Mark @ Everlast
Advertiser
Sodo, many economy generators produce a modified square wave instead of a sine wave. It's designed to appear "sine-ish", but the tops of the wave are flattened and it "falls" through the zero point instead of the curved rise of a sine wave (forget what it is called now). Most of these generators are actually alternators, and they produce a dirty wave, and on 240V, the phase angle is not properly aligned. (that is about as technical as I get or it makes my head hurt). Inverter generators can produce a clean sine wave, but not all do. A clean sine wave is generally regard as 10% or less total harmonic distortion. Northern Tool claims 5% on that unit...which is better than the average household current in some areas of the country. Any way, dirty sine waves and modified square waves tears up electronic equipment. Just because a unit puts OUT a square wave or DC wave doesn't mean it wants a square wave input. Inverters and transformer rectifiers alike produce a square wave by chopping the tops/bottoms off of an AC sine wave to produce a somewhat squiggly DC wave.
If you would not plug your computer tower into it, you don't need to plug your inverter welder into it. A transformer may not care as much although the arc quality may not be as good...basically garbage in/garbage out...although I am sure it could eventually damage one as well if it were bad enough.
If you would not plug your computer tower into it, you don't need to plug your inverter welder into it. A transformer may not care as much although the arc quality may not be as good...basically garbage in/garbage out...although I am sure it could eventually damage one as well if it were bad enough.