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Run TV from generator?

Featured Replies

Hallo

I have a fairly old MacAfrica 2kva petrol generator. 
Can I run my TV from it? I am not sure if the genie needs or are pure sine wave?

 

Thoughts?

48 minutes ago, McGuywer said:

Hallo

I have a fairly old MacAfrica 2kva petrol generator. 
Can I run my TV from it? I am not sure if the genie needs or are pure sine wave?

 

Thoughts?

Yes it should work fine. Just something very important to must see using a genny. 

TVs come in different sizes but I will tell you about mine. My plasma draws 400W and has a bit of inrush. My LCDs use around 200W. These units have power supplies that regulate the internal voltage lf the TVs. From a power point of view you shouldn't have issues with the generator. An old generator should be pure sine, although the 2kVA sounds a bit low. You may experience frequency issues if load steps are to big or if the engine misfires. There are also issues with earthing and such small generators. 

1 minute ago, frivan said:

TVs come in different sizes but I will tell you about mine. My plasma draws 400W and has a bit of inrush. My LCDs use around 200W. These units have power supplies that regulate the internal voltage lf the TVs. From a power point of view you shouldn't have issues with the generator. An old generator should be pure sine, although the 2kVA sounds a bit low. You may experience frequency issues if load steps are to big or if the engine misfires. There are also issues with earthing and such small generators. 

No misfiring genny should be used for any load. 1st fix the misfire. 😄

My experience with mod wave inverters as well as generators is the older TVs had no issues running on such generators but the newer smart TVs don't like running on gens or mod wave inverters . 

Some smart TV just shut down ofter switching on and others pictures flickers and some run for an hour or 2 and stop working and some just run for hours with out issues . 

So it's the risk you take of you run the newer TV on anything else than pure sine wave units . 

Google your gen see what they say . Sometimes there a lot of helpful info on Google . Or find some the can test the gen 

Edited by GMAC

On 2023/04/24 at 10:59 PM, McGuywer said:

How do I know the genie is pure sine wave?

It is a MacAfrica WH2600E.

Look at the "AVR Fitted" at - https://www.adendorff.co.za/product/mac-afric-2-8-kva-2-kw-standby-petrol-generator/

I've just come off using my 5KV Grip since 2019 now that I'm on solar and never had a problem. Was actually looking at this MacAfrica generator for my local Roary Clubhouse. Some people just plug in an old inline UPS to "clean" the power.

On 2023/04/24 at 10:59 PM, McGuywer said:

How do I know the genie is pure sine wave?

It is a MacAfrica WH2600E.

McGuywer

Generators produce a pure sine wave just by design .

An AVR is good because it stops the voltage from going to high.

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