UPS questions ..

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patch53

New Member
Dec 10, 2009
217
UP of Michigan
Hello gents. I want to run a UPS next year for backup incase of a power outage. Mainly I need it to just run my primary circulator pump to keep water moving off the boiler. Do you simply run the circulator plug into the UPS and when the power goes out it switches over and runs the circulator? Also, any idea how long the UPS would run on a 12V deep cycle battery if you were only drawing about 1.5 amps?

thx, Pat
 
how long the UPS would run on a 12V deep cycle battery if you were only drawing about 1.5 amps

12V x 1.5A = 18W - is that all your circ draws? or is the 1.5A the draw at 120 volts = 180 watts? If 180 watts, then 15 amp draw on the battery in a perfect world, but not perfect, so assume with pf and inefficiency in the UPS, 75% efficiency, now = about 20 amp effective draw. If 100AH battery, 5 hours of operation; but assume 50% draw down, and you end up with about 2.5 hours of operation on a conservative basis, likely more.
 
Hi Jim, yeah the 1.5 amps is on 110 volt.

When I get my new system running next year I will be running a Grundfos Alpha inside for the house zones and probably a Taco 0012 delta T on the primary loop. All I need is enough power to run those 2 circulators, which would be in the range of 1.5 amps, and perhaps even less than that. I would be using a new deep cycle battery for power.

thx, Pat
 
Are you considering buying a complete UPS like and APC used for computer back-up, or building your own setup with a battery charger, battery and inverter? the latter is probably cheaper for long hold-up times.

One thing to keep in mind is that most UPS and inverters do not have a sine wave output. The cheap ones create what they generously call a modified sine wave. This power signal has 3 states, a positive voltage, 0 volts and a negative voltage. It has enormous harmonic content that does not exist in normal power line waveforms. Some electronics circuits can be affected by this. If you were using standard pumps, I am sure the motors would not care. Since you are considering smart pumps, you need to either determine if the electronics can run from an inverter power source, or get a true sine wave inverter. These used to be very expensive, but the PV solar industry has low cost "micro-inverters" which are almost what you would want, but not quite...
 
Thanks Scott,

Good questions. I definitely don't want something that will fry my electronics on the pumps. I should probably contact Grundfos or Taco to see what they reccommend. And I thought this was going to be simple !? LOL
 
patch53 said:
Hello gents. I want to run a UPS next year for backup incase of a power outage. Mainly I need it to just run my primary circulator pump to keep water moving off the boiler. Do you simply run the circulator plug into the UPS and when the power goes out it switches over and runs the circulator? Also, any idea how long the UPS would run on a 12V deep cycle battery if you were only drawing about 1.5 amps?

thx, Pat

That's how it works, I have a small ups wired to a truck battery........my pump draws 50 watts, so I tested it with a 60 watt light bulb..............stayed on for 2 hours. Most power outages here only last maximum 30 min.
 
Thanks Jesse, thats what I thought too. I was looking at a few on E-bay today. Looks like I could get a used UPS in the 1000-1200 range for under $100. I just need to be sure that its a true sinewave unit I guess.

Pat
 
Another item to consider the package ups systems that include a battery have a charger inverter circuit sized to keep that sized battery charged and recharge it when it gets depleted . When you take a "truck" battery and use it instead of the original the ups can no longer handle the larger size . This may result in the battery being useless when you need it.
Keep in mind the ups type batteries are gel cell and do not out gas when being charged so they do not require venting , many other batteries do need venting and the gas given off is both explosive and corrosive so beware.
Depending on the boiler you are using you might need to power the controller also for example the EKO has a pump connection on the controller that supplies power depending on the temp of the boiler so you would need the controller to stay alive in a power outage to run the pump.
wave forms- pump motors are unaffected by wave form and so you can use any type of output.
 
If you've got the money, one of the systems that people use on boats is probably the most robust. They have automatic sensors so it passes shore current when they have power, automatically switches to battery when unplugged (power failure) switches back again when power is restored and have a 3 stage charger to recharge the batteries, usually 50 amps or better.
Xantrex makes some but they're not cheap. I've been watching ebay and they show up every now and then. Check the papers in areas where people have lots of boats. Sometimes you can find someone who’s upgrading because he can't run his microwave and 53" flat screen at the same time.
I use the manual method, a 1000 watt inverter and a couple of deep discharge batteries in parallel that I use for camping in the summer. I've got a plug in the line going to the boiler and pumps.
I have it mainly to keep things going between times that I would run the generator. Problem is I only have a 6 amp charger so I probably couldn't put back what I take out. That’s why you have a 130 amp alternator on your car, so you can recharge quickly.

That said I haven't lost power for more than 20 minutes in the 6 years since I bought my generator.
 
Pretty much the same for me. Use a 400 watt inverter and 2 - 100ah gel cell 12v batteries in parallel. My system takes about 200 watts, so I have at least 8 hours of operation at a 50% draw down on the batteries. I use a 25ah charger to top off the batteries every month or so. Got everything off of ebay. Bought 5 of the batteries, sold 3 and kept 2, and the profit on the sale of the 3 paid for the 2 I kept. Total cost, inverter, batteries and charger, was less than $100.
 
Jesse said:
patch53...........check this out..........bukus

This is the link I followed when I built mine....I've tested it and it seems to work well.
 
Reviving this old post...

Id like to backup my system was about to buy a UPS 350 watt at Sams club.

Heres the deal, I have an RV, it sits all winter and is located 40' from my boiler. It has a solar panel, 3000 watt inverter and 2 deep cycle batteries.

Any way I can use this normally dormant and available system to backup my boiler- I think it would run my system for days during a power outage, and longer if there is much sun.
 
Talk to the people that built your pump motor & ask if it has inverter duty insulation on the windings. If not its a gamble, might be ok, might not. As one member mentioned the wave form is not the same. I believe most if not all the inverters are pulse width modulated PWM & they "hit" the windings an incredible amount of times per second. Good luck, Randy
 
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