Power Conditioners

Yes, because the waveform is not sinusoidal. So a lot of higher harmonics will be present that are rarely on the AC line. Electronics tend to be fairly sensitive to the 5th harmonic (300Hz in the US) which is much greater when a ferro-resonant device is used, unless there is a filter to remove the harmonics and thus restore the output to a sine wave.

atmasphere- 
Your point about non-sinusoid output waveform and generated secondary harmonics are well taken.

However, Sola mitigated this by adding an additional “neutralizer” winding in the secondary.  The following document contains a description of how it works.  Refer to the PDF page 4 under the heading “Ferroresonant power conditioners and harmonics”.  

https://www.emerson.com/documents/automation/product-guide-solahd-power-conditioners-en-us-99748.pdf

@puffball08 Nice! Sola has managed a nice improvement on where they were with this 20 years ago! 3% THD seems to be the number; A good power conditioner should be able to do about 0.5% THD (Elgar was getting this with their conditioners 35-40 years ago).


I tried using a ferro-resonant device made by Sola about 17 years ago in a power supply that featured AC line regulation- the noise out of the transformer was so profound that some of the circuitry in the amplifier developed oscillations. It would be interesting to revisit this and see if a conditioner with a device like this would be practical.

@atmasphere,

You may find this interesting.  This is Joseph Sola’s original patent from 1938 for a constant potential transformer, the forerunner of what Sola makes today.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US2143745A/en

Anyone using a Powerisolator from Transparent Cable?
Another +vote for Richard Gray Power Company 400 Pro.

Happy Listening!