Super UPS from South Africa

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Comments

  • WingaWinga Mr South Africa Icrontian
    edited October 2007
    It seems it helps reviving old threads now and then, they get more attention the second time around :D I got an e-mail from a friend I haven't heard from for ages saying his son found my article on the net.

    You guys must bear in mind that when I did the initial test after installing the UPS I had everything maxed out on 2 computers where the CPU's were running 100% the graphics cards were working hard, the wireless router was under load and I had a huge 3-in-1 lazer scanner/copier/printer spewing out pages of print. (Lazer printers and UPS don't mix so I wouldn't recommend anyone runs one off the UPS unless they rated to handle it)

    With our recent power outage I shut down all the peripherals and only had 1 PC and monitor going. The CPU was still at max load and the graphics card was working hard for some of the time. I got over 5 hours out of. I'm quite sure that if I had another set of batteries wired in parallel I could get a straight 10 -12 hours out of it. That supports what airmon has said. (great post BTW)

    The batteries I used were deep discharge and recommended for a UPS. However as someone suggested to me the other day, if you used a car battery, there's nothing stopping you from popping it into the car and going for a drive around the block to recharge it. That way if you had a spare, you could have an endless supply of power :D
  • LincLinc Owner Detroit Icrontian
    edited October 2007
    Winga wrote:
    I got an e-mail from a friend I haven't heard from for ages saying his son found my article on the net.
    Peter (Buddy J) has been at work - Engadget and others picked up on this over the weekend :)

    Digg!
  • ThelemechThelemech Victoria Icrontian
    edited October 2007
    I loved this! Excellent read Winga. Congrats! And I agree with Thrax; Icrontic would benefit immensely with more articles like this!
  • edited November 2007
    Awesome article. Funny how I'm halfway around the world in SoCal with some of the same power problems; we haven't had large-scale rolling blackouts in a couple years, but they keep threatening.

    I've been playing around with photovoltaics the last few weeks (for glamping) and your write-up cleared up a few things I was wondering about.

    One thing I noticed is that, in your diagram of multiple batteries in parallel, you have both leads connecting from the inverter/charger to the same battery. I recently read that in a battery bank the two leads should be connected to opposite ends of the bank; i.e. in your "Parallel battery connection" diagram the negative wire should run from the leftmost battery back to the inverter. Otherwise that right-hand battery gets charged and discharged much more than the others.
  • WingaWinga Mr South Africa Icrontian
    edited November 2007
    debren27 wrote:
    One thing I noticed is that, in your diagram of multiple batteries in parallel, you have both leads connecting from the inverter/charger to the same battery. I recently read that in a battery bank the two leads should be connected to opposite ends of the bank; i.e. in your "Parallel battery connection" diagram the negative wire should run from the leftmost battery back to the inverter. Otherwise that right-hand battery gets charged and discharged much more than the others.

    That's a good point you raised. I will find out whether it makes much of an impact on the scale I'm using i.e. 2 batteries.
  • jj Sterling Heights, MI Icrontian
    edited November 2007
    Oh, man I hope that's not an African conflict UPS's
  • edited January 2009
    i want to make my own ups at home for my pc requiring nearly 700 watts i need please help me if you can..............
  • WingaWinga Mr South Africa Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Ased, I'm sorry for only picking up your post now. There are a number of very capable people in this forum who will be able to help you with your UPS build. I am also more than happy to advise you on your build.

    Why don't you register (It's quick and easy) head over to the general hardware section of the forum, post your request and we can take it from there.
  • WingaWinga Mr South Africa Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    I've been messing around with off the shelf UPS's lately. Adding larger batteries to them, testing charge times etc. I plan to hook one of them up to solar power to see if I can get stable, reliable, continuous power that's totally independent of the grid.

    It's in it's infancy but I'm sure that would make for an interesting follow up article :D
  • Your-Amish-DaddyYour-Amish-Daddy The heart of Texas
    edited January 2009
    The article link is 404'd, Just when I need it too.
  • BuddyJBuddyJ Dept. of Propaganda OKC Icrontian
    edited January 2009
  • SiftahSiftah Manchester, UK
    edited April 2009
    Winga wrote:
    I've been messing around with off the shelf UPS's lately. Adding larger batteries to them, testing charge times etc. I plan to hook one of them up to solar power to see if I can get stable, reliable, continuous power that's totally independent of the grid.

    It's in it's infancy but I'm sure that would make for an interesting follow up article :D

    I'd be interested in reading that - I've been reading up on similar things myself recently and managed to acquire a 1400va APC Smart UPS for £1.20 off eBay.

    Just need to find a few solar panels now... :)
  • edited July 2009
    This is a great artical, thanks for the write up mike, I got a great deal on ups's last year i bought a pallet of them from a conpany here in portland when it went out of business and got 14 for 50 bucks, none of whice had good batteries, after wards i bought 7 12V 55 Amp/Hour batteries that were designed for telephone backup systems for 40 Dollars each, i run two mac G4's with 3 14 inch lcd flat screens, each item has its own ups and they all have there own batterys, i get around 12 hours of run time, also dont give up on solar, it works grteat, i have one batteries hooked up to 2 ups that are charged only by a 45watt solar panel setup, and it runs a gaming computer just fine, iv never ran this setup more then a couple hours but its always ready to go when i want it, BTW i live in oregon, USA

    Thanks for listening and thanks for writing such a great artical. feel free to e-mail me

    Pockets
  • edited March 2010
    i have an intex ups that runs my system...can i add battery to the ups so that i cun electrical appliances such as fun ,light...how can increase the back up time to 2-3hrs
  • edited July 2010
    can we make a 5 kva ups which will give atleast 15 mins of backup.
  • edited July 2010
    Hey i dont know if you will even answer this, but i too am from SA. I want to make something like this but i dont want to use the wall socket plug to AC. Instead i want to use a solar panel. How much power should my panels be producing/ what type of panels should i use?
  • edited August 2010
    Umm...you need to add more batteries in parallel NOW! Lead acid batteries should not be dicharged more than 50-60%. In fact their lifetime can be calculated as inversely proportional to depth of discharge(dod). Your run everything until it dies "test" cost you a lot of batter life and did permanate damage. When your batts fail it will happen like this,power fail, batts kick in discharging, power restores, batteries charge but since the plates are damaged they just generate heat and hydrogen,providing the batts haven't cracked split open or boiled their ACID electrolite into the air or their H2 hasn't been ignited,when the power fails again they'll only last a short time if at all 0-1hr.
    I am a auto/diesel/industrial master technician and have personally seen all above conditions and failure modes. Sealed,maint free,vrla,gel cell all have vents for emergy venting.
    Almost forgot 600cca 12v batt exploding sounds like a shotgun and spray acid in all directions ask me how I know. No disrespect meant by this post, keep your dod below 50-60%, enjoy none of the above problems and battery life measured in years not months.
  • edited September 2011
    I use a 1kva UPS fitted with external 100ah/12v for charging with mains and 3 panels of 75w for charging by solar. I use a contactor such that where there is not mains, solar charging picks up automatically.
  • edited December 2011
    excellent. why don't you also hook up a couple of solar panels with a charge controller so the batteries charge during the day through solar and not mains.
  • QCHQCH Ancient Guru Chicago Area - USA Icrontian
    edited December 2011
    Over 4 years later and this article STILL bring folks in. Such a great and successful project.
  • How about the day!!!!
  • This is a great article to have succeeded 4 years of patronage.
  • WingaWinga Mr South Africa Icrontian
    I have just been reading through some of the guest comments and note one comment saying that I have probably killed my batteries prematurely by putting them through that stress test when I originally assembled the UPS.
    I have finally replaced the original batteries this week. Granted, towards the end of their life, the UPS died within minutes of the mains going down, so they definitely needed replacing, but I'm pleased to report that the same UPS is still going strong after 4 years and is now on its second round of batteries.

    Im so pleased to see that the article is still of relevance and is still attracting new hits after all this time.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    We miss you @Winga :D
  • clifford_cooleyclifford_cooley Arkansas, USA Member
    Great article, thanks for sharing. :)

    Three times now I have tried to read the comments on the first page and three times now Opera has frozen on me. I don't know what the issue is but there is definitely something on the first page of this thread freezing my browser. For the record, I haven't had any issues ever with Opera freezing.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    Weird. I'll let @lincoln know.
  • hai sir can u help me sir
    i want 1000va ups circuit diagram send me
    this email id mohammedazam17@gmail.com
  • UPSHitmanUPSHitman The Big Nasty Indianapolis, Indiana Icrontian
    approve this ]UPS[ ! HAHAHA
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian

    @Winga great to see you!

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