Inverter question

[Wxboy]

I have a Xantrex Prowatt SW 2000 true sine wave inverter powering the electronics on my small scale solar setup.  In general I'm powering a small tube tv, laptop, a cfl light and charging various electronics.  When running the cfl I see occasional flickering in the bulb and it has me concerned.  First of all I know this is not a high end grid tied inverter but I bought it so that I could power an lcd tv and other electronics without having to worry about the inverter damaging them.  Now that I see the light flickering it has me worried.  Before I starting running the more expensive lcd tv and PS3 with the inverter I wanted to get people's opinion on how safe it is. 

I've been trying to watch the Killawatt that is plugged into the inverter to see what is happening when the light is flickering but it's hard to tell for sure.  The voltage from the inverter fluctuates a bit even without a load but with a load and with the solar hooked up it seems to fluctuate between 119v and 122v and sometimes fairly rapidly.  I'm guessing the sudden voltage change is causing the light to flicker.  If that is the case is this bad for tv's, video game consoles, etc.?  The frequency seems to stay pretty steady at 59.8 to 59.9. 

I have noticed that when the Classic is in float mode the watts seem to jump around by 10-20 watts and when it does that the light seems to flicker more than when the watts are more consistent like when it's in bulk or absorb mode.  So I guess a follow up question is why the watts fluctuate more when in float mode?  This is more of a curiosity question. 

[Wxboy]

Normally when the lights were flickering I was running a small crt tv and one or more cfl lights.  When I added a laptop to that mix I wasn't seeing the same flickering.  I think the lights are more sensitive to voltage fluctuations so maybe by adding another steady load to the system it somehow smooths out the voltage fluctuations from the inverter?  Either way I've been running my lcd tv on solar almost every night for a couple of hours and some days for more than 5 hours and we haven't seen any problems so that's good.  I can deal with lights flickering here and there as long as I know how to control it and more importantly as long as it doesn't kill my expensive electronics which it doesn't appear to be doing. 

[dapdan]

wxboy,

I think you are being overly concerned about the voltage output from the inverter. In my experience the grid can fluctuate more than what you are seeing from the inverter. I have had the 1000w to your inverter (prowatt sw1000) for more than a year running a home office with not issues date. A 24" acer lcd was being powered by it as well and that should be equivalent to your lcd tv. The type of lcd television being sold now-a-day have a high voltage input range (90v-240v) so I don't think the tv will care about one or two points of voltage fluctuations.

My experience so far (I have sold about 4 of those prowatt sw in the past year and have had no report of issues. It just seems to be a well built,well priced inverter so far. It is my favourite low cost(comparatively speaking) pure sine wave inverter.

Cheers...
Damani