Brown outs

[mogo51]

15 hours ago, Tukaram (Tim) said:

My wife is pestering me to buy a generator ha ha  She complains more than an expat.  I think a battery pack would be enough... 

Keep the ear plus in Tim.

[hk blues]

On 18/10/2017 at 9:54 AM, Dave Hounddriver said:

We just had an hour brown out here but I am all sorted with deep cycle battery and inverter.  So much so that I forgot to turn it all back to the mains when the power came back on.  I'll do that after I write this.  But here's the bottom line:  I can "survive" without power, with a small budget, without certain comfort foods BUT I came here to be happy in my retirement and brownouts do not make me happy so I will do what it takes to maintain a steady power supply.

Yes Dave. But my comment was directed at my neighbours and the situation in my locality and, as I said, we have very few brownouts and they really should not impact on people's lives that much. Not enough to justify disturbing the peace of the neighbourhood in any event. IMO.

Your circumstances may be different, and your solution clearly is.

[Huggybearman]

12 hours ago, AlwaysRt said:

Do you remember about how much 'not cheap' is?

I have about p16,000 in my setup. A 170Ah deep cycle AGM communications rated (think cell tower backup) battery and a 1,000w,/3,000w surge pure sine wave inverter. Brownout or even low voltage, it automatically switched from AC to inverter, when AC comes back on it automatically switches back to AC and charges the battery. TV does not even blink and completely silent.

Can't remember exactly, but in excess of 40k php. As I say, not cheap but you get what you pay for. It always starts first pull, has a very stable pure sine output and will safely run anything you plug into it, up to its rated output of course. I think that being a responsible neighbour is also quite important so wanted one that was also very quiet as well as economical. During extended brownouts it also powers the UPS as well as other things such as fridges (not consistently, just an hour or so to keep the temp down) fans, tv, lights, etc.

Our UPS system is very similar to yours, with 2x100 AGM deep cycle batteries and a good quality 1000w / 2000w surge pure sine inverter which, as I mentioned, covers the majority of brownouts. 

Ken

[Jollygoodfellow]

5 hours ago, Huggybearman said:

Can't remember exactly, but in excess of 40k php. As I say, not cheap but you get what you pay for. It always starts first pull, has a very stable pure sine output and will safely run anything you plug into it, up to its rated output of course. I think that being a responsible neighbour is also quite important so wanted one that was also very quiet as well as economical. During extended brownouts it also powers the UPS as well as other things such as fridges (not consistently, just an hour or so to keep the temp down) fans, tv, lights, etc.

Our UPS system is very similar to yours, with 2x100 AGM deep cycle batteries and a good quality 1000w / 2000w surge pure sine inverter which, as I mentioned, covers the majority of brownouts. 

Ken

Honda will always win. 

[AlwaysRt]

I have a problem testing my ups system runtime. I am not going to stay up all night just to check the duration of a brownout and during the day I often don't know when there is one. For example, my wife just told me the power went out over an hour ago so she can't cook breakfast. Since it is daytime I had no lights on and had no clue. It doesn't seem to be too big of a negative not to be able to tell the power is out, except that I don't have a start time to measure my battery duration.

[hk blues]

54 minutes ago, AlwaysRt said:

I have a problem testing my ups system runtime. I am not going to stay up all night just to check the duration of a brownout and during the day I often don't know when there is one. For example, my wife just told me the power went out over an hour ago so she can't cook breakfast. Since it is daytime I had no lights on and had no clue. It doesn't seem to be too big of a negative not to be able to tell the power is out, except that I don't have a start time to measure my battery duration.

She was probably just saying that to avoid cooking breakfast!

[Jake]

1 hour ago, AlwaysRt said:

I have a problem testing my ups system runtime. I am not going to stay up all night just to check the duration of a brownout and during the day I often don't know when there is one. For example, my wife just told me the power went out over an hour ago so she can't cook breakfast. Since it is daytime I had no lights on and had no clue. It doesn't seem to be too big of a negative not to be able to tell the power is out, except that I don't have a start time to measure my battery duration.

Can you simply unplug it and time how long the output last?  

If it kicks out after only a couple minutes, kill it with a thermite grenade like a good Marine should.....he, he.  

[AlwaysRt]

49 minutes ago, Jake said:

Can you simply unplug it and time how long the output last?  

If it kicks out after only a couple minutes, kill it with a thermite grenade like a good Marine should.....he, he.  

I know it goes for at least 6 hours, there has been a couple longer brownouts since I have had it but I spent the day around Dauin both times. I don't really want to artificially test it, yes unplugging it would work, because it would be my luck the power would go out at the end of the test and I would be SOL - then I just might start looking for the thermite or at least whack it with my Ka-Bar LOL

[Huggybearman]

4 hours ago, AlwaysRt said:

I have a problem testing my ups system runtime. I am not going to stay up all night just to check the duration of a brownout and during the day I often don't know when there is one. For example, my wife just told me the power went out over an hour ago so she can't cook breakfast. Since it is daytime I had no lights on and had no clue. It doesn't seem to be too big of a negative not to be able to tell the power is out, except that I don't have a start time to measure my battery duration.

If you have a voltmeter or multimeter you can easily check the voltage of the battery (at rest) to give an idea of its state of charge. A fully charged 12v battery should be a little over 12.7 volts. At 50% state of charge it should be 12.1 volts. It is not advisable to discharge your battery below about 50% to prolong the life of your battery. 

If you have a hydrometer then you can get an idea by the specific gravity of the battery provided you have access to the liquid inside. Not easy with sealed or maintenence free type batterys though.

A state of charge chart is here:  http://modernsurvivalblog.com/alternative-energy/battery-state-of-charge-chart/

Ken

[AlwaysRt]

1 hour ago, Huggybearman said:

If you have a voltmeter or multimeter you can easily check the voltage of the battery (at rest) to give an idea of its state of charge. A fully charged 12v battery should be a little over 12.7 volts. At 50% state of charge it should be 12.1 volts. It is not advisable to discharge your battery below about 50% to prolong the life of your battery. 

If you have a hydrometer then you can get an idea by the specific gravity of the battery provided you have access to the liquid inside. Not easy with sealed or maintenence free type batterys though.

A state of charge chart is here:  http://modernsurvivalblog.com/alternative-energy/battery-state-of-charge-chart/

Ken

The battery Dave and I have is the 170Ah version of the Northstar Blue+ made in Missouri https://www.northstarbattery.com/product/nsb-100ft-blue