there are LED book lights that clip onto a book and give enough light to read by. That's the only drawback of kerosene lamps. An evening next to the wood stove with a book during a power outage has been some of the best times I have ever spent. The silence is glorious.

 

[dmccarty]

....

Seems the technical way is to spend $200 or so per Computer/tv sytem......we have 4 to take care of.........

..Dennis

All of our desktop computers are on UPSes. We just bought a new HD TV and I bought a UPS to protect it. Our TV is a DLP and uses a bulb to run the TV. When the TV goes off a fan runs to cool off the bulb. The UPS protects the TV in general but also allows the bulb to cool off if the power goes out. Since we got the TV we have had two power outages.

You should not have to pay much more than $100 per computer. I think the one I just got was $90ish. But do be careful sizing they UPS. For some danged reason they rate the things in VA instead of watts so I always have to find out the watts used by the computer, monitor or TV and convert to VA.

The batteries do eventually go bad in the UPS. The UPS I bought back in the early/mid 90s had its battery go dead years back. I bought a new UPS to replace it since it was undersized but eventually I went to one of the Battery R Us type of stores and got a new battery. The UPS now protects our DSL modem and routers to keep our network running when we get power blips.

Later,
Dan

 

[jake98]

Seems like stored boat batteries etc. on a trickle charger and a box-store inverter would be a good combination.