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Battery Backup


dchild

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I got a replacement inverter from Xantrex. Worked for 30 min and as soon as I switched over to main power it died. Same symptom as the previous 2...

 

At this point I'm done with this brand of inverter. Does anyone know another one that has the same fan-off feauture when there is no load? I think that running the fan on continously will shorten its life.

 

-- Rob

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I guess that inverter just wasn't designed for this type of use??? :why: Maybe its serverely over rated?

 

 

I've been usins a smaller xantrex inverter in my car to plug up my laptop and it's been fine for over 2yrs of occasional usage.

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  • 9 months later...
(edited)

I have had the parts for this for a while but I finally got around to building it yesterday. I was able to get it done during my son's nap-time, which is always a good thing for domestic tranquility. Seems to work like a charm but I do have a couple/few questions for Dchild or anyone else with some electrical know-how.

 

1) The charger: I am using a "BatteryMINDer" charger -- it is supposed to be a smart charger so it won't overcharge. I have the cables from the charger AND the inverter both hooked up to the battery's terminals. Is this right? The charger is pretty hot. Is this normal/ok?

 

2) The inverter: http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores...25X-_-100082440. It is one that has the fan on all the time, whether or not there is a load on it. Is this a problem? One concern I can think of is that the motor on the fan will be constantly draining the battery, and even though the battery is constantly being recharged maybe this will shorten the battery life. Another concern would be that the fan will eventually burn out, causing the inverter to overheat. Any suggestions?

 

3) Ground: I connected together the grounds from (1)the cord from the wall outlet; (2) the cord from the inverter to the relay; and (3) the cord from the relay to the GFCI outlet supplying power to the tank. Do I need to do anything else for safety's sake? Do I need to ground the inverter itself?

 

So far it seems to work great and hasn't burnt down the house yet. The best DIY project I have done, by a wide margin.

Edited by Rascal
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That's one heck of an inverter. Did anyone find a small, cheap, inverter that actually held up under load? I see in the original build that a lot of people fried inverters. I need this item, so I will probably start putting parts together in the next week. And would most any 'smart' 'float' type charger work?

 

bob

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(edited)

That's one heck of an inverter. Did anyone find a small, cheap, inverter that actually held up under load? I see in the original build that a lot of people fried inverters. I need this item, so I will probably start putting parts together in the next week. And would most any 'smart' 'float' type charger work?

 

bob

 

The inverter is a bit oversized, but I didn't want to take the chance of getting a cheap one that would potentially pose a fire hazard. How ironic would it be to come back from vacation and find out that your tank's "life support" not only fried your tank but also burned the whole house down? All joking aside, my real concern is the safety of my family, and Johnny's post (the one with the word "explosion" in it) scared me, so I have been monitoring this set up pretty carefully. So far so good it seems, no heat build-up anywhere but the charger, and that actually seems to have cooled down.

 

I also went with an AGM battery out of concern for the release of hydrogen gas when regular batteries recharge. Still not sure if I needed to (what is really meant by "enclosed space" "adequate ventilation" etc. . . ?), but even the thought of hydrogen gas being released less than 15 feet from the pilot light of my furnace would have been enough to keep me up at night.

 

So this was not the cheapest way to do it ($200+ battery, $80 inverter; $35 charger) but for less than $300 I ended up with a safe (I hope) way to provide 105 Amp-Hours of emergency back-up power to keep my tank alive. My guess is I probably still saved at least 50% from a comparable commercial unit.

Edited by Rascal
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1) The charger: I am using a "BatteryMINDer" charger -- it is supposed to be a smart charger so it won't overcharge. I have the cables from the charger AND the inverter both hooked up to the battery's terminals. Is this right? The charger is pretty hot. Is this normal/ok?

Hey, that looks like a great charger! Microprocessors and PWM charging will take the best possible care of your batteries. My charger (the $25 amazon one) also runs hot (but I can still pick it up and hold it). With adequate ventilation it should be no problem. Also note that your battery was not fully charged when you got it so the charger starts out with some work to do. See if it cools down in a few days.

It is one that has the fan on all the time, whether or not there is a load on it. Is this a problem? One concern I can think of is that the motor on the fan will be constantly draining the battery, and even though the battery is constantly being recharged maybe this will shorten the battery life. Another concern would be that the fan will eventually burn out, causing the inverter to overheat.

Modern small fans should be able to run continuously for years and they draw insignificant power. It's a noise issue only :)

3) Ground: I connected together the grounds from (1)the cord from the wall outlet; (2) the cord from the inverter to the relay; and (3) the cord from the relay to the GFCI outlet supplying power to the tank. Do I need to do anything else for safety's sake? Do I need to ground the inverter itself?

IMO (I am not an electrician) you need to ground the GFI, a metal enclosure if you used one, and that's it. I'm not sure what you mean about grounding the cord from the relay? Do NOT connect the black terminal of the battery to an earth ground.

The inverter is a bit oversized, but I didn't want to take the chance of getting a cheap one that would potentially pose a fire hazard.

The higher the inverter is rated the better. Motors (an inductive load) are challenging for inverters, and pumps in particular are rough because they start under load (sort of like starting your car with the clutch out). The higher the rating, the better it can handle the load and the less chance of it burning out. Good choice.

I also went with an AGM battery out of concern for the release of hydrogen gas when regular batteries recharge. Still not sure if I needed to (what is really meant by "enclosed space" "adequate ventilation" etc. . . ?), but even the thought of hydrogen gas being released less than 15 feet from the pilot light of my furnace would have been enough to keep me up at night.

IMO overkill, but peace of mind is very valuable. The amount of hydrogen gas released is proportional to the charging amperage (and the frequency of water topoffs, since H2O provides the aforementioned hydrogen), so a true float/maintainer charge will release very minimal amounts of hydrogen. I do not believe that in a room with any air movement at all the hydrogen released could pose any real fire or health risk. (But I'm not a chemist either...)

So this was not the cheapest way to do it ($200+ battery, $80 inverter; $35 charger) but for less than $300 I ended up with a safe (I hope) way to provide 105 Amp-Hours of emergency back-up power to keep my tank alive. My guess is I probably still saved at least 50% from a comparable commercial unit.

Great investment + quality parts. Most of us have more than that invested in livestock or even just in live rock, plus emotional attachment. Don't forget you can "stack" batteries in parallel! Buy one every year and soon you will be able to run the tank while you're on vacation with battery power alone! And have constant power for your computer, freezer, TV, cable modem, etc.

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Don't forget you can "stack" batteries in parallel! Buy one every year and soon you will be able to run the tank while you're on vacation with battery power alone! And have constant power for your computer, freezer, TV, cable modem, etc.

 

Just remember not to go over the inverter rating as well :smokin:

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I'm putting together a battery backup using a couple of AGMs and a computer UPS (instead of separate inverter and charger.)

 

From the failure histories I've read, the first thing I'm going to do is hook it up to a fake load (lights) and put the whole thing on a timer - I want to make sure the thing really works for a number of cycles before I trust my tank to it.

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I'm putting together a battery backup using a couple of AGMs and a computer UPS (instead of separate inverter and charger.)

 

From the failure histories I've read, the first thing I'm going to do is hook it up to a fake load (lights) and put the whole thing on a timer - I want to make sure the thing really works for a number of cycles before I trust my tank to it.

 

Cool, let us know how it goes. Be warned that computer UPS's could have problems being used as a charger; they have custom chargers designed for a specific battery type and capacity and I have read that they don't take well to adding additional batteries. For the record (sounds like you don't have this problem) make sure not to mix types of batteries (AGM, wet, etc).

 

Lights (resistive load) are not a good test case for pumps (inductive load). I recommend you run a pump in a bucket or your skimmer pump (not a big deal if it stops working for a day) until you are satisfied.

 

Good luck!

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Cool, let us know how it goes. Be warned that computer UPS's could have problems being used as a charger; they have custom chargers designed for a specific battery type and capacity and I have read that they don't take well to adding additional batteries. For the record (sounds like you don't have this problem) make sure not to mix types of batteries (AGM, wet, etc).

 

Lights (resistive load) are not a good test case for pumps (inductive load). I recommend you run a pump in a bucket or your skimmer pump (not a big deal if it stops working for a day) until you are satisfied.

 

Good luck!

 

I checked the UPS battery voltage to find out what chemistry it was using, and matched that in the big batteries. I'm less concerned with how long the batteries last than whether the UPS trips reliably, so I'm testing the input side. But I might as well plug in the real load (pumps) while doing the testing. Also, from prior threads, that the contraption doesn't burst into flames :bday:

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(edited)

dchild:

 

Thanks for your reply. Sorry I didn't see it until today. You were right. The charger has cooled down considerably. Just slightly warm to the touch now. Glad to hear about the fan. It's all in the basement and I can't even hear it over the return pump, skimmer, etc. . . , so I'm not concerned about the noise. I can see how you'd be confused about the ground on the cord from the relay. I cut up an extension cord and used a separate section to go from the wall (via a powerstrip) to the relay, the inverter to the relay, and the relay to the gfci outlet. I basically just tied all of the green wires together. I think what that did is ground the gfci to the ground on the wall outlet itself. The black battery terminal is connected to the black clips from the charger and the inverter, nothing else.

 

I have a generator which will run the whole tank as well as freezer, etc. . . (5500W). The purpose of the battery back-up for me is (1) to keep the return pump on for a few hours if the power goes out at night when I don't realize it or during the day when I'm not home to start the generator; and (2) when I'm on vacation I'll disconnect the return pump from the system and just have it drive 3 prop-driven power heads in the display. They provide about 3000 gph for a 150G with a total draw of less than 40 watts. The plan is that this will keep my tank alive for a day or two until someone can come by and start the generator up. For a prolonged power outage, I would probably turn the generator off at night to keep the peace with the neighbors and just use the battery to power the powerheads.

Edited by Rascal
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  • 2 weeks later...

If you want sealed AGM batteries (no hydrogen fumes), I got mine at

 

www.cabelas.com

 

Cheaper than anywhere around Annapolis, even with the shipping charge. And at the time, they were on sale.

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  • 10 months later...

in light of the all the power outages from yesterday's storms, I started looking for battery back up threads and came across this.

 

How many of you guys are still using these (or a variation of this) and how have they held up?

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in light of the all the power outages from yesterday's storms, I started looking for battery back up threads and came across this.

 

How many of you guys are still using these (or a variation of this) and how have they held up?

 

I had to replace the inverter a couple of months ago because the 1st one I had went bad and stopped working but other than that everything has worked great. About a month or so ago, we lost power in the middle of the night and of course I didn't realize it until morning. Would have been about 6 hours without power, but the back-up kept the return pump (Blueline 70) going for a few hours I think and even when it didn't have enough juice to run that anymore, it was still providing power to the 2 Tunzes when I finally got up and started the generator.

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I had to replace the inverter a couple of months ago because the 1st one I had went bad and stopped working but other than that everything has worked great. About a month or so ago, we lost power in the middle of the night and of course I didn't realize it until morning. Would have been about 6 hours without power, but the back-up kept the return pump (Blueline 70) going for a few hours I think and even when it didn't have enough juice to run that anymore, it was still providing power to the 2 Tunzes when I finally got up and started the generator.

 

very nice! Any info on the inverter and relay you used would be greatly appreciated!

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very nice! Any info on the inverter and relay you used would be greatly appreciated!

 

The first inverter I used was by Black & Decker I think. It didn't burn up or anything, just stopped working after a while. This time I went with a 700W inverter by Xantrex. It is possible that part of the problem may have been the way I had it hooked up. Apparently you are not supposed to have the inverter hooked up to a charger. I realized that since I had the connectors from both the inverter and the charger connected to the same terminals on the battery, this was in effect what I had done. So now I have them connected to different terminals (my battery has 2 each pos and neutral) so we'll see if that makes a difference.

 

The relay was the one from Radio Shack originally recommended at the beginning of this thread. It works great and is so fast I can't even detect a change in pitch from the hum of the pump and fan when the AC power is cut off.

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in light of the all the power outages from yesterday's storms, I started looking for battery back up threads and came across this.

 

 

Matt,

 

Thanks for bringing this thread back to life,

 

Maureen

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I know this is late but has the DIY back saved tanks? Today would be a great day for possible feedback on how your DIY project worked.

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(edited)

MY UPC 1400 has a run time for 2 sureflow 2000gall hr maxie mods of about 20 hrs ...it has run them for 14hrs so far with no problem....cost 70.00 at a computor shop....i now have three...one on each maxie jet....total cost..220.oo....950watts.each.. should run my sureflow 40hrs....you can put a stantdard agm/gel/wetcell on an apc....would be a safer diy....lots of older 1400 or higher around on graigslist with dead batteries....just plug a new deep cycle into a old upc.....inverters in upc very reliable...sureflows will save your tank from diaster....one of my maxie jets where old and made noise on upc replaced with new one...runs like a champ now....1 upc running one 2000 gal sureflow getting30 to 40 hours of protection ...you can put a large battery on the upc and it will top it off and then recharge it after a power outage with a simple regular home charger... :cheers:

Edited by basser9
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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, it turns out the 2nd inverter stopped working as well. Fan was still on, little green power indicator light was still on, but nothing was coming out of the outlets. In a pinch I took apart a small 150W cigarette lighter inverter I had and got it connected to the battery terminals to run my ACIII and a couple of powerheads, but it obviously isn't going to be a trustworthy long term solution.

 

Unless somebody chimes in with an inverter that has stood the test of time with this set-up, I will most likely end up getting a commercial unit before I go away on vacation again, whenever that may be.

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  • 2 weeks later...

MY UPC 1400 has a run time for 2 sureflow 2000gall hr maxie mods of about 20 hrs ...it has run them for 14hrs so far with no problem....cost 70.00 at a computor shop....i now have three...one on each maxie jet....total cost..220.oo....950watts.each.. should run my sureflow 40hrs....you can put a stantdard agm/gel/wetcell on an apc....would be a safer diy....lots of older 1400 or higher around on graigslist with dead batteries....just plug a new deep cycle into a old upc.....inverters in upc very reliable...sureflows will save your tank from diaster....one of my maxie jets where old and made noise on upc replaced with new one...runs like a champ now....1 upc running one 2000 gal sureflow getting30 to 40 hours of protection ...you can put a large battery on the upc and it will top it off and then recharge it after a power outage with a simple regular home charger... :cheers:

 

DYK if all the APC UPS 12V? I think mine is an APC600 and like most of them the battery is toast. lasts about 30 sec or just beeps constantly when I plug it in, so it's been a door stop for the last 2 years. It's only 400W, so I don't think I can run my whole tank, but if I could plug a marine battery into it and be able to run my MJs that would be nice.

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DYK if all the APC UPS 12V? I think mine is an APC600 and like most of them the battery is toast. lasts about 30 sec or just beeps constantly when I plug it in, so it's been a door stop for the last 2 years. It's only 400W, so I don't think I can run my whole tank, but if I could plug a marine battery into it and be able to run my MJs that would be nice.

 

No, not all APC UPS are 12v. I have installed APCs with a 48v battery in them. I do know that your APC-600 uses two 12v batteries.

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