Surviving my 1st scheduled Brown Out

[Dave Hounddriver]

1 hour ago, hk blues said:

I was quoted

I hear ya, and I have been quoted high prices too, so I looked on youtube and found a few people who have put together simple solar systems on their own.  I'll just find the parts I need and assemble it.  Now i'm not telling you it will provide all my power needs.  I am suggesting that a little backyard solar system would get me through brown outs plus cut down on my power bill if I use the system regularly.

 

EDIT:  How simple?  Well watch this video for an idea. I would go a little bit more heavy duty than he has done but not much.

 

 

Edited October 2, 2017 by Dave Hounddriver

[Huggybearman]

We have rolling brownouts on a fairly regular basis here in CDO. You would think that the local government would insist that, when required, any brownouts were done to a published schedule so everyone was aware of when a brownout was likely. It's not rocket science, but it seems beyond the wit of the powers that be in CEPALCO. 

We have a perfectly adequate standby system that works well for us. 200ah deep cycle batteries continuosly charged by a 4 stage 'smart' charger linked to a 1000w pure sine wave inverter. This permanently powers the internet but with a single plug swop also powers the TV, expat TV set top box, DVD player, a couple of lights, three fans and our laptop computer. It will happily power those for about 4 hours before the battery gets down to 50% capacity.

 If it looks like the brownout is likely to be prolonged then I have a fantastic little Honda eu10i  invertor genny which is exceptionally quiet and will power all of the above for around 7 hours on a single 2 litre tank of unleaded petrol. 

Of course it won't power an aircon unit, but we are very comfortable non the less. So with a little thought and preparation brownouts can be endured without spending a huge amount of money.

Ken

[MikeB]

I remember those 9 hour "annual" and "regular" maintenance outages very well. I had 2 large solar powered fans that were lifesavers. You charge them with a/c or with a solar panel that had a long cord so you could connect it and have the fan inside and the panel out in the sun. It would run for about 6 hours like that on Medium. Bought them at Citi Hardware in Carcar for about p3k, I think. The small rechargeable ones are pretty useless but these were pretty good. Chinese.

We had a power outage last night in Florida that was over 2 hours. First one I've experienced in over a year.  Rare as hen's teeth, thankfully.

[AlwaysRt]

16 hours ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

How simple?  Well watch this video for an idea. I would go a little bit more heavy duty than he has done but not much.

Good example of a simple system, horrible example of electrical connections to include his battery connection 'recommendation'.

[Dave Hounddriver]

37 minutes ago, AlwaysRt said:

Good example of a simple system, horrible example of

Yep.  Was just trying to illustrate how a simple system could be set up for about US$1,000.  Since we amateurs are the ones building these low cost monstrosities  they may not always be pretty.

[AlwaysRt]

13 minutes ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

Yep.  Was just trying to illustrate how a simple system could be set up for about US$1,000.  Since we amateurs are the ones building these low cost monstrosities  they may not always be pretty.

I got ya, that's why I started with "Good example of a simple system..." the parts are ok, it is just a couple of his connections and multiple battery theory I had an issue with. Only mentioned it so none of our members would copy him exactly or mistake him as an expert.

[Jollygoodfellow]

19 hours ago, Huggybearman said:

We have rolling brownouts on a fairly regular basis here in CDO. You would think that the local government would insist that, when required, any brownouts were done to a published schedule so everyone was aware of when a brownout was likely. It's not rocket science, but it seems beyond the wit of the powers that be in CEPALCO. 

Just need to know where to look in advance. http://www.cepalco.com.ph/announcements/

[Dave Hounddriver]

Here is a link to a Facebook video to give you another option to keep you cool during those brownouts and reduce your power bill:

This fellow sells his solar air conditioners from China, delivered to Philippines and you have to get a local person to install them or do it yourself.  I have not tried them and have no interest in them other than I find them intriguing.

[Huggybearman]

3 hours ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

Just need to know where to look in advance. http://www.cepalco.com.ph/announcements/

Yes, Tom, but those are scheduled maintenence brownouts. They don't include the multiple daily brownouts around the city due to excess demand over capacity. In those cases it just seems to be down to a guy in the ops centre (if they have such a thing?) randomly pulling breakers to match demand with supply.

I am still of the opinion that if and when such action is required, it should be done to a particular rota. Consumers would then be aware that during certain hours a brownout in their area was possible rather than the complete lottery it is at the moment.

Ken

[Jack Peterson]

3 minutes ago, Huggybearman said:

I am still of the opinion that if and when such action is required, it should be done to a particular rota. Consumers would then be aware that during certain hours a brownout in their area was possible rather than the complete lottery it is at the moment.

We wish EH?