What kind of battery back up is best?
- Thread starter mochaclownlover
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Dodgersfan
Well-Known Member
Could you use something like this? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003Y24DE...=9010769&hvtargid=pla-305434417134&th=1&psc=1 My tank is all DC/LED it draws 4 amps with all lights and equipment running, 3 amps if the heater is off 1.9 amps if lights and heater are off... could I just plug my eb8 in to one of these and call it a day? How long should I expect it to last at a 3 amp draw? (Lights off everything else running).
l8_apex_it
Community Member
years ago I purchased a used APC Smart UPS 700 XL for $120 or so with the extra bank of batteries. I only use the main. I used to keep my skimmer and return pump hooked up to it as power would cut out frequently. Calcium build up would keep the motors from turning on again. I was tired of rebuilding pumps at 3:30 am. So the UPS allowed me to rebuild when I wanted. It would keep the pumps going for ~3 hours or so.
Power at this home is better and I"m using DC pumps and just run the main pump. I'm guessing I get more than 7 hours now.
Can't say enough about a good UPS. But don't skimp and get the lower voltage ones as they don't keep things powered for nearly as long.
Power at this home is better and I"m using DC pumps and just run the main pump. I'm guessing I get more than 7 hours now.
Can't say enough about a good UPS. But don't skimp and get the lower voltage ones as they don't keep things powered for nearly as long.
vlangel
Seahorse whisperer
For someone who needs the cheapest option possible for an electrical outage lasting a few days, this will keep their tank alive for $20. It only aerates but for a few days that is all you really need. As an aquarium tech who serviced tanks, I knew of several incidents where tanks were wiped out but a Penn Plax back up would have saved them. I have them on my tank and in 20 years of reefing I never needed more although I have a power inverter in case of a prolonged outage. Its never been out of the box.
2018-04-11_07-25-39 by Dawn Gilson, on Flickr
2018-04-11_07-25-39 by Dawn Gilson, on Flickrsalty joe
Well-Known Member
Here's mine. It's only been hooked up for a few weeks-so far so good.
A battery backup that doesn't automatically fire up when power is lost is only half the package, IMO.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/battery-backup-for-dc-pumps-with-fuse-and-alarm.376347/
A battery backup that doesn't automatically fire up when power is lost is only half the package, IMO.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/battery-backup-for-dc-pumps-with-fuse-and-alarm.376347/
IMO, I think building your own is the best choice.
I have a pair of deep cycle marine batteries connected in parallel which power a 5000 watt inverter. Each of the batteries have their own battery tender charger and I purchased a 110 volt auto transfer switch from a solar surplus supply to monitor power and switch to battery back up automatically.
I get 8-12 hours of FULL operation with this setup, depending on how much the heater is on. I intend to double my battery bank from 2 batteries to 4 in hopes of getting a full 24 hours of support.
Of course, there is a backup generator if power is out for an extended period of time.
I have a pair of deep cycle marine batteries connected in parallel which power a 5000 watt inverter. Each of the batteries have their own battery tender charger and I purchased a 110 volt auto transfer switch from a solar surplus supply to monitor power and switch to battery back up automatically.
I get 8-12 hours of FULL operation with this setup, depending on how much the heater is on. I intend to double my battery bank from 2 batteries to 4 in hopes of getting a full 24 hours of support.
Of course, there is a backup generator if power is out for an extended period of time.
Once for over two weeks. We did have a small generator at that time.
I have this unit and the extra battery. I had extra from one of my datacenter refreshes, and from what I understand about DC/AC conversion (Battery to PLUG in ups) then AC/DC Conversion (For Most aquarium pumps with Power Bricks) results in a large loss of power and really negates any long term options unless you have a LOT of batteries. Hearing some of these guys get days out of a car battery is because they are using Straight DC power at low watts / amps with a voltage regulator or well matched batteries. which is actually the correct way of making a solid battery backup solution for Low volt applications.
Our solutions will only work for a few hours at best depending on the equipment.
I am very interested in the project, and have wanted to make my own solution, this looks fairly easy, would it be possible to PM me any details or references you used?
salty joe
Well-Known Member
It is fairly easy and straightforward and I'll be glad to help any way I can. The best thing is go to that thread and ask questions. That way, there's a good chance of getting good advice from others as well.
chipmunkofdoom2
Always Making Something
3 amps is the current draw your Apex is reporting, right? If that's the case, that's about 360W (3A @ 120VAC = 360W). The UPS to which you linked promises around an hour of run time at 100W of draw. So, if the battery draw scales linearly, then your run time at 360W will be around 24 minutes. Battery capacity gets worse the faster you draw on them (for lead acid batteries anyway), so you're likely looking at much less than 24 minutes, maybe as little as half of that.
Ideally you should just run a pump to keep flow going in an outage. If you want to run more, you certainly can, but be prepared to pay for the battery capacity.
Joshua Kerstetter
Active Member
I was kinda lucky, a friend donated to my tank a 1000 VA APC Smart UPS, rack mountable type with the Ethernet management module. After many hours of troubleshooting and configuration I got it setup so I recieve alerts via email regarding power issues, since my Apex is plugged into it when I have a power event I can trigger a safe shutdown of nonessential equipment as well as monitor everything I have, since all my networking equipment is on separate UPSs as well. The only issue I have is the APC only has a 800w inverter in it, and I can easily go over that if I put one of my finnex 500w heaters on it, so I had to separate my equipment from Apex connected ups stuff, and straight AC stuff. So I don't have management on all my equipment, but most of it. I would have liked to go the customer inverter/AC relate/battery route, because I have great access to large VRLA 12v batteries, but without a smart inverter to announce ac outages its kinda useless.
Any computer UPS will work - and they are easy to recondition. Also a computer based UPS based on 12v, you can use old car batteries.
Inverter method - use your car as the battery - and a hybrid car, you can "leave it on", and the gas motor will stop automatically, cuz you're in Park.
When the amps of the main hybrid battery gets below a limit - the gas motor will cycle up, recharge the hybrid battery, and go dormant again.
The car's 12v regular battery will be unaffected.
Essentially - a hybrid car + inverter is an effective generator, less noisy, more useful, no need to do an oil change every X cycles.
Oh, if you use inverter + car, invest in 10-gage 50' outdoor rated extension cable, don't use 14 gage cheapy 20$ extension.
Inverter method - use your car as the battery - and a hybrid car, you can "leave it on", and the gas motor will stop automatically, cuz you're in Park.
When the amps of the main hybrid battery gets below a limit - the gas motor will cycle up, recharge the hybrid battery, and go dormant again.
The car's 12v regular battery will be unaffected.
Essentially - a hybrid car + inverter is an effective generator, less noisy, more useful, no need to do an oil change every X cycles.
Oh, if you use inverter + car, invest in 10-gage 50' outdoor rated extension cable, don't use 14 gage cheapy 20$ extension.
chipmunkofdoom2
Always Making Something
If you have a Neptune Breakout Box, you can get email alerts without the UPS. You will need a 3PDT AC relay instead of a DPDT relay. Basically, connect your live and ground to two of the poles. Then, on the third pole, connect one of your Breakout channels: run one wire from your breakout box to COM, then the other wire to NC.
When the power is on, the relay is energized. Power will flow from NO to COM. In the case of your AC power, this will send utility power to your common on the first two poles. On the third pole, where you connected your breakout box, no energy will flow since you connected the breakout box to NC and COM. The Apex will register this as "off." When you lose power, the relay will de-energize and power will flow from NC to COM. The AC poles will send your inverter power to your AC loads. The third pole, however, will now connect, which means your Apex will get an "on" signal from that channel of the breakout box. You can use this as your "power failure" indicator, and send an email or text when this occurs. Provided, of course, that you power your router and modem in the event of an outage.
Joshua Kerstetter
Active Member
I also didn't mention, its important to note a smart ups, of the line of products I have puts out a proper sine wave. Using a non smart, or modified sine wave unit can drastically reduce your runtime, and damage certain types of pumps. There are alot smarter people that can give you all the details on things like that, but I wanted to mention it.
chipmunkofdoom2
Always Making Something
If price was no object, I think we can all agree that PSW is better. It's easier on electronics in AC/DC adapters and motors run more smoothly, producing less heat and less wear. It's probably more efficient too. But, we do have to consider cost of equipment unless you're fortunate enough to be independently wealthy. I bought a 1,100W MSW inverter for my system for around $80. A quality PSW inverter from a company like Xantrax costs $290 for 1,000W. There are cheaper inverters that are supposedly PSW, but often times, this cheap stuff is just a smoother MSW waveform.
It's also a bit of hyperbole to claim that MSW inverters "drastically reduce" the runtime of a given battery backup system. Even if the usage is 20% more, which is what PSW inverter vendors claim, if your run time is one day (24 hours), your run time is reduced by 4 - 5 hours on MSW. This isn't ideal, but neither is paying four times more for a PSW inverter. Plus, that's assuming that all loads use 20% more power on MSW as opposed to PSW. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has actually done any research to see how much current draw varies between PSW and MSW. If you have done some research or have ever found any that quantifies the difference, I'd like to see it.
Additionally, motors tend to run less smoothly on MSW, which does produce additional heat and may cause them to wear faster. But our motors (pumps) are submerged in a liquid coolant (our aquarium water). From my understanding, it's the heat that kills motors, which in our application is probably not as big an issue as dry motors. Plus, much more equipment is DC now anyway. MSW makes AC/DC adapters run hotter, but if it's a DC pump, it's receiving clean DC voltage from the power supply. So MSW doesn't affect these pumps at all. (Very technically speaking, all motors are AC. So the DC pump controller is receiving DC voltage and transforming it into AC voltage to run the actual pump. But that's outside the scope of this discussion).
So is it worth it to spend four times as much for PSW as opposed to MSW? It depends. I personally don't think so. In the case of an aquarium battery backup, your equipment is only going to run on the inverter in the event of an outage. If you have about three or four outages a year and each outage lasts 5 hours, you're only talking about running your equipment on a modified sine wave for 15 - 20 hours a year. Is pure sine wave better? Undoubtedly. Is it worth paying four times as much when you're only running your equipment for 20 hours a year on the "messy" MSW? That's for you to decide. I don't think it is.
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