naturist wrote:pianotuna wrote:
Be careful with any apple products. Their laptops at one time would fry immediately on msw power.
Most heating blankets and mattress pads allow the magic blue smoke to come out when used on msw.
That's funny. I've an Apple laptop from 2001 that I still use from time to time, and it runs flawlessly on MSW inverters. For what it's worth, most of the inexpensive UPSs seem to have MSW inverters in them, probably because the computer makers all seem to have gone to switched power supplies in the last 10-20 years.
I think you'll find that devices with switched power supplies generally have no trouble with MSW inverters, it's the ones with transformer power supplies that choke. And I don't recall seeing a transformer type used by Apple since, maybe, the mid-nineties. I don't claim to be an expert on that, but just my observation.
There are, however, many devices that do not like MSW power. I've a set of studio strobe lights that are like that. And usually what happens on most devices that don't tolerate square wave power is they get fried. Electric motors are an exception, in that they don't usually burn up, but they do run hot and loud, and are generally inefficient.
In the final analysis, pure sine wave is the way to go if you can afford it. If not, be very, very careful about what you use that MSW inverter to power. Resistance heaters, light bulbs (NOT necessarily LEDs), and dumb coffee makers, no problem. But if it's got chips, and you aren't sure about a switched power supply, maybe not a good match.
