220v/50hz power rig

Alex Bligh alex at alex.org.uk
Thu Sep 6 08:59:19 UTC 2001


Randy,

--On Wednesday, 05 September, 2001 7:23 PM -0400 David Lesher 
<wb8foz at nrk.com> wrote:

> If you want to test it on 50 Hz, you have a real issue.  You can
> not easily generate that much; there is no easy way to morph 60
> into same.

Some UPS-like equipment will do this - stuff designed for running
computer equipment in a field in the middle of nowhere, normally
for pseudo military use; take any Generator input (which can be 30Hz-70Hz),
any input voltage, normally close to sawtooth or triangle wave and
covered with crap and artefacts, turn it into DC, put it into
a few lead-acid batteries, and then work with the back-end of
a conventional UPS.

I've been trying to think of where I saw this (other than close
to a landrover) without success; I suspect that the easiest place
to find one that produces 220V @ 50Hz will be in Europe. I'm sure
they'll work just fine off 110V @ 60Hz input - they'll think it's
the cleanest and best power source they've yet seen. You might
find a US model with switchable output (both voltage and
frequency).

Many true online UPS's do not much care (i.e. can be configured
not to much care) about input frequency, as they rectify the
supply anyway - in general the reason they look is that
decreasing frequency means your generator is slowing down which
is not a good sign. So failing that, you could try a normal
European on-line UPS, with an input step-up transformer, with
a wide frequency tolerance. The only problem you may run into
is that some boxes are too clever by half, and autosense input
frequency to determine output frequency.

Alex Bligh
Personal Capacity




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