BOLTR: 2000W "Digital" Inverter | Pure Sine Wave?

We have a look at a consumer grade inverter. Thanks for helping out with the shop beer fund! A warm glow and early access here / ave

[@motalasuger]

Aw poo, now I just gotta know how sine my EATON UPS really is too, they really should be forced to include waveforms for all inverter equipment in the manuals / documentation. It would be sweet to know if you got that pure sine or pure sin wave inverter! Seems good a reason as any to actually buy a scope tho right, right?!

[@arduinoversusevil2025]

Absolutely critical to check it with a scope. No choice.

[@tactical1013]

Pretty sure all the cheaper ups will be step waves. They say it in the spec sheets, eaton and apc.

[@gddeen1]

Power should not be thought about except for the that are clinically compulsive, rich, brilliant and willing to spend their lives getting mostly nothing accomplished.

[@DonziGT230]

Plug a desk lamp into it. If it sounds buzzy it a square or modified wave, if it sounds normal it's probably a pure/true wave. What AvE said about it being impossible to create a proper wave with an inverter is incorrect, my MicroSolar puts out a very clean wave.

[@taith2]

Speaker and 12k ohm 1w resistor would tell you, just don't plug it for too long, 5w speaker minimum. You can clearly distinguish square wave triangle and sine wave. There are apps on phone that can generate these sounds for comparison.

[@jamess3417]

SINE WAVES - now with sharp, modern edges

[@AlfOfAllTrades]

Much in the same way as a DeLorean... all angles and shit.

[@konorkoler]

They're just scared of Apple's legal team.

[@syx3s]

really though, the average is damn near perfect.

[@thedevilinthecircuit1414]

A hunting joke, you say? Okay: An old man was at his doctor getting a checkup. The doc asked him, "So, how you doing, pops?" The geezer smiled and replied, "I'm 92 years old. I've never felt better! Six months ago, I married a smoking hot 30-year-old blonde, and guess what? She's pregnant with our son, who will arrive in two months! What do you think about THEM apples?" The doctor thought for a moment, and said, "That reminds me of a really great story. I have a pal who loves hunting. He loves it so much that it's an obsession for him. So much so that this fall on opening day, he was so excited to go hunting that instead of grabbing his rifle on the way out the door, he grabbed his umbrella. Well, he was quietly approaching a small creek, and not 10 yards in front of him he saw the biggest, fattest beaver he had ever seen. It had to be some kind of record! So he raised up his umbrella, took dead aim, and...BANG! The beaver fell dead where he was standing." "Wait one second," said the old man, shaking his fist, "somebody ELSE must've shot that beaver." The doctor nodded and replied, "exactly."

[@minutemarvels247]

Good one!

[@thedevilinthecircuit1414]

It's a true story, I swear!

[@slateslavens]

Today on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, we hunt the elusive urban beaver....

[@theworldaccordingtome6448]

What, the doc never heard of pre-marital sex?

[@roberthorwat6747]

Chortle!

[@sp1nrx]

The transistor will always blow to protect the fast-acting fuse.... an EE motto...

[@lesliefranklin1870]

Gotta protect those fuses. They are expensive and hard to replace. (sarcasm)

[@Gameboygenius]

I hear from a certain Louis Rossmann that Apple are especially keen on implementing this motto in their backlight circuits.

[@RobertSzasz]

@@pulesjet well, you want it to pop without blowing up in your hand, making sure it's not chineseium crap drives the cost up.

[@trevordavis464]

@@pulesjet what gauge aluminum foil is 200mA?

[@herefishyfishy6907]

The KZbin gods are good to me today. They let me know your video is out!

[@TheMdwfg]

Remonetized

[@WhiskyCardinalWes]

Nodding knowingly all during the sermon. Walks away with the group. Tim - "Bob, you understand any o'that?" Bob - "Not a damn thing, Tim. Wanna nother beer, eh?"

[@FakirCB]

I happen to be working at a company that sells and repairs UPS units (big ones, up to 500 kVA), so I have seen an inverter or two over the past few years. That poor thing on your healing bench is a joke from the technical point of view. The only admirable thing about it would be how the design was cost-optimized to death when it actually still works without setting everyone you love on fire, but that's about it. The machines we work with acutally do generate perfectly clean sine wave (regardless of the brand, it's a trait of the class). They usually have a very beefy brainboxes, utilizing FPGAs for precise MOSFET/IGBT control and use very high frequency PWM to "draw" a hi-res approximation of the sine wave, which is then fed through an output low-pass filter to iron out the noise and distortion with as little power loss as possible. Some devices can go under 1% output THD with linear load and under 3% with non-linear load, which is usually way better than the input power from the grid. The cost, of course, is a different story. My point is that you actually can generate a clean sine wave using solid-state switching converter although a lot of engineering needs to be involved.

[@cbecht]

"fed through an output low-pass filter" Yeah, when he was talking about a perfect sine wave being impossible from switching, I was thinking about output filters and Nyquist's theorem and such.

[@GrahamDallas]

I'm just happy for the new cutting mat and all of the future healing miracles she will perform

[@FullSendPrecision]

what is this new empire of dirt?

[@AtomSmasher5]

Aaron Anderson or lack there of

[@mkiser711]

Yep. Wheres the mess? I think he's knolling. What's the story AVE?

[@221test]

I suspect it is the same location he filmed the forkin' lift videos in?

[@xbris117]

Looking more like the empire of clean. Way too clean, doesn’t look worked in.

[@bkbroiler6609]

I’m offended by the cleanliness

[@hextreme42]

Definitely not a "true sine" inverter. Did you mean to say it that way at the start of the video? True sine inverters exist (I have several) and they put out a beautiful sine wave. Cleaner than the utility mains by far.

[@fredlaroche6969]

Indeed, same here. I have a pure sine for my stereo and sensitive electronics. It's clean as frig

[@captainmidnite93]

Difference between deer nuts & beer nuts? Deer nuts are always under a buck.

[@franciswhite419]

In this case, "modified sine wave output" must be the new marketing word for square wave output.

[@SomeMorganSomewhere]

"Modified sine wave" is complete marketing BS, "Modified SQUARE wave" is the correct terminology, but marketing heard that "sine wave is better" so they changed it to "modified sine wave"...

[@viermidebutura]

@@SomeMorganSomewhere is not even modified square wave is just a plain old square wave with some dead time

[@moth3rfck3r-s4n]

It is the marketing word for square wave output but its not new. They've been using it for 15 years at least

[@AlexZanderMuro]

more expensive inverters/rectifiers have a lot better filtering and PWM to get much much closer to a legit sine wave. Used to work on big (like multi MW) UPS systems and DC plants, and once you start spending the big bucks you get really accurate power reproduction. thats why they get to keep the name sadly

[@ethanpoole3443]

viermidebutura The dead time is what makes modified sine wave “modified”. The reason for the dead time is to avoid the extreme transition, and momentary near short, of a true simple square wave drive plus it creates an actual zero crossover reference period. Modified sine wave is much, much, gentler on inductive loads, such as motors and transformers, than the even simpler pure square wave of much older early AC inverters as it the magnetic field to collapse more gracefully before the polarity transition occurs which allows those loads to both run much cooler and generate fewer harmonics versus simple square wave. That said, I think we would all likely agree that it really should be marketed as “MODIFIED SQUARE wave” but then that would be bad marketing wank since consumers have learned to look for the words “sine wave” if they wanted a “better” inverter - its like calling a battery “marine deep cycle” even though the battery is most certainly not deep cycle but uneducated consumers trust that a battery that says “deep cycle” must be deep cycle. Many modern inverters of this type will also vary the output duty cycle to help soft-start heavier loads, like motors, that would often overload the earlier square wave AC inverters. Had this been a real “pure sine wave” AC inverter the output would have been Pulse Width Modulated at a much higher frequency (somewhere in the range of 20-100KHz) that would then be smoothed by a low-pass filter to form a proper sine wave output (essentially they operate as a Class D amplifier).

[@Master-of-None]

The new diggs needs a name. Area 52, skankworx...

[@WhiskyCardinalWes]

Beaver Lair

[@robertlee9395]

Area Cunuckistan, eh? Christen it with some Old Swillwaukae.

[@popo66us]

Uncle touchy's basement

[@jamestheotherone742]

"On The Job When The Boss An't watchin'"

[@textbookdave5337]

Bumblefuck's Bottega

[@Equiluxe1]

That's a modified sine wave inverter you can get pure sine wave inverters that do show a proper sine wave on the scope, I have one and the power output is very clean.

[@noblesks5769]

After watching this channel for maybe a year I was really lost in a lot of this electrical stuff. Still really interested in content though because of curiosity. It’s all coming together now, 3 weeks into HVAC-R tech. degree and intro to electrical theory. AMAZING revelation. Trying to edify AVE here in the impact this channel has and will continue to impact my trade education. First time chiming in here but just wanted to say thx. Been mooching long enough and obligated to contribute to patron. Thx Again AVE

[@arduinoversusevil2025]

Thanks for sharing a chuckle in the shop with us.

[@DoRC]

Im not surprised that the waveform looked like that. The inverter you tested doesnt claim to be a pure sine inverter. Its working exactly as advertised.

[@jeffelkins426]

I have a question? When can I finally pull it out of the vice? It's starting to hurt.

[@mortlet5180]

If you can feel it you don't have the vice on there tight enough. Put a wrench on her and give it a few tappy-tap-taps until the pain goes away.

[@dattepo7534]

He did say keep it in the vise

[@Conservator.]

Just listen carefully to the next video’s ending. There’s always hope.

[@jaredanthony8070]

@@mortlet5180 cheater bar. Aka handle off the floor jack 😂

[@ddeininger5343]

Vegetarian is an old English word for bad Hunter

[@listerdave1240]

That kind of waveform will kill AC induction motors such as found in refrigerators, electric fans and such, they will dissipate much more power as heat due to the high harmonic content. Powertools generally don't mind because they have a universal motor (which is actually a DC motor which also doesn't mind running on AC) but will run a little hotter because of the eddy currents induced by the high frequency components of the wave. In most electronic devices the input filter capacitor gets ruined rather quickly as it cannot handle the sharp rising edges of the boxy 'sinewave'. The device will still work but it will leak noise into the mains supply and will also become more vulnerable to switching spikes in the mains supply which could cause unexpected resets, data corruption and stuff like that. Devices that use a capacitive divider will probably die after a few minutes but I've never tried that. I mean things like plug in digital timers, remote controlled socket outlets and such. Good quality inverters do exist that actually produce clean sinewave outputs which are visually indistinguishable from what you get out of a power outlet. They work pretty much like class D audio amplifiers changing the duty cycle of a very high frequency inverter making the output voltage follow an exact sinewave once the high frequency is filtered out by an LC filter in the output stage. Such inverters are common in the better computer UPSs as well. They usually cost about five to ten times as much as the ordinary ones. They are more expensive because they need to run at a much higher PWM frequency, typically somewhere between 150 and 500kHz as opposed to around 5 to 10kHz probably being used in the inverter you got. The cost is mostly in the MOSFETs and the freewheeling diodes.

[@spikester]

Many large inverters invert the raw DC bus voltage of rectified mains using hundreds of tiny steps with little to no filtering required, the tried and tested method of most massive online based UPS's in large datacenters to generate 3 phase AC with a string of SLA batteries and very large IGBT's.

[@DerpyMail]

Maybe in some, but not all

[@JamesLewis]

That is a modified sine, not a pure sine inverter... I have true sine inverters, and they really do produce a sine wave.

[@volvo09]

Totally a modified sine inverter, but they didn't call it a pure sine, they said "digital" right? Maybe I missed it, but it looks like a piece of chit! Doesn't look reliable at allllll, just enough for a few computer charges in a power outage, and will probably blow up after your 2nd cup of coffee, haha.

[@allmycircuits8850]

Instead of just one sine at 60 Hz, you get sines at 180 Hz, 300 Hz, 420 Hz, absolutely free!

[@gblargg]

Should have put the Rigol into FFT mode and compared this to the wall, to show all the higher harmonics from this digital sine wave.

[@allmycircuits8850]

No real need for this, harmonics of "modified sine wave" are well known. If any waveform have the same positive and negative pulses (not like positive is longer, but smaller amplitude, anything like that) then signal has no even harmonics at all! So we're down to 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 etc. The simplest square wave without pauses have amplitudes of these proportional to 1, 1/3, 1/5, 1/7 and so on and so forth, with phase shift of 180° from one to another (or say: it's constantly changing sign). When there is pause present, some of harmonics could be eliminated. Best case would be when duration of each pause is 1/2 of each pulse. This way we eliminate 3rd harmonic and all multiples of it: 6th (but it wasn't here to begin with), 9th, 12th (was'nt here either), 15th and so on. So waveform like this is pretty easy to filter out, as the most annoying would be 5th harmonic, 300 Hz. But we see: duration of pulse changes to accomodate for voltage drop on battery which leads to lower amplitude of pulses on output. So when grinder is turned on, "brainbox" reduces duration of pause, so rms would be still 120 V.

[@JasonWorksAlot]

AllMyCircuits act now and we'll double your order and add free shipping. Just pay a 99.99 handling charge!

[@405line]

That's a modified sine wave inverter, if they are pure sine they usually either have it written and/or have a sine wave symbol on the case. Would be nice to see you examine a pure sine wave type.

[@AuMechanic]

Connecting vehicle mounted inverters I use a test light in series to one input lead to bring it up to 12v slowly through the test light to avoid the lightning arc on the terminal. Conversely when disconnecting I use it across the input leads to discharge the thing to avoid the 12v leads arcing if they touch while removing it.

[@laharl2k]

In my experience disassembling stuff factories usually use N-Channel Mosfets for Half or Full H-Bridges along a floating gate driver to save in costs as N-Channel mosfets cost much less for the same current capability than P Channel ones so the driver will have a charge pump dc-dc to boost it to say 36V and so you can drive the lower mosfet with 12V and the upper one with 24 or something like that so that the lower one has 12-0=12V between the gate and source and the upper one has 24-12=12V between its gate and source. :P

[@tundramanq]

I was ready to walk when I saw paralleled fuses and diode - probably unmatched to boot. At full load that's 220+ amps draw on the battery at 90% efficiency. I hadn't thought of the pulse effects on the batteries - thanks! This would need an output 1:1 20 amp transformer to get a fairly clean regulated output.

[@chrisfreemesser5707]

Anybody else hoping he would have reversed the positive and negative connections so we could see the inverter fry?

[@wallywonka808]

Wrong channel, for that go visit electroboom! 🤣

[@Deepwaterjew]

I've done itbefore, let the magic smoke out and set the pixies free, although I will say they were REALLY fuckin pissed off.

[@turtmastert3545]

I have done that a few times as well, not on purpose though

[@BruceS42]

I did that once on a motorcycle battery charger. It just blew an inline fuse. Another (smarter) charger just shows error indicators for reverse polarity.

[@JasonW.]

It would stink for days with that many caps blowing.

[@gregoryscott9767]

I blew up 4 of them lol

[@enjoyingthecrisis5931]

I only blew up one... it was the fire from that which blew up the pile of 3 spares...

[@stevenvanheel3932]

Damn, you are way ahead of me. I’ve only blew up one and it lit on fire.

[@ethanpoole3443]

Ghee, the most AC inverter excitement I’ve ever had was all the cheap Chinese input filter capacitors shorting simultaneously upon powering on an inverter that had been sitting on the shelf for several years since its last use - I feel cheated of the experience! Mine just produced a lot of foul smelling steam from all the electrolyte boiling off in a few seconds. But I’ve yet to actually destroy any inverters, though I have at least 4 or 5 AC inverters that I use from time to time. If you have certain batteries that you most frequently connect your AC inverter then to you can greatly reduce the likelihood of reversing the polarity by using high current polarized power connectors that you leave preconnected on both the inverter and batteries - but that will spare you getting the polarity reversed as long as you take care to double-check your work carefully when you first install the. Anderson Power makes up several styles of such connectors that are rated for anywhere from tens of amps on the small side up to 1000+ amps on the larger end.

[@JasonW.]

@@ethanpoole3443 I prefer to use SB175 connections, then multiple battery pairs at 24v. This allows me to hot swap batteries when needed, but keep the load functional.

[@gregoryscott9767]

I had 2 of them in my truck one was to run the fridge and the other was for the coffee maker and whatever appliances I would use in the truck. Fyi. I had 4 batteries hooked to mine. And ALWAY had to had the truck running to keep the batteries charged and the was only when I was using them I don't know if I was doing anyþhing wrong. They'd alway fault if I didn't have the truck running. Like to see if you could blow that one up with over loading it. Not hooking it up backwards.

[@GhostRyderFPV]

What a great day to leave work a little early, didn't even know Uncle B had a new vijayo - but damn if that's not the first thing I'm doing with this time!

[@Thelawncarenut]

who gave you authorization to film in the Jr College cafeteria?

[@watsok]

Quick test about your inverter, Put it under load and bring your AM radio close by. Tune arround If the pixies squack out the radio, bad inverter. You may just have a 2 kilowatt RF transmitter trying to make AC at 60 or 50 Hz.

[@joebrewer6034]

"A diode is a one-way check valve for angry pixies" - I'd buy that t-shirt!

[@pauljs75]

With all the capacitors I was briefly expecting an Electroboom moment at a time or two, but it seems AVE's fingers are much better at keeping away.

[@jamest.5001]

I had the crazy idea to build one of these to power my house. After studying for a while I bought one! It could be a center tap toroid. Where half is wound backwards. And is equal to having a h brige as far as the transformer/ torroid is concerned. I think I could build a inverter if I had help with the controller side. I'm no programmer!

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

Any tips on picking up a used scope? Or did you buy that new? I need one for my ham radio ventures.

[@michaelmolter6180]

I was going to buy a scope, and then got a USB all-in-one scope/power supply/waveform generator called an Analog Discovery II. It has been the greatest thing I've ever bought for electronics hobby work. Would recommend. Unfortunately, the 25 MHz bandwidth is probably to slow for a lot of radio frequency work (I don't know anything about HAM specifically).

[@Afrotechmods]

❤️

[@fullwaverecked]

It's good seeing you here!

[@ms_enj]

Afrotechmods a

[@vc1343]

One of your best. You were really on your game today. Thank you.

[@chasingcapsaicin]

I'll send you the wave form I get out of my Trace 2548 inverter, its impressive how many steps there are in a wave. Of course you pay out the nose for that, but I was running a lot of computers of it in the late 90's with a train battery. Wish they were in business and still made. My first one was a 2512, but the 00 battery cables would dance under load, I could calculate somewhere in the neighborhood of 400A pulsed DC draw. Like watching tassels spinning at the titty bar and almost as fun.

[@newdeathscope]

Why did you do that, and do you have any pictures for us to gander at?

[@fuzzy1dk]

the duty cycle is important because when it is just right it removes many of the harmonics

[@chasingcapsaicin]

@@newdeathscope server farm, and I may be able to find pictures, this was ~97 I set it up. Full flege ISP with national DSL service completely independent backhaual.

[@chasingcapsaicin]

I'm sure he will with something he has round there, I would put it to the lighting first. I would not want to run a fridge compressor off that wave.

[@aguyinback]

I think you need to be going to a different class of establishment...

[@diycarguy6241]

It doesn't claim to be a Pure Sine Wave inverter. The box and website both says it Modified Sine Wave. They use standard automotive fuses so that if the user ever has occasion to replace them (i.e. he connects to the battery in reverse polarity). replacement fuses are easy to find.

[@presley913]

Thank you!! I've been dying to see something like this. I'm an OTR trucker and I rely on a 1500w inverter to power stuff like a skillet, 700w microwave, grooming stuff, laptop, etc. And I won't lie, it's a piece of chit!

[@fuzzy1dk]

A diode for polarity protection would kill efficiency, at those current you could easily lose 10% of the 12V

[@dannooo548]

They make reverse polarity protection ICs that have hardly any voltage drop, but cost a lot.

[@kensmith5694]

You can do polarity with a power MOSFET. 1) Simple form that doesn't work: Put N-channel MOSFET in the ground side of the input. Install it reversed so the body diode doesn't conduct. When the polarity is right, the MOSFET is on. Hook its gate to the +12V input. 2) Slightly more complex version that does work 2A) Add circuit so that voltage spikes can't get to MOSFET's gate. 2B) Add circuit so that the gate goes up slowly

[@kipparimies]

What about some acoustic panels for the workshop? That would be an interesting experiment/video trying to make those.

[@6alecapristrudel]

Body diodes are "technically" beefy, about as much as the actual mosfet according to datasheets. It's just that when you reverse the input voltage the diodes will turn on hard and they can only turn off by exploding the crap out of the fet.

[@nikgee8660]

Mosfets dont always fail open. Had one zapped by a close lightning strike recently that wouldn't turn off :o !

[@maxtorque2277]

Taking a guess at the architecture, the first stage looks to be a push-pull step up convertor, with a passive output rectifier (all those diodes) to generate an DC link at 170Vdc, from 12v to 170 is about a 14x step up, which looks about the winding ratio on the primary inductor. Then that DC link is sent through a basic 120Hz 3 step output (ON - OFF - ON (reversed polarity) to generate a square wave output. When you switch on the grinder you can see it increase the ontime to attempt to keep the RMS voltage at the setpoint (120V), which of course further distorts the waveform into something like looks more like 2 steps. 2kW is 16.6A at 120V, so the output stage, which only switches slowly (and therefore has little switching losses) is fairly small. The input stage of course, down at 12Vdc, needs to pull 166Amps (plus loses) so is a lot more beefy. Even with 8 fets, that's still over 20A per Fet. Because of the high current, they use N channel Fets to get a sufficiently low RDSon, and therefore have to use an isolated source referenced gate driver to create suitable gate voltages (probably at around 24V (12Vsupply + 12V gate)

[@rocketman221projects]

That's a modified sine wave inverter. They great for running incandescent lights and power tools with universal motors, but they like to burn up induction motors and transformers. They are not particularly good for switchmode power supplies either. A true sine wave inverter will produce a waveform almost identical to what you get out of the wall socket. They cost several times more than a modified sine wave inverter though.

[@spikester]

Cheap inverter generators produce almost as near as good pure sine wave, they use a pair of toroidal inductors to do it however this design doesn't scale very well, where the design in the video scales significantly better, however it just looks to employ a massive DC boost converter and then chops up that HV that is also tanked in the 2 larger caps at the bottom. Units that have a lot of steps that employ a similar output inverter that gets a perfect pure sine wave also do this because it eliminates the need for a massive transformer to smoothen the output thus it scales about endlessly, you commonly see such designs in massive online datacenter UPS units and of course this is considerably more expensive. You can get a very good sine wave out of an APC SmartUPS too however this design uses a large heavy transformer for the output (and runs in reverse to charge the batteries).

[@spikester]

In addition to that the cheaper ways of generating perfect AC sinewaves with a good amount of usable power require a HV bipolar DC input or an AC input to generate the said bipolar supply, such as from a generator stator. The DC-DC converters to generate those supplies from 12V would also be cost prohibitive.

[@signlsirchir2156]

There's a skookum choochin invertar laying on the shelf at work, bigger maybe than the unit he tore a part but only 300 watts. Was wired up with 4ga fine strand, Anderson connectors and proper fusing. defiantly I would chuck it north to see it tore apart for tits and pickles. cant recall the name but white body blue print all METAL and cert output sign off when packed.

[@dougankrum3328]

You got that right...back in 1980, I worked for a made-in-USA company that had to build some equipment to operate in Saudi Arabia, which at that time used 50 hertz, the equipment had induction motors among some 'newfangled' microprocessors (4004) running from an antique transformer type power supply... We shared Mfg. shop with a high end audio amplifier company....so we used a signal generator and a 5KW amplifier to run the equipment...worked out fine.... More recently, in 2010....my last employer had a very expensive high end Motorhome with a 2.5KW inverter...about 3 times the size of this, was also a battery charger running from 120 VAC 'shore power' to charge 2 BIG AGM batteries at 12 volts, 150 amps...it had a 2.5KVA power transformer with 120 output for the motorhome 120 VAC receptacles... The big transformer was used for both inverter and battery charging.....several very large heat sinks and banks of Mos-Fets...I don't recall the name of Manufacturer, but it was very expensive, something like $5,000....

[@tubastuff]

I've got an old Elgar UPS that uses a 16-level sine wave approximation. By the time the pixies come out of the massive transformer in the center of the beast, they behave like a real sine wave. It's rated at 1.4KVA and lifting it will pop those hernia stitches.

[@MattsAwesomeStuff]

"If you can get Warranty on it, great, if you can't..." Whoa. Hold up. If you can't, then you go buy a brand new one, take it out of the packaging, put the fucked one back in, and return it with receipt the next day. Unless of course you respect your retailer. STORY WARNING: This shit one I know they sell at Canadian Tire, who have in the past refused to refund me from a house-brand item from another location ("We're separate businsesses", horseshit, you share branding and advertising from coast to coast), and also refusing me a return on a house-brand item (bandsaw) with a crack in the cast-iron housing that was painted over with factory paint - proving it was broken before it even left the assembly line - because I didn't have a receipt and "might have just stolen it and walked up to the desk" (in which case, I'm still allowed to leave with the stolen item just not get a refund? And further, what does it fucking matter, are you going to try to sell it to the next sucker? It's getting returned to manufacturer). Bit of a sore spot with those assholes. If I can't get what I paid for and deserve, I'll at least be taking what I can get later on to balance things out. Ten years ago and I'm still furious. Rat-fucking needledicked assclown middle manager uncle-fuckers. *spit*

[@gsilva220]

Parallel Diodes? No bueno. Small differences between their values will cause one of them to create more heat than the others and then boom... The remaining ones will have to take more current than the others, the cycle repeats until catastropical failure. Thermal runaway IIRC.

[@jameshunt2141]

thats far from pure sine wave. looks like a modified sine wave inverter. Would be interesting to see how a proper pure sine inverter differs internally

[@gamerpaddy]

this is a modulated sine inverter, not pure sine, otherwise it would be written "pure sine" on it. pure sine works on shitting pwm at a high freq into that transformer which is modulated from 0 to 100% in a sinusoidal way, after transforming it up to working voltage its lowpass filtered. result is a sine wave.. basically a beefy as fuck class-d amplifier fed by a 50hz signal, gain controlled by the output voltage feedback

[@santacruzrc]

To catch the transients try setting the trigger to normal or once instead of auto, that way it won't update after it catches the inductive spikes.

[@osseo9947]

I have a Magnum energy 4400W 48VDC Pure sine wave inverter which I run part of my house from. They claim "pure sine wave" but the Keurig which I don't own anymore didn't like the taste of the AC the inverter puts out, also my alarm clock would lose 2 minutes a day. Id love to see a BOLTER on one of these if you could ever get your dirty meat hooks on one.

[@peglor]

2 minutes a day is only 0.14% - even clocks run on mains power that use the AC frequency for time keeping often don't do massively better. Tom Scott did a video on this quite a while back...

[@emilmuhrman]

@@peglor It's a lot. In Europe it was a argument regarding the electrical grid. It made the grids frequency "bad". But even during this the clocks that uses the frequency only lost like 6 min in two months.

[@spikester]

Use an inverter that can get its clock reference from a bog standard 10mhz GPS reference, problem solved for you off the grid folks, man I would so do that myself as it seems like a cute mod project.

[@spikester]

AVE made a note about inertial energy, it definitely had to do with all of the grid's generators moving slightly too slower due to some excess load, getting them back up to speed could take a long time if you are trying to sync to another grid that is out of sync.... etc

[@MegaFrancesco25]

How can you not love these videos, love from Italy.

[@tiagotarifa4589]

I've learned that fuses in parallel is something you should avoid, fuses with the same rating aren't the same! They may have some miliOhms of difference between them, this will cause a uneven current path, one fuse will conduct more than the others. This can blow a fuse "prematurely" (this blown fuse would work normally in a single fuse circuit) even in normal usage, limiting the total current that the system can take, causing more fuses to blown, a cascade effect. The device may never overload but still can fail.

[@tiagotarifa4589]

Same with the diodes!

[@apollorobb]

H-Bridge is a push pull that uses the same polarity devices instead of a complimentary pair

[@taldmd]

that brand new cutting mat is asking for some workbench metal furnace action.

[@abobymous]

Could one create a "safety device" to rectify or otherwise "smooth" the output to protect Li-Ion or Li-Poly chargers? I'm thinking about photo / video shoots where all the expensive batteries for the cameras could be re-charged safely. Thinking of an add-on that could be sold to people that have inverters. Love the vids!

[@andrewbell7696]

Hey!!!!! No more echo echo echo! Well done Canadian hands of mystery.

[@big-mc]

That's not the pure sine wave inverter, they do make a 1000watt version though which I use to power my off grid cottage

[@jeddi20]

plenty of space and not a beer to be seen. sorry guys, he's gone mainstream.

[@StevenSSmith]

Can you show on the oscilloscope the smoothing action of an inductive load? Thanks

[@mikewhitaker4150]

This a great idea, how about it AvE?

[@NiHaoMike64]

That would require a current probe for the scope, which isn't exactly cheap.

[@IrishSkruffles]

+NiHaoMike Nah he could use a shunt resistor

[@Conservator.]

NiHaoMike why wouldn’t measuring the output voltage work? Just measure the same but with the vitamix at full speed. See what happens to the “wave”.

[@kuhrd]

That inverter says it is modified sine right in the item description. A pure sine or true sine inverter will put out a very close approximation to a perfect sine wave. In fact, many of the quality pure sine inverters can put out a smoother waveform than you sometimes receive from the utility grid. These days it almost doesn't pay to buy a modified sine inverter because the pure sine inverters have really come down in price.

[@TheOriginalEviltech]

Bull sine! This is modified sinewave. True sinewave has another stage which switches at about 10-20kHz and blends in the 50hz. Then a relatively small inductor filters out the 10-20kHz PWM and you get allmost perfect sine on the output. The HV stage actually acts like a class H power amplifier and can be modified to output music instead of 50Hz sine.

[@TheOriginalEviltech]

Also a high power class H amplifier can be used as a true sine inverter. It only needs to have about 300V on it's DC bus. Or you can buy a mod board for driving a mosfet output stage and LC filter to add to an existing modified sinewave inverter and make it true sinewave. That's what i have done :)

[@wuldiba]

Place is spotless......wtf?

[@zogworth]

I think this is a case of don't shit where you eat

[@tyttuut]

Is that power supply a Rigol DP712? I have one of those. Really good power supply.

[@jimcoleman52]

mosfets fail open?? I rarely see that in the amplifiers I repair... unless by open, you mean they open after they sit shorted and get hot enough to blow apart?

[@123cheetacat123]

Remind me not to ever open 1 of those up, man ! Well its not Focus you fuck ! XD

[@trcostan]

What are all the diodes doing? If they aren’t paralleled up for reverse polarity protection?

[@sydmushas]

Rectify the sawtooth wave form

[@KeenanTims]

These work by chopping the input 12V at high frequency, stepping it up through a transformer (all those copper coils) to a high voltage, and then rectifying - the purpose of those diodes - to create a HV DC bus. This DC bus is then switched by the output stage at a lower frequency to generate the 60Hz output.

[@1noryb]

They are practicing parking

[@theharbinger2573]

Almost certainly they are for polarity protection. The only reason for that many in parallel is that they are on the low voltage input side, which doesn’t need rectification.

[@trcostan]

I didn’t think about the thing using a high frequency section to get high voltage dc then using the second set of mosfets to make the modified sine wave. That said the diodes are right by the fuses which should be on the 12v input side. The diodes that are rectifying the switched high voltage 170v DC would only need to handle 20 amps compared to that giant parallel arrangement carrying 200+ amps

[@geoffbackman6347]

One of them new fang dangled 120Hz inverter! Back and forth 120 a second!!!

[@danm1026]

Yeah, twice as good as 60! Mo powa mo betta!!

[@NielsHeusinkveld]

I typically turn motion stabilization off on the camera when using it on a tripod.. But that won't fix the problem of the new space being uncomfortably clean!

[@crazyguy32100]

Ah hunting season. The best drinking weeks of the year.

[@alsemi-back-up579]

Just Saying It Could Be A Modified Inverter in a Pure Syne Wave Box From You know Who!! Ha,Ha. Great Video Though! Keep up the Great Work You Do.

[@ddegn]

AvE Stop shaking my computer monitor!

[@ZombieSS77]

MOSFETs will typically fail into a closed circuit state and then send power out the gate which the lower voltage electronics love. IGBTs which are common in other inverters/converters like VFDs will normally fail open but have much higher losses when used in low voltage applications.

[@hyperbyte2]

You made my day, loved the gag reel

[@hos-joubostokolos2488]

Must we always be bull"shited" out of our hard-earned commodity..................................................................pardon me Irish.

[@resetcoder]

The interesting thing is that, these kind of inverters already have a stable high voltage power supply, and usually a driver bridge at the end that generates the fake sine wave similar to class D amplifiers driving bridge. If they have added a relatively low frequency PWM generator driving the bridge at lets say 5kHz, and added a simple low-pass filter made from a single coil and capacitor to filter out the driving frequency they could produce almost perfect low frequency sine waves (50-60Hz) with very high efficiency. It is just not needed in the most cases. But if it was needed, it could be made for a little more price.

[@dannooo548]

You would probably run into some difficulty with mosfet charging wasting some power. Or other capacitance in the circuit.

[@resetcoder]

What do you mean? Class D amplifiers work exactly the same as this inverter, it is just switching the mosfets on/off, thats the most efficient way to reduce power dissipation, therfore minimizing power loss. The only difference is, you dont just simply turn them on/off in a square waveform, but you modulate the width of the squares, to create sine. Btw if you use igbt mosfets for switching at the end (and you can, since the voltage isn't extremely high and the frequency is low) you can increase the efficiency even more. Especially if you make ZVS switching for the power supply area.

[@edwardturpin6544]

I've built a class D, and I believe the coil cost me around 5 bucks. Which is really expensive for these kinds of electronics, which is probably why they didn't bother. Lot of copper needed for high current.

[@digger105337]

I've always wondered , how efficient a mechanical inverter would be compared to these? I'm thinking a DC motor turning a generator???

[@joshuakim5905]

So question, does this apply to home solar panel systems? Solar panel systems include use inverters, correct? Does that mean solar homes don't get pure sine wave power anymore?

[@moesyzlak1000]

Ha, I got an ad for the Dyson cordless vacuum. Hey, say hello to your Irish cousin or be cursed forever.

[@jmlcolorado]

WTF? It’s so empty. And soooo clean. This isn’t AVe. Show your face ya freagin imposter!

[@sinterklaas1337]

Looks more like pure square wave, you'll be making friends with the local Ham operators :-)

[@someoneoutthere7512]

What! you pimped out your scope!

[@raymondmucklow3793]

Pixies of the angry kind, my first videos with you. Were the angry pixies, programming. Of course I've now peep showed them all.

[@randomelectronicsanddispla1765]

Having all those paralleled fuses and diodes, wouldn't that allow for impressive runaway chain failure?

[@fredlaroche6969]

One logical reason for them not putting reverse polarity protection on those things (because even the good ones don't even have it), is that an input diode would create a 0,7 volt voltage drop and on a 12V nominal battery system, it's an enormous deal. It's the assumption I've always went with.

[@ethanpoole3443]

Fred Laroche In setups like this the input protection diode is typically reverse biased across the positive and negative rails such that on a reverse polarity event the pass-through voltage is clamped to below 1V and the diode(s) place a dead short on the power rail to blow the fuses quickly. However, the diodes are also frequently damaged and require replacement afterwards since the diode(s) often fail short-circuit. This reverse biased setup avoids the 0.7-1.0V diode drop under normal operation.

[@Fireship1]

Modified sine wave or not, this will still chooch the girlfriends vibrator just fine!

[@CyberlightFG]

Just don't let the wife know.

[@redbandet]

omg those parallel soldered automotive fuses, never seen anything so choochum

[@CaptMaxADV]

So you’re saying that a device plugged into an inverter such as this, if it disagrees with the wave pattern it simply won’t vork? Or might some devices work, but erratically? In other words, why is it advertised that a “true sinusoidal wave” (which as your experiment shows to be simulated) is a feature that is desirable/important?

[@licensetodrive9930]

P-channel mosfets work well as reverse polarity protection on low power low voltage circuits when you don't want the voltage drop of a diode.

[@Blacklab412294]

The other fun part of all those Fusses is if one goes down, it going to act like dominoes and god help your equipment on the AC side of things.

[@bprewit]

Reminds me of 6 step output of older industrial VFD's before everyone started using PWM. Older drives were much easier on bearings than the new pwm output but components had to be much larger.

[@denisohbrien]

that many fuses. why bother. the current to blow them is not going to hesitate to ruin your day before they blow.

[@T3sl4]

EE here -- body diodes are always (at least, I've never seen otherwise) rated for the forward current of the MOSFET. Not that the eight of them will actually handle fault current if you crosseyed the battery, mind. Fusing: the transistor always protects the fuse. The transistor burns out in 100 microseconds, the fuse in 10,000 microseconds. Inverters: P-channel MOSFETs suck -- they're about 2.5 times worse performance. N-channel is easy to use with a cheap little driver chip. Good bet they're using push-pull, on account of how the transformer looks to be wired (mind, I've not seen an up-close of it), and because it's better at low voltages and high currents. They might actually be using full bridge anyway, mostly because their transformer is a POS for this kind of current. Those body diodes clamp the voltage spikes from the transformer that way. Impressed that it's at least got a current transformer on the output side, by the looks of it. Maybe it won't actually explode when surge loaded (hey, it survived blipping the grinder, that's a good show), or heavily loaded or overloaded (maybe it'll even shut down smoothly?).

[@Chris-du7hi]

Sorry man I think your off about the body diodes. The diode is formed intrinsically from the doped regions of the fet. Thus it's not difficult to find parts with a diode forward current rating (Is) that is almost as high as the drain current rating (Id), sometimes its actually higher. Plus those fuses are goina pop quick with ~1kA on em. Not that it would be easier to repair the fuses, looks like you'd almost need a torch (/s) to desolder anything on there. Also its not best practice to connect your scope probe to a foot long red antenna right next to a high current switcher. Cant say if it mattered here or not but that noise on the 12v rail looked suspicious.

[@dtrrtd774]

Yeah, the current handling of the body diode is not miniscule, but power dissipation at the high current will be higher than normal operation because of the diode voltage drop being higher.

[@richfiles]

I salvaged the controller out of an old California Instruments "Invertron" that got scrapped at the electric motor manufacturer where I used to work. Interesting little thing. It had an 8 bit ROM chip that could code up to 256 levels of output, and they coded a quarter sine wave into it. A four stage counter would step output modes every time the address in the ROM hit either 11111111 or 00000000. When it hit all ones, it would reverse the address counter and count back down from 11111111 to 00000000. When it hit all zeros, it would again, reverse the address counter, but also toggle the output polarity. This gave a 512 level digital sine wave that completed one cycle in 1024 total steps. Not too shabby for a bit of kit from 1980!

[@dezertraider]

Boom says Hi....All that smoketalk in the beginning,Congratulations On Freeing up Refa Canada!,,Great teacher for sure.Electronics has been weak for me,You bring into perspective very well.73s

[@65bug519]

I stock pile the old ups units cause they have an actual transformer in em and 2 gronk sized transistors driving it , pure sine wave

[@copperheadsevenpointthree8523]

A hunter is more honest, tho less rested- comment 1000

[@murrayedington]

170V peak at 70% duty cycle gives the same RMS voltage as a proper 120V sine wave. Good for filament bulbs and heaters but not so nice for SMPS inputs - laptops, wall warts etc. But you knew that.

[@brianhilligoss]

What happened to the empire of dirt?

[@texasdeeslinglead2401]

It's overthrown an airplane hanger with a viking Era forklift.

[@erg0centric]

Insurance fire, or is that next month?

[@AnIdiotwithaSubaru]

Ha, back in that gold plating vi-jayo you said you'd never get half a million subscribers let alone a full million. JOKES ON YOU uncle bumblefuc* hahah. Congrats on almost getting there