I have for several years used inverters, for the most part all is well, BUT here are some issues:
The output of all under $500. inverters is a simple square wave -(1 step) not even a modified sine wave. Above this price range you may find a stepped sine wave output - the number of steps used to approximate the sine wave is a measure of quality -3 steps or 25 steps, but again is only a problem under specific circumstances. I have charged laptops, ran G4s and printers all with no problems, but some of the power supplies are designed as a switching basis to use less iron and so lower in weight but this causes the effect of the square wave to be more of a problem. It is especially important that you NOT use near the limit - a 50 watt should not be more than 80% loaded as the wave will fail and as you are connecting a transformer to what you want it to see is ac, but when the wave form fails, it is dc and no inductive reactance will cause it to have VERY HIGH CURRENTS burning out your supply. JML From: Dan <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Is a power inverter safe for laptops and iPods? To: [email protected] Date: Wednesday, July 14, 2010, 11:08 AM At 10:51 AM -0700 7/14/2010, Tom wrote: > During an upcoming vacation in an RV, our family will want to charge their > Apple laptops and iPods as usual, [...] power inverter from Radio Shack [...] > Anybody see a problem with plugging a Powerbook, a MacBook, or an iPod into > this thing? (Not all at once, of course). My housemates travel all over the country in their RV. Everything works fine on their inverter. But they have had difficulties in the past with cheap inverters... Something about the a/c not being a smooth enough wave to make the wal-warts and rechargers happy. -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
