Active PFC Power Supply with Simulated Sine Wave PSU (Non Pure)

[s.amawaka]

Hi everyone, is it possible to use Simulated Sine Wave UPS (Non Pure/True Sine Wave) for Active PFC Power Supply? will it be risky? or no problem at all?

 

[Aeacus]

You might get simulated sine wave UPS running with Active PFC PSU but there can be some major issues since simulated sine wave UPSes aren't fully compatible with PSUs that have Active PFC. Here's what, how and why.

How do you know which PSUs have Active PFC and which ones don't?
Simple, every PSU that has 80+ certification has Active PFC.

What is Active PFC?
Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_factor#Power_factor...(PFC)_in_non-linear_loads

What can happen when using simulated sine wave UPS with Active PFC PSU?
When simulated sine wave UPS switches over to the battery power, one of 3 things can happen:
1. UPS displays error resulting PC to shut down immediately.
2. UPS shuts down resulting PC to shut down immediately.
3. UPS switches to battery power resulting PC to power off from UPS (PC stays on).

Why it happens?
Simulated sine wave UPS produces a zero output state during the phase change cycle resulting in a power “gap”. This gap may cause power interruption for active PFC PSUs when switching from AC power output to simulated sine wave output (battery mode).

What to do next?
As stated above, you can run Active PFC PSU off from simulated sine wave UPS but be prepared when you face issues with it. When issues do rise, your best bet would be returning the UPS and getting true/pure sine wave UPS. Or you can go with true/pure sine wave UPS off the bat.

Here's a bit of further reading about UPSes output waveforms (3 different in total),
link: http://www.minutemanups.com/support/pwr_un10.php