Mod sine vs pure sine ... How do I know?

My company has inverters built into the truck. I want to drop a few of my tech toys in the truck and I would like to know which type I have. Is there an easy way to know?

Also, if I have a modified sine (dirty power) inverter, can I just add an UPS Battery Backup between the inverter and the electronics and would that condition and clean up the power supply to protect my toys?

Thanks,
MD

 

Easiest way I found to figure out was google.

When I had a Modified sine power inverter a UPS didn't work at all. (Which was annoying because that truck was much nicer then our standard trucks which have pure sine inverters.

With the UPS it wouldn't put our power via the battery plugs until the UPS was unpluged.

 

Don't most tech toys convert the ac back to dc? Not actually running on the modified sine way.

 

It depends on the make and model, most of the cheap ones (under $120) are dirty and may work with a lot of the appliances out there like game consoles.

The best way is to get the make, model and look it up.

Not always possible, I could give you a long explanation to how UPS units work (they are pretty much inverters with a battery charger) and I would not want to try it unless it is a high end (like those on the solar panel installs) because it can damage the UPS or inverter or even what ever you plug into it.

By the way most of the toys today come with switching power supplies (that's what an inverter is and so is a UPS), and many times those need clean sine wave action to set the clocking for the output or for the fail safe system in the PS. AND on top of that, two other things that can be effected by inverters, one is fridges, especially cheap dorm fridges and coffee makers, many people buy coffee makers and then hook them up to cheap inverters only to screw up the electronics in the coffee maker, some of them don't like dirty sine waves.