The good thing Jon? Most of this will not matter to you >LOL<
Just be sure that your extension cords/powerstrips/etc are all rated to handle the amount of load you put on them. Because the numbers on a label rarely give you the full picture your more than welcome to borrow my amp meter if you want. Its a very nifty little tool. You simply clamp it around the cable you want to read and it will tell you exactly how many amps are being drawn through the cable within a .01 tolerance(i think). Pretty accurate. You can do the math all day long if you want but it might not always turn out the way you expect. Just my experience.
i’ll stay away from the numbers since i dont know much about them. I use a Champion 3500 watts running 4k starting that i got from Tractor supply. 299.99 I used at first, 2 extension cords in the 120v with 20amp breakers but recently i have been using the dual 120v RV Splitter on the single 35amp (i think). there is a switch between the 220/rv and dual 120v outlets so you cant run all at once. mine ran outside as soon as the power went out and was nearly a monsoon.
My ideal setup with this gen. is to have a dedicated panel where i can plug into and back feed my most need outlets with a Main Disconnect to the rest of the panels. this of course requires some rewiring. it puts out a Pretty good sine wave so most electronics should have no problem unless they are really sensitive. as for batteries or a bank of batteries Spiral Cell Technology should hold up well and take up little room since you would have a Gen available for use.
spiral cell are virtually leak free anymore and have a good shelf life. batteries are lighter and more efficient . they dont suffer from charging memory
OH, some of the higher priced gensets have an on demand throttlle control to save gas. the basic models you just run flat out. so when your heater shuts off for a while a basic unit is still generating the 300 watts to cover it, but its going nowhere. the engine just runs flat out. one with demand control will change the throttle when the load drops or rises. which gives you longer run time on a tank of gas. its better.
Most of the batteries now are maintenance free. so no real hydrogen problem. but you should set up the battery or batteries on a rack in the corner , out of the way. and place them in a plastic battery box with cover something like this boat box:
It serves a couple nice purposes. it is acid proof and will contain any spill or acid leak. and after you have wired it up to trickle charger and to inverters with a switch, you put the plastic lid on and tie it down. this will prevent your pet cat from piroetteing on both battery terminals at once and turning into a carbon arc lamp. and kids and reefers too! it makes a safe, neat package. you wont even know its there.
I think a setup like this, with one $85 1000 amp deep cycle battery, a 600 watt inverter $75, and battery box $10 and trickle charger $10 can back up an average tank or two and only need recharging with jumper cables from your car once a day. under $200?
Oh, Craig, regarding storing batteries on concrete. TheBatteryTerminal.com is for sale | HugeDomains
not true. dont feel bad, i always think the same thing. but its just time and not being on a trickle charger that reverses the chemical reaction.
Well, if anyone cares this is what ive been using for a while now and have recommended before. You can buy them refurbed on ebay very cheap. No need to recharge the batters ever. Its completely plug and play. Plug what you want into the inverter, plug the inverter into the wall, wire as many batteries as you can afford. Power goes out and it instantly switches to battery backup. Powerheads dont even click its so fast. Runs on batteries until they are dead or power is restored. When power is restored switches automatically to AC and automatically charges your batteries correctly and safely with a 3 stage charger and keeps them charged in a way that will make the batteries last.
it is acid proof and will contain any spill or acid leak.
most good deepcycle batteries are gel cells anymore. no worry about leaks. the only way you will see the acid is if you crack or rupture one(which ive done too many times) and it doesnt make a mess. very caustic though. not too bad on your hands but still very dangerous. it will eat through clothing very quickly.
this will prevent your pet cat from piroetteing on both battery terminals at once
not much risk of any shock but your right about arcing. nasty stuff. ive literally welded jumper contacts to the battery posts from arcing.
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Well, if anyone cares this is what ive been using for a while now and have recommended before. You can buy them refurbed on ebay very cheap. No need to recharge the batters ever. Its completely plug and play. Plug what you want into the inverter, plug the inverter into the wall, wire as many batteries as you can afford. Power goes out and it instantly switches to battery backup. Powerheads dont even click its so fast. Runs on batteries until they are dead or power is restored. When power is restored switches automatically to AC and automatically charges your batteries correctly and safely with a 3 stage charger and keeps them charged in a way that will make the batteries last.
what do you consider very cheap? soup to nuts, what would something like this cost to run an entire large tank, less lighting?
There are 1250watt units on ebay right now for a little over $200 with free shipping.
Shawn if you lost power how long would your battery back up maintain your system, and how many batts do you have connected to the inverter.
i have three batteries hooked up to mine. before i took down my 75g i had all the powerheads and heaters for my 75g and 34g hooked to the inverter. 4 powerheads, 3 heaters, and a contoller. i ran all of this off the three batteries as a test for over 24 hours and it was still going strong. of course, if i lost power in the winter my heat would not run so i wouldnt expect the same results.
Well, LD, that is a more upscale inverter with built in line sensor and auto transfer. something good for high end electronics or process equipment you dont want interupted by a momentary drop in voltage. a little overkill for a reef tank but handy since it will work in auto. But the specs say it too will cut out inverting when the feed battery voltage drops to 10 VDC. so the limit is the battery discharge characteristics. and voltage drop during discharge.
I figure most reef tanks can handle 4-8 hours without power, so if it goes out after you go to work, you can manually transfer to battery/inverter backup when you get home. the battery specs tell us how many hours at various discharge loads the battery will provide voltage above the 10 VDC inverter cutoff. That group 27M deep cycle will run 5 AMPs for 20 hours before the voltage drops to 10VDC. then you recharge the battery.
So like my example showed, it can run a 300w heater a 40w 780gph return pump, and 2 20w koralia flat out and a 4 bar T5 216w light 12 hours a day for at least a 24 hour period. the battery wont be fully discharged. just enough to drop the voltage. then you recharge the battery.
A deep cycle battery can run DC pumps, motors and lights right down to full dead battery discharge or zero volts. the things just run slower as the voltage drops and then stop. but inverters can only make up so much in the voltage conversion from 12 to 120. ergo the 10VDC cutoff or burn up drawing more amps.
Ive seen people leave a 350 gph DC boat baitwell pump turned on when leaving the boat on sunday, and its still pumping, albeit very slow, like maybe 50 gph when they returned the next friday. but the battery was just about dead.
Thats the difference between inverting to AC . AC equipment needs 120v or burns out on low voltage. DC motors just vary speed with voltage. So an inverter system will cutout with a lot of amps remaining in the battery. a DC motor will run it dead.
but that’s one of the reasons we belong to these hobby communities. when i went to mexico recently, i had a couple local guys stop by and check on the tank and feed the fish.
i don’t think i’d leave longer than a short weekend without arranging something.
Lots of info in this thread now. My herps are supposed to be fed every day. If I’m out of town for three days someone will be coming over to my house to feed the herps and fish. Though, I do need to do something about getting alerts on my phone when the power drops. Now that I have a generator that is my next priority. I’m glad you reminded me of that, thank you.
For years now I have had a list of the equipment I use including the tank it’s on, wattage, hours per day, and through some formulas Ken helped me with calculated how much they cost me to run a month. Last Thursday before the first storm Steph and updated the list and added priority to them. I put a red square next to the equipment I felt I absolutely had to keep running, yellow if I felt it would benefit during a power outage, and green for items I could surely do without like skimmers or the main lights.
High and medium priority equipment (yellow and green) combined came to less than 1600W. This was assuming that the heaters would all run continuously at what they are rated to put out.(I found that 250W heaters will at times run as low as 230W, but left that out of the equation to be on the safe side.) I plan on printing the list and keeping it near the tanks. If Delmarva were to announce that the power may not come on for three days I could start to pull cords that were not high priority.
Now you have a plan! And the generator to back it up, too. so from now on you just need a person to check in once a day if you have to travel. and all should be well.
I didnt think it would take too many watts to keep your multi tanks running well. mine take about 2000 watts max with all lights, pumps and heaters on during the day. Much less at night. so they can get by on half the lights and fewer power heads if needed to fit a battery back up system. i should build one too. Soon.
(I found that 250W heaters will at times run as low as 230W, but left that out of the equation to be on the safe side.)
Jon. Be careful with this thinking. Thats why i mentioned that labels can be tricky. The watt ratings are almost always the amount of power an item produces not consumes. For example, a 250watt ballast can consume upwards of 400watts or more. I dont have a way to measure the amount of watts my heaters consumed but i know its more than their ratings because of the amount of current the draw. Nothing is 100% efficient and that is why the math will only get you so far.