extended power outages

[heybud]

Hello all! I've got another question for you fellow enthusiasts. I've been on 12/12 lighting (5pm to 5am so there's no light when I'm not home) since this past saturday. Last night we had a scheduled power outage from 11:30pm to approximately 3:30am. I found out only two days before and my budget didn't allow any last minute purchases. I had a ups but I discovered it was only rated to last about 5 minutes at my power draw. I used that time to frantically setup candles, battery powered flash lights and my phones flash light around some mirrors in my bathroom. I just wanted it to have some form of light. My phone light died at some point (fell asleep ) but the candles and battery powered flash lights stayed strong until 3:30am when I put them back in my tent.

OK, so I'm hoping she won't hermie as she's the first and currently only one I'm flowering.

Anyways since I've had this scare, I don't want a repeat event. I've researched a ups capable of lasting over 4 hours but the price tag is too much. I then thought of a car inverter and a couple batteries but then I wasn't sure of how to actually keep the batteries charged properly and to not be constantly discharging. Finally I was lead to a inverter/charger by tripplite. It's rated at a continuous power of 750w and max of 1500w. The way it works is to charge the batteries and maintain them when not in use. Then it automatically detects if it's lost the ac power input and will switch to powering what is plugged into it by the batteries. I'm using slightly over 300w according to my math (going to get a kill a watt usage monitor to check though). The inverter is about $285 and the cost batteries, wires/connectors and fuse I'm thinking wouldn't be over $200.

So does anyone have any experience with these or any other solutions I've not seen yet? I'm renting so renewable energy sources won't work.

I would like to say thank you in advance as I have read many threads on this forum that have gotten me to where I am so far. You guys rock and happy toking

 

[Scrappy-doo]

One night of no lights isn't going to cause any hermies. 3 or more and then you need to start worrying. If you need to use a power pack, keep in mind all you need is a couple cfl's to keep things on schedule, not your entire light setup.

 

[Phaeton]

I have a UPS rated at 450 volt-amps, whatever that means. I took out the battery it came with and wired in a set of large car batteries in parallel. It lasts over ten hours pulling 100 watts.
I use it for the computer and TV (and the subwoofer from my van which is hooked to the TV), here in Alaska the power has already gone off for two days this winter. Expect it to happen again.

The plants don't seem to mind a little extra darkness, I am betting they do not know the difference between power failures and major thunderclouds blocking the sun.

 

[trichrider]

i've used car batteries hooked to an inverter powering a cfl to maintain flowering.

 

[igrowone]

i find extra dark to be no problem
if you're in flower, and the plant was fine before, the extra dark don't bother it
i often have 12 hour shutdowns when i travel for a day
though a black out can cause a timer screw up with the light schedule thrown off
which is the worse part imho

 

[mowood3479]

Yup I agree with the above posters... I don't start to stress til 36 hours.
An inverter and a car batt wil run a few Cls for 8 hours or so.
A generator is where it's at tho for stress free growing in power outages.

 

[heybud]

Thanks for all the replies fellas. You've certainly help put my mind at ease. Definitely looking into just rigging up a few cfls and a ups for the future.