Anyone doing this long term with success? Did a search and found some resources saying it's fine and others saying don't do it, it'll fry the TV. When we dry camp, we "camp" and have very little use for an inverter. From the ones I've priced, a PSW inverter would cost more than the TV did. That said, I still don't want to fry a perfectly good TV. We will just not use it! Frankly we rarely watch TV when camping, but now that we have it, we do use it sometimes on rainy nights when we are on hookups.One other possibility, I think I saw a thread here a few months ago (can't find it now) where someone said most modern TVs actually run on 12VDC anyway. Just open it up and bring 12V directly into the TV bypassing the transformer. Seems more efficient anyway, why go DC to AC back to DC? Gotta be some efficiency losses there.

It won't fry the TV, it just might have interference from being "dirty" power. I have all of our equipment, including TVs, on UPS backup- they run fine on it, and the UPSs are MSW.

Been running one on MSW for three years of half timer usage and sat receiver for 11 years. There are a few TVs that run on 12V DC power and I tried one that required 14V and all I could get using 12V was sound, no picture.:(

Wow, interesting! Didn't know UPS's are MSW. I guess that totally shoots down the "don't ever run a desktop pc on a MSW" theory. In fact, to take that one step further, my desktop pc monitor is nothing but a smaller LED TV. I've seen it run just fine on the UPS when the power goes out. Also, clearly designed to do just that! Only issue could be that it is only for short stretches.

Ivylog wrote:Been running one on MSW for three years of half timer usage and sat receiver for 11 years. There are a few TVs that run on 12V DC power and I tried one that required 14V and all I could get using 12V was sound, no picture.:(That's what I'm looking for. I know it might be fine for one night or one week, but three years of half time usage to me is confirmation it's fine. I did read that some MSW inverters are closer to PSW than others, stepping the voltage in a way that more closely mimics a sine wave. Hard to know though which ones do without an oscilloscope. But I do have an old UPS laying around that the battery went bad on. Since they are built to run computers, it's seems more likely they would put out cleaner power. I think I'll see if I can use that in some way to provide power to the TV.

i ran MSW for 16yrsi switched to PSW 300w, when our NEW mattress pads and blankets came with digital controlsTVs have their own power supplies, NO Problems with MSW powering most consumer electronics

LED TV on MSW inverter? | Good Sam Community

wa8yxm
Explorer III
Oct 09, 2015
I seriously doubt that running an LED TV, epically if it is a "power brick" model will fry the TV.. (Might overheat the brick a bit though).

BUT: All Audio, Video and Radio gear is on the "May not work well with an MSW inverter" list. Every last blessed bit of it.

That said the key word in that list title is "MAY".. Sometimes they do, Sometimes they don't.. But why risk it. Why not just go True Sine wave.. The "May not work" list on TSW is much much shorter.. In fact here it is:

Any device requiring more power than the inverter can deliver.

Yup, that is it. the whole list.
RJsfishin
Explorer
Oct 09, 2015
Been using MSW for 19 years. I don't know about electric blanket controllers, but every thing else (excluding micro Ws) runs fine, including electric motors.

And they don't have to be expensive. I just bought 2 150 waters for 12 bucks each. They have very clean power, do not overheat, have no fan, and are completely quiet. There is a thread here about them.
RDMueller
Explorer
Oct 08, 2015
Mine is a 300 watt UPC model. The TV is probably 50w at most, so it wouldn't be working too hard. I'm going to test it in my garage this weekend with various loads and see if it gets hot. I have an IR thermometer, so should be easy to what happens.
Chris_Bryant
Explorer II
Oct 08, 2015
joebedford wrote:
Chris Bryant wrote:
joebedford wrote:
Chris Bryant wrote:
The trouble with using a UPS is they generally are not meant for long term use- at the very least I imagine they would overheat.
Not sure what you mean by this. A UPS is meant to be plugged in 'forever' so that it's there when the mains power glitches or in the case of a longer outage, to give you time to do an orderly shutdown.

I just meant trying to use a ups as an inverter for long term use is not a good idea. As you say, they are meant for orderly shutdown, not hour after hour of inverting.
I should qualify this to specify inexpensive UPSs- large, expensive online UPSs are a whole different ball game.
I honestly don't have definitive knowledge but I always thought UPSs, especially cheap ones, always carried the load.

I know some industrial UPSs DON'T carry the load but are able to cycle match very quickly so equipment doesn't notice when the mains go off.

Nope- they use transfer relays. Because I have disabled all of the alarms, now I just hear all of the relays kick over when there is a power glitch. Mine also buzz while operating on battery.

I should add that I only have experience with the APC Backups series and Cyberpower- basically whatever is on sale of Office Depot.
joebedford
Nomad II
Oct 08, 2015
Chris Bryant wrote:
joebedford wrote:
Chris Bryant wrote:
The trouble with using a UPS is they generally are not meant for long term use- at the very least I imagine they would overheat.
Not sure what you mean by this. A UPS is meant to be plugged in 'forever' so that it's there when the mains power glitches or in the case of a longer outage, to give you time to do an orderly shutdown.

I just meant trying to use a ups as an inverter for long term use is not a good idea. As you say, they are meant for orderly shutdown, not hour after hour of inverting.
I should qualify this to specify inexpensive UPSs- large, expensive online UPSs are a whole different ball game.
I honestly don't have definitive knowledge but I always thought UPSs, especially cheap ones, always carried the load.

I know some industrial UPSs DON'T carry the load but are able to cycle match very quickly so equipment doesn't notice when the mains go off.
hugemoth
Explorer
Oct 08, 2015
MSW inverters work fine for powering LED TVs. My whole house has been running on MSW interters for 25+ years with no problems, including 4 years for the Samsung LED TV.
Chris_Bryant
Explorer II
Oct 08, 2015
joebedford wrote:
Chris Bryant wrote:
The trouble with using a UPS is they generally are not meant for long term use- at the very least I imagine they would overheat.
Not sure what you mean by this. A UPS is meant to be plugged in 'forever' so that it's there when the mains power glitches or in the case of a longer outage, to give you time to do an orderly shutdown.

I just meant trying to use a ups as an inverter for long term use is not a good idea. As you say, they are meant for orderly shutdown, not hour after hour of inverting.
I should qualify this to specify inexpensive UPSs- large, expensive online UPSs are a whole different ball game.
chuckbear
Explorer
Oct 08, 2015
A UPS runs off an internal battery when the power is interrupted. Once that battery runs down, you have no power to electronics. Some of the UPS units have very short lived battery life. At some point we have had them last only a minute or two. Chuck
joebedford
Nomad II
Oct 08, 2015
Chris Bryant wrote:
The trouble with using a UPS is they generally are not meant for long term use- at the very least I imagine they would overheat.
Not sure what you mean by this. A UPS is meant to be plugged in 'forever' so that it's there when the mains power glitches or in the case of a longer outage, to give you time to do an orderly shutdown.
Chris_Bryant
Explorer II
Oct 08, 2015
The trouble with using a UPS is they generally are not meant for long term use- at the very least I imagine they would overheat.
I have seven UPSs here, along with frequent split second interruptions (enough to reboot everything), and only a couple are actually running computers, so disabling the beep was high on the list. For me it was easy (open console, su to root, run apctest, choose disable alarm, quite, exit).
Right now on UPS I have 2 DVRs, 2 TVs, Cable modem with phone, Vonage phone adapter, 3 routers, 2 phone base stations and finally three computers.

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