Battery charger

[JasB]

I have looked but cannot find the post that mentioned it, but someone said there were certain limits to using a battery charger with a portable generator, something to do with sine waves, or some such witchcraft...can anyone enlighten me?

 

[john_morris_uk]

Some (most?) 'switch mode' clever battery chargers won't work off 240v AC unless it is a pretty good sine wave. Some cheap generators don't make very well shaped AC. There can be problems ranging from 'it won't work at all' to 'not working very well' to gets very hot' or 'blows itself up'.

 

[VicS]

[ QUOTE ]
Some (most?) 'switch mode' clever battery chargers won't work off 240v AC unless it is a pretty good sine wave.

[/ QUOTE ] Presumably an old fashioned one consisting of a transformer and a rectifier only will work if the generator output is half decent?

 

[john_morris_uk]

Correct - but I still like the advantages of our fancy switched mode one.

It works off anything between 110 and 250 v AC for a start. It is also quite 'intelligent' about the state of charge of our batteries and what output it gives. It also charges a lot faster than any common 'transformer type' charger.

 

[Guest]

Most of the switch mode chargers have very bad power factors. I do not mean just the angle, they try to take the power out of just one section of the waveform.

Small generators have no regulator, as such, and just use a method that requires a capacitor. Put them together and you get less than idea conditions.

However, a good power factor charger and an AVR controlled generator will work to the full specifications.
In that case you do not need to buy an oversized generator.