[TenTec] Those newish inverter type generators

[MIKE BRYCE]

boys and girls..

my shack, house, deep well pump and everything else in between runs from a
5kW sine wave inverter. The inverter will surge to 15kW for 20 minutes. The
inverter, running on a nominal 48 volt dc buss draws its operating current
from a battery bank consisting of 8 trojan L-16HC lead acid batteries.

those batteries are charged via a 2.5kWp solar array

There's nothing I can't run with this set up, including 2kW amplifiers and
everything else between. Sometimes people don't believe me when I tell them
I am running a 1kW and on solar power. This inverter is made by trace. it's
a 5548. Because it uses large (and really heavy) transformers, they produce
very little rfi.

A modified sine wave inverter will operate all switching power supplies you
can throw on it. Most of the hash from these inverters will come in from the
power lines, not via rfi.. a simple l/c filter in the ac power line will
take out 99% of the hash.

the trace line of modified sine wave inverters such as the DR line also use
transformers. The rfi produced is not noticeable when an antenna is
connected.

Avoid the cheap $20 dc to ac inverters. They're great for running a
soldering iron or small switching supply.

these transformerless inverters lack the filtering and can cause a great
deal of rfi. the cheaper the unit, the more noise it will make.

emergency power and back up systems is quite a hot topic right now, so much
so that ARRL has contracted with me to write a book on the subject. Should
be out by christmas of 2005 or there about..



Mike Bryce, WB8VGE
SunLight Energy Systems

http://www.seslogic.com
http://www.theheathkitshop.com