Quote:
Originally Posted by untamed
We lost power here for about 24 hours yesterday.
I was prepared...or so I thought. At the 12 hour mark, I unpacked my gas generator. I had purchased this many years ago for emergency use.
The generator fired right up and I connected my circulation pumps. After about 3 minutes, all the pumps overheated and shut down. By alternating one pump, then the next, then the next for 2 mins each I was able to get circulation for about 30 mins. I decided I would repeat this every hour or two until the power returned.
When I fired up the generator an hour later...it was dead. Motor runs fine...no electricity generated. It seems that I now own a gas powered noise maker!
When power finally returned, I had lost only 1 fish...my rusty angel. 6 or so frags have also died.
Another casualty may be my aquatronica controller. After several hours of trying, I cannot get it to recognize my pH probe, so I have limited control of my Ca reactor. I also cannot reconnect my computer, so getting the controller even functional at all was a major challenge.
A tough day...
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Electrician is here!!!
I bet is was a inverter generator right? Most inverter generators make a Suedo Signwave. A square wave. Good quality ones are Pulse Width Modulated which will smoothen the signwave. But cheap ones are like cheap UPS and car inverters where they make a square wave, just alternating DC 60 times a sec. This can and will overheat motors as they are not made to run on DC even a Alternating DC. Most likely played havok with the controller too. My other hobby, RC Heli's we have troubles with these cheap generators to run our power supplies for our chargers too.
Sorry for your loss. It REALLLY sux.