To shed some light on this issue, we need to gain a brief understanding of how different appliances consume power. Basically, electrical appliances can be divided into three groups by the way they draw power or current from a power source. These groups are resistive, inductive and capacitive loads. To make it a bit more confusing, some appliances can even consume all three types of energy!

Resistive loads like normal incandescent lights (filament of wire like a light globe) always draw a constant power in watts from the power supply. For example, a 60 watt globe light will always draw 60 watts from the power supply at all times. For fairly obvious reasons, resistive loads are by far the easiest devices for an inverter to run, since the power in watts they consume is the same and continues for as long as the device is running.

Inductive loads, such as a refrigerator or other devices with an electric motor, require a large amount of power (increasing current) for initial start-up and then once running, will generally consume a lower and constant power for the rest of the load. your operation. Inductive loads contain coils of wire (for example, motors, transformers, ballasts, solenoids, etc.) and when the power is initially turned on, these coils of wire will generate a large surge of current that will form the magnetic field that will allow these appliances to electrics work. correctly. This magnetic field (or lux as it is also known) is a kind of stored energy.

The most common inductive appliances are refrigerators, followed by air compressors, transformers/chargers, pumps, power tools, and fluorescent lights. Due to the increased current required, these appliances can draw 2-6 times their normal operating power to turn on and be able to run, so for example to power a 200 watt refrigerator you may need a power inverter 600 W or even 1000 W. to work properly.

Note that there are some electrical appliances such as large refrigerators and air conditioners that have very high starting current requirements because they have an inductive motor that must start at full load. It is strongly recommended that these appliances not be used with a power inverter as their starting current requirements are too high and they must be powered by an engine driven generator.

Capacitive loads, such as many televisions, computer monitors, power amplifiers, and many other electronics, require a large surge current to start only when they have not been used for some time. This is usually because these devices have large capacitors in their power supplies that need to be charged quickly when the device is turned on. If these electrical appliances are not used for a few days, the capacitors in your power supply will slowly lose power and shut down. You may be able to get these appliances to work simply by restarting the power inverter a couple of times, which may charge the capacitors enough for the appliance to turn on and once it’s up and running, it should continue to function normally.