Whitfield Quest and backup power supply

[Ricks]

I have an older Whitfield Quest that still runs great. I would like to add a battery power supply to the unit to help when I lose power. I don't really need a power supply to power the stove for hours, but at least long enough to either get the generator running or to power the stove down.

When I lose power I get some smoke in the house, so I am thinking a backup power supply will help.

That said I have done several searches and found lots of information, but I am confused. Do I need a pure sine wave or not? Can I run the backup up power supply off my generator to clean the power up so I have heat? And what power supply would you recommend?

I would like to state I have gotten great help over the years keeping my stove running. The website has solved problems the factory could not.

thanks

Rick........

 

[Bioburner]

I got a Quest last spring and used it camping and it seemed to run fine on a cheap generator.

 

[whit]

Running the backup power supply off your generator doesn't necessarily clean up the power. Most battery backup units pass the power through essentially unconditioned, aside from spike protection. Those that do full conditioning even on line power are spendy.

For shutdown without getting smoke in the house on power failure with my Santa Fe I've got a cheapish Cyberpower battery backup, along with a relay that shuts the thermostat off when the power's failed. The Cyberpower's not true sign wave. Not sure how crude the approximation is. Works fine as far as I can tell. Could be aging the stove's electronics with dirty power. But how do you know unless they fail? Or even if they do? The Cyberpower doesn't do power conditioning though. This setup does keep smoke out of the house.

For a generator I've got a portable Yahama with true sign wave output. Not cheap. I've also added a transfer switch to the electrical panel, so that a few circuits, including the pellet stove, can be cut over to it. Haven't had the need to run it that way for more than an hour though.

 

[Wilbur Feral]

I have a Quest (1994 model!) insert that I bought used for the basement office, and it runs fine on the power from our Generac 8Kw generator (midsize portable that feeds into the manual transfer switch to power most of the house). It's not horribly dirty power, but is far from sine wave. In fact, some small Cyberpower backup (UPS) units wouldn't even run on it and had to be taken out of service because of that, so the Quest is pretty durable.. We have 1-2 outages of 3-5 days per year, and granted it has only seen 1 year of that, but I think last year we were on gen power for about 8 days total (beast of a year) with the Quest running the whole time. For getting through an outage, I think most reasonable quality generators would be fine as long as you don't buy the absolute cheapest things available. As with us, you may have more problems from recharging the UPS battery than from the Quest. And finally, keep in mind that even when an appliance will run on gen piwer, there can be some potential longer term damage to electronics due to heat buildup, etc. (And that is very hard to determine).

One effective strategy might be to look for a UPS that also cleans up your power, giving you the best of both worlds.

 

[Ricks]

HI,

I have a generator that seems to run the Quest just fine. What I am looking for is a UPS recommendation that will run the Quest for 10 minutes or so to give me time to either shut the stove down or get the generator started.

thanks

Rick.............

 

[Wilbur Feral]

So, from memory the Quest consumes about 120 watts (but I haven't checked since last year, and it's late, so put a KillaWatt on it, or someone that knows chime in). If we assume a power factor of .8, that means you're consuming about 150 Volt Amps (Volt Amps). But you generally want to use no more than 50% of a UPS' capacity, so my estimate is a 300 VA unit at minimum.

You can also check the UPS sizing calculator that APC provides, available here: http://www.apc.com/tools/ups_selector/

That shows that a 550 VA unit would power the Quest for just over 30 minutes. If it were me, I would consider something a bit bigger at 750 or more VA, to avoid running too low too often on the battery, and to provide a few extra minutes to get the gen going.

Now, here is the final, VERY crucial thing; Make sure you can return the UPS within a week or so from wherever you buy it, and once purchased charge it up, plug the Quest in, and fire it up. Then cut AC power to the UPS and make sure it will run for at least 5-10 minutes longer than desired. Finally, cut your AC power and fire up the gen. See if you can recharge the UPS on gen power, AND that the UPS will run on the gen (i.e., pass power through without having problems). This is what causes problems for many smaller UPS on generator power, so is a critical thing to know. Hope that helps...