Touch Lamp Won't work off Inverter

[BBBEEBOP]

Here's a good one for you electricians: Just bought a small touch lamp for the MH. It works fine in my stick house and in the MH when plugged into shore power. It won't work when the shore power is disconnected and the inverter is on. Other things work in the same receptical when on inversion power: Example: small fan, nite lite and the power checks ok with my multimeter . Any solutions??

[ernieh]

I'm not sure what a "touch lamp" is, but I'll bet that your problem has to do with the MSW (modified sine wave) output of the inverter.

[bigskymt]

I'll bet it won't work on gen either. Both have a floating ground as opposed to earth ground on shore power.

[Phil R]

A touch lamp will not work on my inverter, so when boondocking we just pack it away. I really don't remember if I tried it when using the gen.

[wa8yxm]

Not a question for Electricians

This is a question for electronic technicians.

The problem is either the touch lamp needs the inverter neutural bonded or it is an MSW inverter.

Touch lamps work on capacitance, your body's, they either send a very very very very tiny current to ground (Too low to register) or, the touch of your body changes a tuned circuit (Most common)

But MSW inverters have so many harmonics, it swamps the tuned circit and the thing never senses your touch.

The lack of bonding does not help either. Since that is the "other pole"

[swreeder70]

As a EE, I can chime in on this one!

Touch lamps do not have anything to do with ground. They work on the principal of transistors and the bodies capacitance. That is you store a small amount of charge within your system. When you touch the light, you are activating the "gate" of a transistor which is essentially operates like a switch. This switch (transistor) senses the small change of capacitance and changes its state from to either on or off.

Multiple transistors together can form logic to get the different settings on a touch light (high, med, low, off).

Your inverter is putting out a modified sine wave or noisy waves and the transistors and circuitry of the lamp don't work with it. General rule of thumb the cheaper the transistors, they more pure waveform they need. Lamps get very low end cheap transistors.

You light will work on the generator.

[BBBEEBOP]

Thanks to all who responded, I now know a little more and have learned something. It's a good day when you learn something new.