sen5241b December 1, 2009 December 1, 2009 (edited) Has anybody tried running an airpump and heater on a computer UPS? I've heard too many stories about people not being at home and the power going off and they lose EVERYTHING. I have biocube 29. At $550 this was too pricey for me: TRIPP LITE POWERVERTER APS 750 POWER INVERTER 750W 2 OUTLETS 12VDC-120V with double 12V DEEP CYCLE MARINE BATTERIES The good thing about a UPS is that it automatically switches over duirng an outage. Edited December 1, 2009 by sen5241b
Brian Ward December 1, 2009 December 1, 2009 I have heard of several people using a computer UPS as a backup. Look at the total watts it will source to figure out how long it will run, the air pump will run quite a while by itself, the heater is the one that will suck up the power. I would probably only connect about 25W of heater to the UPS, that and an airstone should run for several hours depending on the model you purchased.
Coral Hind December 1, 2009 December 1, 2009 I have an APC 1000 on one of my systems. No issues with it at all.
extreme_tooth_decay December 1, 2009 December 1, 2009 Has anybody tried running an airpump and heater on a computer UPS? I've heard too many stories about people not being at home and the power going off and they lose EVERYTHING. I have biocube 29. At $550 this was too pricey for me: TRIPP LITE POWERVERTER APS 750 POWER INVERTER 750W 2 OUTLETS 12VDC-120V with double 12V DEEP CYCLE MARINE BATTERIES The good thing about a UPS is that it automatically switches over duirng an outage. You cold just buy the power inverter (<$50) and manually plug it in to your (idling) car or spare battery during a power outage. Would only cost ~$50 for the inverter.
sen5241b December 1, 2009 Author December 1, 2009 I have an APC 1000 on one of my systems. No issues with it at all. How long does it last and what does it run? You cold just buy the power inverter (<$50) and manually plug it in to your (idling) car or spare battery during a power outage. Would only cost ~$50 for the inverter. I've done that but it didn't run my pump because the, if I understand right, was not sine wave. The sir pump ran okay though. Also this solutoin doesn't help if you are not home.
extreme_tooth_decay December 1, 2009 December 1, 2009 I've done that but it didn't run my pump because the, if I understand right, was not sine wave. The sir pump ran okay though. Weird. I guess the $550 solution above wouldn't work either then, since that is all it is... Also this solutoin doesn't help if you are not home. Right
Origami December 1, 2009 December 1, 2009 One thing you'll have to look at is the run time chart for whatever UPS you're considering once you have an idea of how much of a load you want to run during the power outage. During an outage, the most immediate concern you're going to have is water movement and dissolved oxygen. Temperature, for a small system like you're talking about will be your next priority since heat loss will be faster in a small cube like the BC29 than a system with much larger volume. For example, here's the run time charts for some of APC's UPS's: http://www.apc.com/products/runtime_for_ex...fm?upsfamily=23 You'll note that the BR1000TW will run a little over 2 hours while driving a 50W load, but only 18 minutes with a 300W load (and only 6 minutes at 600W). Because the run time falls off very quickly at high loads, you may want to do what Brian suggests and put use the smallest heater you can get away with on your backup circuit in order to maximize run time. This example UPS has a stepped, simulated sinewave output - not a square wave like some cheaper automotive-type inverters. See: http://www.apc.com/products/resource/inclu...se_sku=BR1000TW
sen5241b December 2, 2009 Author December 2, 2009 One thing you'll have to look at is the run time chart for whatever UPS you're considering once you have an idea of how much of a load you want to run during the power outage. During an outage, the most immediate concern you're going to have is water movement and dissolved oxygen. Temperature, for a small system like you're talking about will be your next priority since heat loss will be faster in a small cube like the BC29 than a system with much larger volume. For example, here's the run time charts for some of APC's UPS's: http://www.apc.com/products/runtime_for_ex...fm?upsfamily=23 You'll note that the BR1000TW will run a little over 2 hours while driving a 50W load, but only 18 minutes with a 300W load (and only 6 minutes at 600W). Because the run time falls off very quickly at high loads, you may want to do what Brian suggests and put use the smallest heater you can get away with on your backup circuit in order to maximize run time. This example UPS has a stepped, simulated sinewave output - not a square wave like some cheaper automotive-type inverters. See: http://www.apc.com/products/resource/inclu...se_sku=BR1000TW This is very good info. I haven't done the exact math but these units could run an air pump and small heater for hours for under $200.
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