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What is an inverter?
Paul Custan • April 5, 2021
You might have heard of this word way before you’ve read this first line. Guys(or gals) that dwells with electronics and those who do not has most probably encountered one of these ingenious machine since birth, without knowing that it’s what keeps our car air-conditioning running. But first, lets have a quick look at some history.
One of the largest battle of the industrial revolution is the battle of AC&DC. Both forces fought hand-to-hand to claim the spot of what is the best(safest) type of electricity. Thomas Edison, the owner of American Electric was over his heels keen on making his DC electricity better than AC, he even engaged on throwing mud at Nikola Tesla’s AC by telling the world that it’s unsafe and very dangerous, citing its usage in Electric chairs. Well we already know what happened next, AC prevails and we still use today in a daily basis. So As DC, small electronics among other things receives DC as the optimal electricity for their application. Having two different types of electricity that requires slightly different type of machines to produce is quite a pain in the brain. We need a device that can connect AC to DC and vice versa. Thus, devices that does this were invented to address this.
There are two most common types of bridge between the two electric types. 1.) For AC to DC we use Rectifiers, 2.) For DC to AC we use inverters. Now these are two different devices, Rectifiers are easier compared to Inverters by build, So we’ll discuss it first. Rectifiers makes AC turn into DC, it does this by using diodes configured in such way that when the alternating current reverses its direction electrons still flows the same way.
As we can observe it the wave in this pic is not “DC-like” this is corrected through some additional parts like capacitors. Rest assured that your rectifiers can provide you a smoother signal unlike these skinny hills. This technology is more popular than how it sounds, you are probably using it right now. In your chargers, TV, laptops, any small devices your are using is probably using this. The AC from our wall socket is converted to DC in order to power small devices, Sounds fun! Okay, let’s now proceed to the star of our show, the lovely inverters! Well in principle this device just does the opposite of what rectifiers loves to do, it converts DC to AC. Now this application is most popular when you want batteries to run your AC equipment/appliances. Since Batteries are DC, you can convert it to AC in order to use it for your AC appliances.
Image 1. phocos PSW SERIES (500-1000 W) (1)
Classic inverters used switching to simulate a sin-wave, however, switching cant do a perfect smooth curve so yes it tries to do a sinwave through square waves. It’s a lot for some electronics, so engineers designed a new way to mitigate this, thus, the implementation of MOSFET and other parts that can aid the simulation. They use pulse-witdth modulation inorder to drive the transistors into creating the closer smooth curve.
At present, there are 3 main types of inverters, the modified sin-wave, pure sin-wave inverters and square wave inverters. Modified sine wave inverters are cheaper and has less parts, well yes because its cheaper, but it does not give you a smooth signal for your application. So you must be careful what you stick in there, Most appliances finds this type of signal annoying, it might break your Servers for example. Any complex appliances with complex electronics hates this type of electricity, but you can still use if for simpler electrical products like lights, old TVs and small motors with brushes, etc. The second type is the pure sine-wave inverter, this is so popular right now since the introduction of renewable power available for households, we can view it as one of the key component for a greener future. If it’s a modern electronic device you plan on powering, then you need the latter type. As for the square wave inverter, they are mostly used in motors or other equipment that is not sensitive to the smoothness of the sine-wave, but its pretty unreliable so I highly advice you to get the pure sine wave inverter instead.
Image 2: Pure sin-wave inverter output
Image 3: Modified Sin-wave inverter output
Now based from the mentioned differences I think you already know the difference between the two. You can opt for the cheaper modified sin-wave inverter depending on your application. But nonetheless, both are very useful component in our search for a greener future.
-Paul Custan is an Electrical Engineer who have worked as a software engineer and as a digital platform specialist before becoming a FNX Solar contributor. FNX Solar Power Solutions Inc. is a business based in Canada. We develop and sell portable power stations and related accessories.
Batteries, all shapes and sizes, have their respective specification. Though we can simply distinguish or define them via their names or composition, it is also important to know what they are truly capable of and how they are meant to be used. In this article, we are going to tackle one spec of a battery that is always been taken for granted, this may not be not that be not that life-changing for a conventional battery user but it is nevertheless important for developers and designers. The C-rating of a particular battery indicates how fast it can charge and discharge with respect to time. For example you have a 1000mAh battery, we cannot totally assume that it can deliver a 1000mA for an hour if it doesn’t have a C-rating of 1C - The same 1000mAh battery might only be able to deliver 500mA for a period of 2 hours if it is rated 0.5C. Knowledge of C-rating is important because the available stored energy after a period of time of a battery is dependent on its charge/discharge rate. C-RATING TIME CHART Below is a list of C-rates with their corresponding charge/discharge time for conventional batteries.
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