What a great question received into technical support today:
We have a bit of bespoke in-house test equipment that we use for looking at the quality of the mains supply. It allows us to view both normal and common mode noise levels, as well as viewing an AC power waveform. We can connect it to the output of the ReGenerator and show you a nice clean output waveform. We can also connect it to the input and show you another apparently clean input and output waveform, or a distorted waveform, or a clean high voltage waveform. The point is, the output of the ReGenerator is the same, regardless of the input waveform. If the input waveform is good, then this isn’t really showing us anything.
So what we have done is to create a secondary piece of test equipment that provides a distorted power waveform to the ReGenerator:
This oscilloscope trace shows a pretty messed up AC power waveform, with a high Total Harmonic Distortion. Such a power waveform will cause untold problems with electronic systems, and with any inductive devices such as those containing transformers or motors. Any system requiring a quiet noise floor will be sadly disappointed as the noise levels will be remarkably high on the line to neutral. Any standard filter devices will redirect this to the earth resulting in common mode noise issues as well. Clearly not good for Audio Visual applications!
When we feed this power waveform into an AG500 ReGenerator, we get this at it’s output:
See the harmonic distortion is eliminated! Not only protecting the inductive elements but ensuring that noise levels have improved dramatically. Exactly the sort of environment your AV equipment wants to see. This is the main difference between ReGenerators and filters. The ReGenerator recreates a new AC power waveform. A filter can only try to remove what shouldn’t be there.
Read more about the Power Inspired AG Series ReGenerators.