Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Power back up for RAS as simple as 1,2,3

Thanks Weissguy for posting how to do this on the website a while back! My electrician (my dad) is in Florida for the winter so I needed all the help I could get!

It turns out I had a UPS unit laying around the house, and the only thing wrong with it was a bad battery. (This is one of those things we use to back up our computers in case of a power outage). I wanted more battery than what came with the UPS anyway, hence the deep cycle trolling motor.



I added male spade connectors to one end to connect to the wiring in the UPS where the small bad battery was, and then female battery post leads to the other end to connect it to a deep cycle trolling motor battery.



Here's the set up on a shelf I built connected to a the battery underneath it. (There is more clearance around the unit than it appears for air cooling). The recirculating aquaculture system is on the other side of the wall, which is nice as all the power and plug ins are separated by a wall.

The AC pump that runs the rotating biofilter by dropping water on the paddles and moves water out of the clarifier, is plugged into the UPS. I purposely cut the power to that outlet at the breaker box, and the UPS did it's job: sent out a audible alarm, and automatically cut over to the battery.





Constructive criticism and suggestions welcome, especially from the engineers on our website.

Good work! Only one small suggeston; make sure the external battery is fully charged as the small UPS will probably only offer a trickle charge to the battery.
When I say trickle charge, I mean as compared to a 4-5 amp full charge current for that sized battery.

Gotcha. Thanks Burger.

Just have fun with it. I am sure you will learn alot, and have ups and downs along the way.

As an Engineer...

I've done about half a dozen of these conversions on UPS's. A dead marine battery typically takes about 40-60 hours to recharge through the UPS. This may be longer than some people prefer, but it works quite well for me.

It's also nice going from a few minutes to a few HOURS of backup power for my system.

Hey guys could you use this type of setup for a backup sump pump in case of power outage?? I need to do something and this might be the ticket?

Thanks,

I think it depends on how much juice the sump pump uses. I do know you can hook up a couple of batteries in a series but you want to do it correctly or you end up with too many volts.

There's a way to calculate how long your battery(s) will last based on info on the what you are powering and what's on the battery itself. Perhaps one of the electricians here can fill us in?

Today I'm running my RAS pump on battery only to see how long it will last. The UPS had it up to full charge when I checked it last night. In a few seconds the green light came on at the charger.

I would think though a deep cycle battery would last quite a few hours and with a sump pump it wouldn't be on constantly?? Yeah I would love to know what the experts think on this as this could save me serveral hundred dollars in doing this versus a Generator to run the pump. If I could get 6 or 7 hours out of a deep cycle battery only running the pump as it kicks in and off that would be great!! Plus you would get the benifit of it automatically kicking in for you when you loose power. I do know that a 1/3 horse power sump pump uses 800 working amps and 1300 start up amps. What that equates to with a deep cycle battery and how long it would last I don't know. Could anyone here help me out on that. I would apprecaite VERY much. Thanks in advance.

RC51,

If it helps I've got an average size deep cycle that says:

Max cranking amps @ 32 F. is 500.
Amp hours is 75
Cold cranking amps is 405


I know you can get them much bigger with more storage.

What's nice is you could get a pulse charger that keeps the battery charged up according to Adirondack Pond, although the UPS does that to some extent. But it's set up more for small gel type batteries the UPS' comes with. Adirondack Pond turned me on to this one:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001TQFB5I/ref=...ASIN=B001TQFB5I

Although I found this one for only $10.00:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/det...0DER&v=++glance

AP tells me not to go with the cheaper one due to it not being pulse or something to that effect.

My small pump btw I'm using for my RAS is 1.5 amps and 65 watts. If any of you electricians on here can tell me how long it's supposed to last on the above battery on paper let me know.

Do I need any spec info on the UPS?

Cecil,

thanks for the info. I work in the tech world so I can get an old UPS no problem. I think I am going to set it up and try it just to see what happens. Time to start testing.

RC51 - I have my sump on a battery backup (not a converted UPS one though). It's just a marine battery and a little fail switch. We were without power for about 20 hours during a major thunderstorm last year. The sump was pumping about once every 10 minutes for the bulk of that time. It lasted the entire outage.

I use a Kill-a-watt device to determine how much power each component pulls when "on", startup amp requirements (very important to know for pumps), idle power draws, etc. I find that manufacturer ratings are often quite a ways off from the results you get in "real life" use. I also use one at work when I'm setting up backup systems for servers, networks, telephone systems, etc. It helps me calculate exactly what I need in a UPS system based on the amount of time I want things to be capable of running on standby power.

You can get these things for about $20 at most hardware stores. Here is a link to the manufacturer's product info page:
http://www.p3international.com/products/special/P4400/P4400-CE.html

Be careful though. Testing your appliances becomes strangely addictive. Before long, you'll be running around testing everything in your house!

Sweet thanks Weissguy I appreciate it very much.

I've been thinking of picking up something like that. Thanks Weissguy.

HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM!

I purposely cut the AC power and allowed the UPS to kick over to the deep cycle battery. I came back in less than a hour and the pump was not running and something smelled hot. The UPS was beeping continuously and very hot to the touch.

Three possibilities:

1.) The UPS is to small to handle the deep cycle battery

2.) The UPS was damaged in a power surge previously, which is why we replaced it on the computer vs. just a bad battery.

3.) There wasn't enough airflow around the UPS, which is not directly on the wall but close.

4.) Something is wrong with the deep cycle battery itself.

I'm leaning toward number 1. I don't believe it's the battery as the charger I have didn't take very long to charge it back up again, and showed it fully charged before the test. And the UPS works fine for a short while, but gets hot until it shuts down.

Thoughts? I wish I was an electrician. Then all those numbers on the UPS would make sense to me and I might have known the UPS is too small for the job.


Well here's what the UPS says on it:



The pump says 65 watts at 1.5 amps. Did I overload the UPS? I can recognize some of the things on the UPS above but there's a lot of info there.

Anybody know?

As you can see the UPS is warped on the bottom from the heat. At least I didn't pay for it and I didn't burn the house down!

Cecil,

By the looks of that UPS it is too small to handle the 12 volt battery. That UPS looks like it originally handled a 6 volt battery. Most of your smaller UPS's like that one did. I wondered about that when I looked at your pictures. You will more than likely need to get into a ups box like a 1500 or bigger that is rated for a 12 volt battey. Then is should work. That's the only thing I can think of that would be your problem. I don't see it but there should be serial number on that ups somewhere. Look it up on line and you sould be able to find the specs on that ups and it should tell you what type of voltage the orignal batteries were.

No it had a 12 volt originally.

Really? Well that's not good then! I wonder if that UPS is just not suppose to be on for very long. Most of them shutdown after 5 to 10 minutes. Maybe it's not made to be on for hours at a time? Maybe none of them are???

RC51, I dont see any specs that says it had a 6 volt battery. Also, the UPS should have been plenty large enough to handle the pump. FYI...VA is similar to watts(in this application). So, the 2 outlets rated at 350 va and 210 va should have run the pump. I would plug into the higher rated outlet. BUT, if the pump draws 1.5 amps at 115 volts, it should be 165 watts instead of 65 watts. V x A.
If it is indeed 165 watts and was plugged into the 210VA outlet, that would be running it at near capacity. It is probably just a short term brownout UPS.
If you have another one, try it. Also remember to recharge the battery with it disconnected from the UPS even if you test it for a few minutes. The external charger will put out a higher voltage(14.5 for a while, if the battery is discharged) and may damage the UPS charge circuit.
IF the pump is actually 165 watts and draws 1.5 amps, then even if the UPS had 100% efficiency(Watts in+watts out) the batery is supplying about 15 ampt. In reality, probably 20 amps.
Dont want to ramble anymore and get anyone confused. Fire back with a specific question and I will address.
If you really want to protect your fish, you have 2 options. Get a DC backup pump and connect as previously stated, or get a decent UPS designed for an external battery and longer term use.

Burgermeister,

Thanks for the info.

As far as this UPS I'm trashing it as the heat damage doesn't give me confidence to use it. As hot as it got and as much as it smelled (electrical burning smell) I don't feel confident to try and use it again. It's not worth risking a fire.

I do have a DC pump I can simply connect to a battery to run the RBC and can do so if I'm home or know we have a power outage. However my plan is to purchase another UPS but this time to be certain it won't give me problems as in ask the manufacturer lots of questions and/or get one that is powerful enough to do the job.

Looks like 2010 will be another learning year.

Here's a link to one I will check out, which includes a fan for cooling:

http://www.jehmco.com/html/battery_backup_system.html

Also this:

http://www.jehmco.com/html/battery_inverters.html

Addendum to my last post. VA and watts are similar in the use of the pump. Watt rating when used with a computer will be about 2/3 of the VA rating due to the switching power supply in the computer. So, if used with a computer the 210 VA output(apparent power) would only be 140 watts rated. It does not apply to Cecil's application.(except for the phase angle lag due to an induction load)...let's not go there.

Cecil, the 350 watt tripplite would work well.
Or, since you have a DC pump, Theo suggested a battery and charger hooked to it. If you think the AC pump is a better one, then go with the Tripplite. I have used them in the marine industry to backup SAT COMM and HF radio peripherals, such as printers when AC is lost. The main equipment swiches to 24VDC batteries. I would cycle it about every 2 wks. to keep the battery in a good state. I have found that deep cycle batteries dont last when used in a 'standby' state, unless they are 'massaged' occasionally.

good luck

Thanks Burger!