jbm@eos.UUCP (Jeffrey Mulligan) (07/20/89)
I am interested in building a 12 v dc to 120 v ac power inverter. A friend of mine bought one of these for around 75 bucks and used it to run a stereo system off of a car battery at a beach party. It seems like such a thing would be convenient for rigging up a camper and the like... I have only a vague idea of how such a thing might be done: some chokes to step the volatge up, big switching transistors. Anyone care to provide the definitive reference or a simple explanation? thanks for listening, jeff -- Jeff Mulligan (jbm@aurora.arc.nasa.gov) NASA/Ames Research Ctr., Mail Stop 239-3, Moffet Field CA, 94035 (415) 694-6290
john@frog.UUCP (John Woods) (07/22/89)
In article <4398@eos.UUCP>, jbm@eos.UUCP (Jeffrey Mulligan) writes: > > I am interested in building a 12 v dc to 120 v ac power inverter. > > I have only a vague idea of how such a thing might be done: There are two basic kinds, depending on how clean you want the output power to be. Some devices don't mind a 120V square wave, in which case you can just interrupt 12VDC at 60cps, send this through a backwards 120V/12V AC transformer, and you're done. This can be done with switching transistors or with actual mechanical switches (as in the old vibrator power supplies for mobile operation of tube style radios). Other devices really, really want a sine wave. The easiest way is to build a 60cps oscillator and send that through the transformer, but the most obvious ways of doing that dissipate a LOT of heat in your transistors and are not horribly efficient. There are more efficient ways to go about it, but alas my references are at home and I'm not... The summary answer is, what do you want to use the inverter for? -- John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (508) 626-1101 ...!decvax!frog!john, john@frog.UUCP, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw@eddie.mit.edu People...How you gonna FIGURE 'em? Don't bother, S.L.--Just stand back and enjoy the EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS...