Some of you might already be tired of my "I bought a crappy UPS from eBay" story... but maybe not. Who knows. Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to build a 48V turbine based around a UPS, since I'll deal with lower currents and the UPS will handle automatic switching from grid power, if that's what I want to do and such.
Anyway, so I bought this old junker 1.5kw unit on eBay, and after much coaxing and caressing I managed to get it going. It even charged its long-dead batteries (eventually) and I'm using it right now on battery power on this PC to type this message. Yes, if you're reading this, it means it lasted long enough. In fact, I don't think it's quite fair to call it a junker because it's overengineered like crazy. It looks like it was designed by the Russians to survive nuclear attack.
The reason I'm using my PC as a test load is because as I was load testing with incandencent lights, I noticed they were almost twice as bright on battery power than grid power. I thought I might eventually have glass to clean up around here. I put my voltmeter on the UPS output and it said 192V. Now, I know there's some issue about RMS readings for sine, modified sine, and square waves... but this seems rediculous. My PC and monitor have funky power supplies that say "input: 100-250V" so I don't think there's any problem there. And it's working just fine.
So my question... uhh.... is this a known failure mode of an inverter to dump out 60% more voltage than it should? It seems awfully weird, but then I'm new to this stuff. Is there something that I might be able to... fix??? Yes it's an open-ended question, I suppose. Where should I start looking?