OWB battery backup....

[zogger]

I would think they would work. Next up would be a pair or four of 6 volt golfcart batts.

Your pumps are much lower draw than what I originally suspected, I think you should be fine with that project.

The most you can usually get most places locally, is forklift battery packs, if you have a local electric forklift dealer. That's the most amp hours per buck, but they are heavy, but...big, individual cells. I'll say heavy again.

 

[lapeer20m]

I would think they would work. Next up would be a pair or four of 6 volt golfcart batts.

Your pumps are much lower draw than what I originally suspected, I think you should be fine with that project.

The most you can usually get most places locally, is forklift battery packs, if you have a local electric forklift dealer. That's the most amp hours per buck, but they are heavy, but...big, individual cells. I'll say heavy again.

That's an interesting idea! I could see a battery pack being too worn out for forklift use still useful for a small scale project like mine....

I live near the metro detroit area, so there are definitely fork lift dealers around.

I would love 4 new Trojan t105 6 volt golf cart batteries, but that is simply not in the budget.

 

[zogger]

That's an interesting idea! I could see a battery pack being too worn out for forklift use still useful for a small scale project like mine....

I live near the metro detroit area, so there are definitely fork lift dealers around.

I would love 4 new Trojan t105 6 volt golf cart batteries, but that is simply not in the budget.

Ya, if you can get one, plan on some egyptian engineering getting it installed. The cells are welded bussbars, so you can just cut and reattach whatever voltage you want, series/parallel. Lighter ones would be from electric pallet jacks or floor sweepers.

edit: wanted to add, you can test the individual cells and the ones that are really crappy, just bypass them.

 

[lapeer20m]

I still don't have this project completed, but i'm close!

The alpha II pumps are amazing! On the lowest setting, they only draw 7 watts (confirmed with kill o watt meter.) However, the elevation change is great enough that to circulate enough water for my needs the pumps draw about 12 watts each in auto adapt mode. One circulator runs 24/7 and the other runs only when the house calls for heat.

The marine deep cycle batteries i'm looking at claim to be 125 ah. I am getting them for Christmas. I am going to use regular flooded acid type batteries that produce hydrogen gas when they are charging. The batteries will be in a vented box near the UPS in the heated garage.

I am also considering connecting a couple of lights in my house to the UPS. I know that more amperage draw equates to less run time, but my lights are all LED or CFL, and it would be really nice to have a few lights that worked when the grid fails even before i fire up the generator.

People that live where the power grid functions all the time don't have to worry about all these details!

Once is is operational, i will perform a series of tests to see how long the system can run on battery power.

 

[Dustyw]

Back to the party bus......any more pics or stories?

 

[lapeer20m]

The fancy UPS i purchased was destroyed by my 2 year old before i ever had a chance to use it. He yanked the front cover off, severing a ribbon cable from circuit board. I tried to solder it back together to no avail.

After Christmas i purchased a pair of deep cycle batteries.



Yesterday i finished connecting all things related to the boiler into a single circuit, down from the four that had been powering all the different devices. I plugged in the kill-o-watt meter and was pleasantly surprised by the small amount of power required: less than 35 watts.

Here is a photo taken with everything running, with the exception of the LED porch light. (2 circulators, 2 temperature controllers, draft control, and a pair of 24 volt transformers.)





Today i found a smaller, less fancy UPS, for $25.00. I connected it to one of the batteries, plugged in the boiler, and tested it out. It's pretty sweet!




I will try to do some testing soon to see how long everything will run on battery power, and I am also curious to measure how much charging current this unit produces. I assume that it doesn't really make enough to charge the batteries if they are significantly discharged, but that it can hopefully keep them full once charged.

Also interesting to note:

The pumps do not seem to mind the modified sin wave produced by this inverter, nor does the kill o watt meter mind. The kill o watt meter also registers 60 hz when running on inverter only. It is my understanding that some meters do not read voltage and or hz correctly when connected to modified sin wave inverters.

 

[lapeer20m]

I do not put much faith in the AH ratings on batteries, but assuming 105 amp hours, and a draw of about 2.3 amps, that works out to about 2 days worth of hours from a single battery.

 

[lapeer20m]

I am preparing to test the length of time the system will run on battery power. First, I opened up the case to the UPS and made a modification: I disabled the alarm! It was making noise several times per minute when running on battery power.


I first considered that i could cover it in tape, which would muffle the sound. Then i plugged in my soldering iron thinking i may just unsolder it from the circuit board....then i decided that method may ruin something, so i just grabbed a pair of diagonal pliers and gently crushed it. Problem solved!

 

[lapeer20m]

5 hours into the test, batteries at at 12.5 volts.

 

[NSMaple1]

Told you you'd love those Alphas.

 

[lapeer20m]

At 1730, about 10 hours into the test, batteries were still at 12.5 volts.