Dirty Electric

Many gensets the frequency and voltage is set by engine RPM. a meter such as this that has a frequency range.Meter
Normally with no load frequency will be around 62. It should fall to 60 Hz when under some load.

Path,

That is supposed to be an inverter generator. That means that it uses a computer to artificially create the power wave shape. If it is working at all, it is probably in spec, but it is probably not "clean" power. The instruments to tell if it is clean are both rare and expensive.

Matt

EU2000 is clean or no power.

Inverter gens are about as clean as it gets. Often better than shore power.

Thank you everybody. Electricity is a mystery to me, the last couple Harbor Freight volt meters (linked to in reply) I got, bit the dust, so I dug deep in my back pocket and got a fluke 117, turns out to be a mistake on my part. I have to look in it's manual every time I use it becauce it's does so much. But has a Hz button but only goes to 50. So much for expensive meters. Then Remembered my "kill a watt" measuring device thing with a hz button.
Then after reading replies I'm okay... it either works or it don't work.

P.s. kill a watt measured 59.9

Matt_Colie wrote:
Path,

That is supposed to be an inverter generator. That means that it uses a computer to artificially create the power wave shape. If it is working at all, it is probably in spec, but it is probably not "clean" power. The instruments to tell if it is clean are both rare and expensive.

Matt

$50 says you are wrong.



Thats a handheld Oscilloscope which can be bought for under $50 HERE

Good enough bandwidth to see distortion, misformed waveforms and spikes along with gives you frequency and peak to peak voltage of the 60Hz waveform all in one package.

Gdetrailer wrote:

$50 says you are wrong.

Close. This scope has 50V pk input. You would either need a 10X probe or a step down transformer such as THIS to protect the input. That will cost you another $10. I use the transformer for isolation as well. I just wanted readers to be aware another component would be required.

120V RMS is about 170V pk so you would expect to measure 17V pk using this transformer. 60Hz would be 16.66 mS pk to pk.

GD,

While that is a cheap version of an Oscilloscope, even with the suggested additional parts to look at the wave shape, you can't use it to do either a true THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) measurement. All you can do is look at it an see if it is pretty.

This came up recently when an acquaintance could not run his new inverter microwave from the CCV portable generator. We got things together and found that his machine produced a really big 3rd and fifth order that fooled the power supply of the microwave.

The microwave ran fine with the power from my 48yo Onan even with the distortion cause be cylinders firing.

Matt

GD,

While that is a cheap version of an Oscilloscope, even with the suggested additional parts to look at the wave shape, you can't use it to do either a true THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) measurement. All you can do is look at it an see if it is pretty.

This came up recently when an acquaintance could not run his new inverter microwave from the CCV portable generator. We got things together and found that his machine produced a really big 3rd and fifth order that fooled the power supply of the microwave.

The microwave ran fine with the power from my 48yo Onan even with the distortion cause be cylinders firing.

Matt