I would endorse the cautionary remarks by others so far. Electricity is a force which demands respect, and can cause injury or worse if it's not treated with caution tempered with a full understanding of the situation.
However on the basis of what you have told us, and if I understand the situation correctly, namely that it's a complete piece of commercial equipment with covers intact, I would simply plug the device in and turn it on - unless you have a good reason to suspect that something is amiss.
The inrush current to large capacitors which are fully discharged can be very high in those first microseconds after switch-on, but in the case of more recent equipment, and provided that the caps are in the equipment as OEM components any potential problems in this area should have catered for in the design.
My amateur radio linear amplifier can cause a momentary flicker in the household lighting when it is first turned on - mind you it supplies 2,400 volts to the plate of the valves and the storage capacitors are 'significant'. But it's 1980's equipment and so far there have been no causes for stress or immediate evacuation
.
Of course this is simply my non professional opinion - I'm not an electronic design engineer, simply someone who messes about with such things on an experimental basis. I've also seen newly completed projects produce a variety of audio, visual and other sensory displays
, but that is surely outside of the charter for this forum.
Give it a try, but keep your hand on the switch, and know where the door is ....
regards,
FOR
