Quote:
Originally Posted by Myka
Is this what you mean Mike? Is it big enough? 1000W Pure Sine Inverter $300
Personally, I just have a couple battery operated air pumps. I would be hooped for a long outage. I would like to look at options too, thanks for bringing this up Raf. I have the option for a generator, so I think that is the best route if the option exists.
I imagine this Noma 1800W Backup Power $500 would work for quite some time...? |
Yes, this is what I was referring to with pure sine wave inverters. Your AC voltage pumps will love it. As to whether it's big enough that depends on the total wattage of equipment you wish to run on it. Although you could hook it up to some beefy deep cycle batteries and get a very long run time, 1000 watts isn't all that much. I do see that it's rated for 1000 watts continous and 2000 watts peak. Some of the inverters I've seen offered are sold as 1000 watts but when you look at the specs closely, you quickly find out that is the peak and the continuous rating is somewhat lower. In any case, it's always good to build an 80% buffer into the rating so you're not running at peak power for any length of time. That goes for your average 15 amp household circuit as well.
As you can see, for the price of the pure sine wave 1000 watt inverter you can easily get a modified sine wave inverter almost 3 times that capacity to run more equipment. But as mentioned, better not to run any AC voltage pumps on one of those. So I guess one option would be to use the 1000 watt pure sine wave inverter to run your sump pump and maybe a small power head or two and get another, cheaper modified sine wave inverter to run things like heaters, lights, etc. No reason you couldn't hook both inverters to the same bank of batteries, but be mindful of the run time with too much gear hooked up. You really need to do the homework to figure out how long you can run how much and differentiate between what's critical to keep you system alive during a lengthy power outage. So by the time you add up the cost for inverters, batteries etc, if you expect a long power outage a generator is probably still the best option if you can swing it. With a generator you can go big at a more reasonable cost and run plenty of other stuff around the house.
With respect to the Noma unit, again, not sure how long it will last and I couldn't tell from the specs whether it provides pure or modified sine wave. It also doesn't mention any kind of run time on the web page, you'd want to have a look at more of the specs before using this as an option. All this is, is a self contained inverter/battery/charger unit, most likely with a gel cel battery inside that will be costly to replace once it's worn out. The advantage of this unit is it has the built in transfer relay so you don't need to be present when the power goes out. It switches on automatically in the same manner as computer UPS. With the diy inverter/battery set up you'll need to switch things over manually during an outage unless your handy with electrical stuff and wire up your own relay. Generator is the same idea, you need to be there to fire it up and monitor it. There are generators available for your house that include automatic transfer option too, but you don't want to know the price.
JMes, that Duracell 1800 unit is identical to the Noma 1800 that Mindy linked to, just rebranded with a different company logo, like so many of our home appliances.
What do I have as a back up you may ask??? Like Mindy, I have a couple of PennPlax battery powered air pumps that have a sensing relay and will kick in when power goes out. I have two VorTechs but no battery backup for them. Been meaning to get on that, I've got the electrical background to easily rig that, but pretty spoiled here in Vernon with regard to power outages, there's only been one for more than an hour since I moved here in 2004. During the one extended (4 hours I think) outage, I pulled one of the batteries out of my Toyota Hilux, wired a small inverter to it and ran the essential gear off that. Worked fine, I was even able to keep my skimmer going since it's old school wooden air diffuser driven. Air pump and powerhead only use 16 watts combined so not much power required to keep that going.