We had a little wind squall here in the Kansas City area on Friday afternoon. A tree next door knocked down a power pole and tore the lines down, and we’re still waiting for the power company to remove the trees and get the pole replaced etc.
We’re staying at a hotel right now. I have a generator running to keep the freezer going and whatnot, but we’re leery of sleeping here because there is a large tree in my backyard that toppled over at the roots and snagged on a neighbor’s tree pretty much directly over the bedrooms. I don’t think it’s going anywhere, but if it did there’s a chance it could smoosh one end of our house.
Anyway, I really do have a point here! I was wondering if I could use my gaming computer, powered by the generator, and protected by aquality surge protector. Googling produced mixed results. I don’t want to destroy my machine with unstable voltage. If not I’ll just have to suck it up and read more books.
I’ve no experience, supposedly the “inverter” type generators - are said to produce a cleaner sine wave suitable for sensitive electronics. You get what you pay for, if you’re lucky. Honda or Yamaha generators are much more expensive, but this is one advantage. I don’t think voltage variation is so much of a problem, so a surge protector won’t help. If you have a UPS, that might be a safer way to go. The less expensive generators have a “dirty” choppy AC waveform. A light bulb or frying pan won’t care, but electronics might.
Personally I would want to put a good quality UPS between the generator and any electronic equipment like a computer or cable modem. By “good quality” I mean one with a good power filter, automatic voltage regulation, and most importantly, produces clean sine wave power if it switches to battery. Even though you might not specifically need a UPS, a good one will give you clean power filtering as well as instant failover in the event of power loss, before the generator fires up. Cheaper UPS systems produce a stepped sine wave approximation that isn’t good enough for some computers; specifically, those with some types of Power Factor Correction (PFC) power supplies, which will just simply power off if they don’t get a clean sine wave.
I don’t want to recommend any specific UPS and my experience is out of date anyway, but one that has long served me well is an APC SmartUPS 1500, which does have all the features I mentioned. As for generators, sorry, I’ve no experience with them. And you WILL need one, as even a high-capacity UPS can only power even a small-ish desktop computer for a very limited time, so it’s mainly for power filtering with the added bonus of instant failover so no power interruption to the computer.
Sure. If your computer runs on 120VAC and you supply 120VAC, that’s fine.
Mains power is ideally a sine wave, and electronics were designed to use that kind of signal to convert to whatever is needed, but most electronics aren’t that picky. Interposing a surge protector (or UPS) is a good idea, but that’s true for mains power, too.
Pretty sure the computer’s power supply will smooth out any wonky AC, since it’s basically an AC to DC converter.
I wouldn’t worry about it unless it’s something you’re going to do for a LONG time. Even then, at worst, you’ll just cook your power supply and they’re relatively cheap.
I have a 8,500 watt portable generator hooked up to my house via transfer switch. I have one APC Smart-UPS running all of my computer electronics (desktop, router, modem, telephone, NAS system, etc.) and one PC Smart-UPS running all of my home theater equipment.
As portable non-inverter generators are notorious for “dirty” power (high Total Harmonic Distortion), I use the UPS more to help filter the generator power than for standby power, though it’s nice to have both.
I’ve been using this for years with no problem at all.
As others indicate, you want Pure Sine Wave instead of Simulated Sine Wave on the output.
I bought this particular CyberPower power supply for my network rack:
The more that I think about it, recharging a laptop battery while it is shutdown in particular should work OK.
It would be interesting to hear from someone who has tried running their desktop or a laptop directly from one of the el-cheapo generators. I suspect the RF hash radiated through the wiring and choppy waveform might wreak havoc with the video display or interfere with other components. I suppose the general admonition about “dirty” power didn’t come from nowhere.
I’ve run quite a few desktop computers on a variety of portable generators over the years. (No, I’m not publishing manifestos from my shack in the woods.) Here are some observations based on experience:
Many UPSs will not “lock” to the generator output if it is unstable. A typical non-inverter generator in the 4KW to 10 KW range will vary enough so a UPS will disconnect from it and use its internal battery.This is entirely normal for the UPS, as it is designed to detect very slight power variations and immediately switch to the battery/inverter. The result is that the generator really doesn’t help much…the UPS just runs until the battery drops below minimum level.
You can significantly mitigate noise and voltage spikes from a generator by using a 120 VAC isolation transformer, or even an adjustable transformer, between the generator and the computer. Even an inexpensive one ($60 - $100) can make a huge difference.
I’ve actually had very few problems running a desktop computer directly from a small (4.4 KW) non-inverter generator as long as I let the generator stabilize for a few minutes and don’t add or remove other loads from it while the computer is turned on.
I did this a few years ago - I work from home and we had a planned power outage, and I didn’t feel like sitting at a Starbucks for 9 hours a day. So I rented a generator from Home Depot and ran my laptop, router, and modem on it (turns out you still have internet during a power outage, you just can’t turn it into wifi!). Worked fine for the 2 days I did this for.
Yep, that’s what I opened the thread intending to say; if it’s a long term problem, do that; if it’s a short term problem, just take a break from using the delicate kit, if that’s possible.
I suppose if you have a good quality PSU in the computer, that ought to be handling anything bad, or else that should be the part to fail first, protecting everything else, but it’s not a risk I would court.
A few weeks ago, we had a planned outage for the local utility to do some line work. After stringing extension cords through the house, I was able to power my fridge, freezer, satellite receiver, work laptop, two monitors, a TV, phone system, network equipment, and a desktop Mac with no problems for 8 hours on a 5500 watt inverter generator.
Macs are notoriously fussy about power and will refuse to work with some UPS that put out a stepped square wave or otherwise approximate a sine wave, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re fussy about generators.
If the computer has a high-quality PSU, it wouldn’t bother me at all. They are generally designed to take in anywhere from 90 to 250 VAC at 50 to 60 Hz, because it’s cheaper to build one device that works globally. And in fact they’d be fine with DC as well, since they all have a full-wave bridge rectifier on the input.
It’s possible that some cheapie units with inadequate filtering would be put off of the harmonics from crummy input. But anything decent should not care at all.
I have one of these (12KW dual-fuel) connected via a transfer switch to my house. I test it regularly, and run the PC and laptops from it with zero issues.
Formerly I had one of these (7KW gas) wired similarly and although some of my appliances didn’t “like” this one, the TVs, PCs, and entertainment system all ran fine. I had more trouble with fans and motors than with electronics.
I put the PSU in it so it’s a good one. Still no utility power and I’m not convinced it’ll come back today, so later this morning I’ll plug the machine in to the generator and do some gaming.