Some years ago an origination I belong to that has a very good electronics lab (The American Radio Relay League) tested a bunch of portable generators.
Now the Inverter model they tested.. Nice and clean 60 HZ sine wave
Some of the "Contractors" were downright scarry... They 'scoped them (Oscilloscope) and where the Inverter jobs showed a nice clean wave
Some of the contractors the line was fuzzy as a caterpillar and some had spikes well over 200 or 300 volts Ok for a saw or a light bulb.. but not good for electronics.. Xantrex looks at the wave form per the manual.
Loading it .. it appears. cleaned it up a bit
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One generator I had an APC UPS said "NO THANK YOU" when it was new
But after I'd used it a while and the APC was happy.
WHAT changed.
There are some electronic components that need occasional exercise else they tend to go to sleep and not work.. Well One tank of Gas with a resistive load (300 watt light on a 1000 watt genny) and they "Woke up"..
NOTE: some folks who know what I am speaking of (Capacitors) will cringe at "Asleep" and "Woke" but to them I apologize.. "Not work properly" and "Work properly" might work better but ... Well.
I sometimes play with vintage electronics.. There is a procedure for powering them up... SLOWLY. and that.. is precisely why. Hitting a cap that's been sitting idle for like 5 years may well upset it and make it go POP and that's not a good thing. So we start at like 20 volts and turn it up a bit every hour or two. I have tools to do that.
