I have been advised that use of a generator with a square wave form will damage my computer. Is this true and if it is how can I tell what type of waveform a generator has?
Brian

There are some other things too and I want to hear what Shelly and some of the others say. But one thing I can think of might be frequency 50/60 hz. I remember running electronics in the field with a 10Kw generator and the filtering and frequency were a very important part of it.....

I have 4 accounts with backup generators. 3 were setup by qualified companies and the 4th was juryrigged by the owner. All use a UPS between. A UPS is mandatory to control the sudden surges/drops in power and all the other stuff that Shelly can tell you about. I am aware of another site who did not use a UPS and it fried his server. A home generator worked for a friend of mine. Combined with a UPS, he was able to continue working for 2 hours until he got to the point where he could shut down properly. His power came back on 20 minutes later and everything checked out properly. A generator alone will not work. I personally use a UPS alone and able to shutdown quickly or if away, the controlling UPS software will powerdown in 1 minute. Need to upgrade UPS software sometime to better control shutdown.

Who ever told you that a generator puts out a square wave? They do not. A generator, even the cheapest, simply rotates an armature in the field of a magnet this results automatically in a sine wave. It is actually a motor in reverse.

The only thing you need to worry about is output fluctuation, and that is why God invented UPS's

I do use a generator in my RV, an Onan Microlite. The generator does surge slightly when it is under a light load, but it settles down when about half loaded. The surging is noticable simply by watching the ceiling lights, I can see them dim.

My laptop runs just fine from it, although laptops are buffered by the built in battery. Like others have said, I would suggest a UPS, especially if it is in a business situation where the computer is mission critical. It takes time when the power goes out for an autostarting generator to fire up and reach a stable operating speed. If it's like my Microlite, the circutry prevents output for about 60-90 seconds until the speed is stable. Then the circut is turned on for use.

Thanks everyone for the help and advice. I think I now have what I need