GTR73 Posted November 7, 2005 Share Posted November 7, 2005 With storm season upon us and blackouts imminent, I found this link for DIY backup power if anyone is interested: DIY backup power One of the best things about the unit is it switches automatically to 12V battery power if the Mains power goes off. Also, most of the material used is easily available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Posted November 7, 2005 Share Posted November 7, 2005 With storm season upon us and blackouts imminent, I found this link for DIY backup power if anyone is interested: DIY backup power One of the best things about the unit is it switches automatically to 12V battery power if the Mains power goes off. Also, most of the material used is easily available. ← G'day Unfortunately this gadget does NOT work reliably! I have built it (and others on the forum as well). It has a habit of blowing up inverters. I think it may have something to do with the indication motors that are in the big air pumps . If anyone happens to get it going reliably please let us know . Sorry for the bad news cya Matthew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTR73 Posted November 7, 2005 Author Share Posted November 7, 2005 No don't apologise Matthew. One of the things about this forum is sharing info and ideas, so if this sucker doesn't work then better to let everyone know. Good work - I was hoping someone had built and tested the thing. Maybe someone else has perfected it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaZ Posted November 7, 2005 Share Posted November 7, 2005 I know Andrew (the guy behind that site) personally, and he's a very helpful and knowledgable bloke. Maybe email him with your questions, I'm sure he would be happy to help. I know he has this system running reliably on his tanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pacco Posted November 7, 2005 Share Posted November 7, 2005 Another option is to set it up running a 12v compressor/air pump - that way you don't need to worry about the inverter. Depends on what you need to run and how long for though obviously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ant Posted November 7, 2005 Share Posted November 7, 2005 All the 12v compressors i've looked at won't run very long and aren't designed to do so. Most of them say not to be ran more than 8 minutes without letting the unit rest. So an hour to two hours, I would say would be out of the question. Simply using an inverter off a battery of some kind would be the best bet but obviously you have to be home when the power outage occurs. The inverters go up to 2000w. You could setup a series of smaller airpumps if you need and also run your cannisters. I probably wouldn't run heaters off an inverter but you could if you have a large enough inverter. Anthony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash Posted November 8, 2005 Share Posted November 8, 2005 Didn't someone here have a modded UPS with external clamps to go on a deep cycle battery instead of the piddly little UPS gel cell? I believe one of the issues with this might have been overheating, so perhaps a big 12V fan could go into the UPS case where the old gell cell was? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash Posted November 8, 2005 Share Posted November 8, 2005 With storm season upon us and blackouts imminent, I found this link for DIY backup power if anyone is interested: DIY backup power One of the best things about the unit is it switches automatically to 12V battery power if the Mains power goes off. Also, most of the material used is easily available. ← G'day Unfortunately this gadget does NOT work reliably! I have built it (and others on the forum as well). It has a habit of blowing up inverters. I think it may have something to do with the indication motors that are in the big air pumps . If anyone happens to get it going reliably please let us know . Sorry for the bad news cya Matthew ← Hey Matthew, why didn't you mention this thread? Did you end up having problems with the UPS method too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Posted November 8, 2005 Share Posted November 8, 2005 G'day I didn't mention it because there is difficulty obtaining any more modified UPS's I (and others ) are trying a few more leads and if any work out I will let you all know. Yes the UPS units work very well. They are still in operation at my place The next modification will be for a larger inverter, I hope. But I am picky and only want a pure Sine Wave UPS. When I have got a solution (or get some more of the original units), an ad will go up in the classifieds and some info in the Technical forum as well. Sorry I cannot be of more help. Matthew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Posted November 8, 2005 Share Posted November 8, 2005 Possible backup (but you need to be there to activate it ) As an interim measure I would suggest a trip down to Jaycar. At the moment they have 100 Watt inverters for $40 150 Watt inverters for $50 and of course the 300 watt inverters are up around the $100+ arena. But this is a relatively small price to pay for an inverter that will power your air pump through a blackout. Buy the size that is appropriate for your needs. Heaters are not critical, so don't worry about them. Worry about the water/oxygen movement in your tanks and in your filters. PS. The Batteries will be the expensive bit. A Deepcycle 120Amp Hour battery is $185 down here. A car battery could be used if required and then you might use your car to keep the battery charged. (Please correct me here if I am wrong with any of this advice! I am not an electronics person ) Matthew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wui39 Posted November 8, 2005 Share Posted November 8, 2005 G'day I didn't mention it because there is difficulty obtaining any more modified UPS's I (and others ) are trying a few more leads and if any work out I will let you all know. Yes the UPS units work very well. They are still in operation at my place The next modification will be for a larger inverter, I hope. But I am picky and only want a pure Sine Wave UPS. When I have got a solution (or get some more of the original units), an ad will go up in the classifieds and some info in the Technical forum as well. Sorry I cannot be of more help. Matthew ← A pure Sine wave UPS! You are picky! Are you an audiophile by any chance as well? A better alternative than running the car (Possible toxic fume buildup me thinks) is to buy 2 or more car batteries and have them hooked up to a cheap battery charger and swap them once they reach a certain level. To avoid overcharging, there is a mod from Jaycar that will fit the Arlec units. Word of caution though, while they may be 12V and DC, do not forget that they can discharge a fair amount of current in a very short space of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ant Posted November 8, 2005 Share Posted November 8, 2005 I talked about the Inverters in this post as well. http://www.aceforums.com.au/index.php?showtopic=20529&st=0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Miller Posted November 9, 2005 Share Posted November 9, 2005 Hi Wui39, A better alternative than running the car (Possible toxic fume buildup me thinks) is to buy 2 or more car batteries and have them hooked up to a cheap battery charger and swap them once they reach a certain level. To avoid overcharging, there is a mod from Jaycar that will fit the Arlec units. I think Matthew was talking about using the car to charge the battery during the blackout - don't battery chargers just convert 240v mains to 12v ???? Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wui39 Posted November 9, 2005 Share Posted November 9, 2005 I should have been more specific then. Have 2 or more batteries as your backup. Have them hooked up to a charger when the power is on. They are all kept at peak levels. When power goes off then use them. When one runs out then swap. In fact if you want to get really technical, build an automatic change over switch that will detect the voltage level of the battery and then will swap to the next battery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WAZ Posted November 9, 2005 Share Posted November 9, 2005 Hey Wui The problem is...........what happens when the blackout occurs and your not at home. You need something that will cut in automatically when the power goes off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wui39 Posted November 9, 2005 Share Posted November 9, 2005 Here you go here is a link that will fix when your not home. DIY UPS Not elegant but it will work for a certain amount of time. Unless you have a better design. The system is always on and therefore when you lose power on the input, the battery will start powering straight away. I did say an automatic change over switch in my previous post. Perhaps that is not automatic enough for you. If you want I can specify the system that is good enough to power the computer centre and trading floor for banks, but perhaps that will cost you more than your entire fish room. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Posted November 9, 2005 Share Posted November 9, 2005 G'day Wui39 Please note I am not an electrically capable individual, I have to trust what others tell me. I have read this article in the past. The inverter would need to run permanently, are they designed to be run permanently? My initial thoughts were that I was adding another gadget into the air pump circuit that might fail. Previously I have had some trouble with them dying on me. That is why I went for a modified UPS unit. Because the inverter is only running when the power drops out. (Or so I was told). If this was your problem how do you suggest it be solved. ie. What would you recommend that we do? The UPS/backup power units are generally used to power 40, 80 and or 100 Watt air pumps. Occasionally people put them onto water pumps as well. Although so far I have not been recommending that they do this. So what would you suggest? Thanks very much Matthew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wui39 Posted November 9, 2005 Share Posted November 9, 2005 Generally in the UPS industry the Online method is preffered over the standby method beacuse there is negligable change over time when the power cuts out. Although I'm not sure that is really a problem here unless you have a hard to restart device. Yes the Jaycar inverters will probably fail on you, they are not designed to work for 24 hours a day all through the year. A possible alternative are these: High quality solar inverters Yes they are not cheap, although they are reliable and 400w is enough for most air pumps. Here is an article on inverters as well explaining the difference between them: inverters I suppose it is up to the individual to justify the cost difference. Although if you are already running the mod UPS system and it has been working well, I wouldn't change it unless you plan on upgrading to more tanks. Then the possible alternative is the online system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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