UPS shopping - when do I NEED pure sine-wave power?

[paparoof]

Hey y'all -

I'm shopping for a UPS for a new system I'm building and I'm seeing a common mention that "some" pumps require pure sine wave power from the UPS to run correctly. But then I'm not finding much explanation on which pumps do and which ones don't after that. Of course this affects the cost, so I'm trying to determine whether I need this feature or not.

Is it a crap-shoot that depends entirely on the quality of the pumps power-supply design? Or is there a well-defined boundary like: DC pumps don't care and AC pumps do? So far, all my pumps/powerheads (that will be on the UPS) use 24VDC.

Off the top of my head, I'm guessing that since DC wall-wart power supplies have transformers between them and the 120VAC coming out of the UPS, the transformer might smooth a slightly stepped/square wave into a sine wave? I have no idea if it actually works like that or not....

Someone make me smarter please? When does "pure sine wave" power matter and when do I not need it?

 

[Big G]

@Brew12

 

[Brew12]

Hey y'all -

I'm shopping for a UPS for a new system I'm building and I'm seeing a common mention that "some" pumps require pure sine wave power from the UPS to run correctly. But then I'm not finding much explanation on which pumps do and which ones don't after that. Of course this affects the cost, so I'm trying to determine whether I need this feature or not.

Is it a crap-shoot that depends entirely on the quality of the pumps power-supply design? Or is there a well-defined boundary like: DC pumps don't care and AC pumps do? So far, all my pumps/powerheads (that will be on the UPS) use 24VDC.

Off the top of my head, I'm guessing that since DC wall-wart power supplies have transformers between them and the 120VAC coming out of the UPS, the transformer might smooth a slightly stepped/square wave into a sine wave? I have no idea if it actually works like that or not....

Someone make me smarter please? When does "pure sine wave" power matter and when do I not need it?

Pure sine wave matters any time you are dealing with electronics. If you have an AC pump with no power supply or controller, you can get away with a regular UPS (or generator). They key thing you are looking for is a THD (total harmonic distortion) of less than 5%. True Sine Wave should meet that requirement.

 

[Brew12]

@Brew12

Thanks for the call out!

 

[paparoof]

Pure sine wave matters any time you are dealing with electronics. If you have an AC pump with no power supply or controller, you can get away with a regular UPS (or generator). They key thing you are looking for is a THD (total harmonic distortion) of less than 5%. True Sine Wave should meet that requirement.

Yeah okay - sounds like I need it then. Thanks for the explanation.