Battery back ups

[Ganoderma]

Has any one thought about using battery back up like the kind that they sell for computers in the event of a power outage.

I think that they would be great for having your fan for your carbon filter plugged into, so if the power ever went out for a short time, no noses would be the wiser.

you could also have your lights plugged into one of them. granted you'd have to pick one that is rated for pulling how ever many watts that your system is (like for a 250watt, or a 400watt, or a 600watt, or a 1000watt). And then you'd have to figure on how many minutes or hour rated you'd wont to opt for in the back up that you dicide to go with.

 

[BudGood2006]

I've thought of this before, but never gave it a whole lot of comtemplation. It would be great for people in rolling-blackout prone areas...

 

[Ganoderma]

every once in a while the power goes out for some reason or an other, it happens.

And one can never take to many precautions

 

[Verite]

I would first review the full load/half load run times and then see if its the alternative you are looking for. If you want to run hids off batteries be prepared to have a lot of them. Usually for the amount of time could have it on wouldnt hurt the avg set of plants in veg or flower mode. Its the longer outages that cause the most problems.

 

[Ganoderma]

yes, if you where to set your lights up on them you'd need a good bank of them, but I think that it would be better (cheaper) to have your carbon filters and air pumps (for bubblers/hydro set-ups/pumps) set up on them, as if the power goes out and you have a room full of very very smelly kind bud, that smell is going to be making you get very nervious.

a thought for peace of mind.......................

also you'd wont to place your timer(if using a timer for this application) between the battery back up and the device that you are running off of it....................

 

[Blunt_69]

I would think you would need a huge freaking UPS to supply a 1 1000HPS and fans + pumps.

You have to remeber computers do not draw 120VAC. They knock everything down to 12 or 5 volts. For this reason there is very little draw or amps from these devices. A fan/light draws massive amounts when compared to a computer. So I would say yeah you could do it, The cost to do so would be extream.

 

[BudGood2006]

Computers use 120vac. They draw amps. Not as much as a 1000 watts (7.2A), more like 4-600(3.33 to 5A). The power is converted from 120VAC to 12VDC within the computer. It'd be possible, but I would agree with Ganoderma in just using it for carbon filter fans, and air pumps for peace of mind.

 

[Ganoderma]

Just trying to give every one a few ideas to toss around. just because no one may be doing something yet, it doesn't mean that once one person starts doing it may not become a phad and catches on with everyone.

 

[Verite]

Battery fad that will last a decent grow less than an hour = $2-3 thousand?

Reality probably is you would get gas powered generator for a few hundred bucks and that would do the job for many hours without having to recharge.

 

[Guest]

A lil honda generator is way more cost effective..

 

[Ganoderma]

with a generator you have to fill it with gas, and check the oil, not to mention having to turn it on and turn it off every day.........

And not to mention the way gas prices are going, if you thought that it cost a lot to fill your car, truck or S.U.V. up, just think how much its going to cost fill your generator up dailly.......................

think of the battery back up as a "back-up", and not the main stay of power supply.
A back-up for a 1000w light would be pricey, but for lower watt lights your looking at under a $100 USD, But like I've allready said, "I think that it would be better (cheaper) to have your carbon filters and air pumps (for bubblers/hydro set-ups/pumps) set up on them, as if the power goes out and you have a room full of very very smelly kind bud."

I have looked at the option of going 100% green power, but the start up costs are really high. there would be many things to look at if you wonted to set up a "green power" system,

1. are you in an area that recieves a good amount of sun during the day/through out the year for a solar set-up.
1.a. for a wind power unit, are you in an area that has a far amount/steady wind flow dailly/year round, then you have more light in the summer than you do in the winter.

2. In stead of running/setting up one kind of "green power" system it would be more reliable to set up a hybred system, like a solar-wind powered system, then you could have a possible 24/7 generating system

3. You'd have to figure out how much power your going to be using, so if your going to be running two rooms, one your vegging room and then your blooming/flowering room. so lets say your going to be running

400watts at 18hour (400wX18hour=7200 / 1000= 7.2 kilowatt hours per day)in the vegging room and then lets say you wont to run

2400watts(lets say 4-600watt HPS) at 12 hours a day(2400X12hours=28800 / 1000=28.8kilowatt hours),

28.8 KWH + 7.2KWH (not including every other electrical device that needs to run off of power, like fans, air pumps, water pumps light movers)= 36 KWH needed every day

with solar powers if the highest watt panels that you could get was 190w (lets figure every thing at 8 hours of sunlight per day then you should come out with extra power for those cloudy days)units you would need 23 to 24 panels to generate what you would need every day, if a 190watt panel cost $940 USD (http://www.dependablesolarproducts.com/panels/kyocera.htm) , it would cost $22560 USD just for the panels and that doesn't include the batteries, converters, inverters.

So thats a hell of a lot of money to "run off of batteries" wouldn't you say. And i'll leave it at that and not bother to crunch any more numbers or the numbers for a hybred system of solar panels and wind generators, as I feel that most of you wouldn't ever be interested in "Green Power" when you can just go and buy a gas powered generator and fill it with gas every day.

 

[Guest]

I really love the idea of having solar power at my house. It does bug me when the lights inside the garden are burnin power up when it's nice and sunny outside.. just seems like a waste.

Most say it's not cost effective to run solar since it's lots o money to set up and the elec. bill with a small to mid size garden is reasonable.

I have looked into DIY solar set ups for quite a while and they are becoming more affordable. In Cali you get a rebate from the gov. on the cost of the slolar set up which makes it more attractive. In my case I may do it within a year or so. Even if I didn't run HID's I still want solar for the house... just makes sense.

There are set ups that will spin your meter backwards when the solar is generating more power than you are using. The power company will give you credit for that power that you are feeding back into the system so on a cloudy day you will be running on that credit.

The system I was eyeing, after rebate and I install myself I think was about $12 to $15k. This did not include a battery back up but one is avail for it. I'll have to look it up again and see how many watts it was. I like the idea...

 

[Ganoderma]

There are set ups that will spin your meter backwards when the solar is generating more power than you are using. The power company will give you credit for that power that you are feeding back into the system so on a cloudy day you will be running on that credit.

With a set-up like that you don't need batteries to store the power unless if you set up a small bank of them so if the power (from the power company)goes out at night

 

[Ganoderma]

so then with one of those set-ups you really don't have to worry about some one reading your meter, and looking at your electric bill and deciding to place a call to the smelly piggies.

 

[Guest]

With a set-up like that you don't need batteries to store the power unless if you set up a small bank of them so if the power (from the power company)goes out at night

That's right.. so if the power goes out like mine did last night and there are no batteries I'm in the same dark boat. Batteries with a solar system would be tits.. but expensive. On the orig. topic tho with no solar I think for temp. power a small gen. is easiest and cheapest.

Good point on the meter readings as well but it's a catch 22.. If your burning enough watts to worry about that you would need a hellava big solar system to offset that...
EDIT.. you are right, even a small to mid size solar system would allow you to run more lights and not worry about it much..

http://www.californiasolarco.com/solar-power-rebates.html