Anyone seeking electronics help?

I just realized something.. alot of the DIY kits out there consist of relays and a few simple devices like that.

I have been doing component level electronics type work for around 12 years now, if anyone ever needs help with schematics or setting up electronic control (an automatic kill switch for AC power for instance) Feel free to let me know. I cant always answer immediately but I will get to ya and might even provide you with a CAD drawing of what you are trying to do.

Mods please move this if its in the wrong spot

 

Moved to General Forum.

 

Fine be that way!

;D Totally jokin ;D

 

Hey man that's great that you're offering help like this!

I would love to be able to make my own DIY UPS for my reef using one or perhaps several "car" type batteries to backup an APEX controller.

I do not have the controller yet but when I do I will have exact wattages but more or less I am looking at:

2 - 135 Watt LED Fixtures
1 - 115 or so watt return pump
1 - 75 or so watt protein skimmer pump
1 - 15 watt or so fuge light
3 - 13 watt powerheads
1 - 300 watt heater
2 - 250 watt heaters
1 - ATO system with eheim pump (about 40 watts) and ATO Control module (no idea - but probably only a few watts.

So something around 1.5 kW maximum draw.

I would love to be able to see what run times I would see with say two or three powerful large "car" type batteries.

I wonder if that will only give me an hour or two? Or am I looking at a day or two?

I know that cutting the draw down greatly will give a proportionately better battery life - but I would love to see some numbers from someone "in the know".

TIA!

 

Making something like this is a little tricky. It would almost be a better idea to NOT build something like this and go with a product from APC American Power Conversion These are the same backup systems I use for my servers.

Here is the problem, when you start "messing" with converting DC to AC you have to have a charging circuit on AC power and a failover circuit to kill the charging circuit and pass through the converted power..
Also, 3 car batteries would carry an amp load of roughly 500 amps each. You wouldnt need that much to backup a system at 1KW even for an hour (scientific guess based on systems I have installed)

One could pull this off with 2 24amp hour batteries which together would be around half the size of a standard car battery.

If you are absolutely positive you want the DIY route on this one I will gladly help you out, I really have to insist you atleast look at some of the Commercial grade UPS sytems on the market.

A system like this can be extremely dangerous if not built properly. (dont ask how I know ;D )

Let me know what you decide, if you like I can help you pick out a prebuilt.


Edit- 3 car batteries would probably give you a minimum 12 hours. Dont hold me to this, but I believe you would only need 2 of them or 4. Ill have to look at some charging circuits to verify that. Once again let me know what you decide to do. It may come down to, I will build it for you, and ship it.. as if you are not super sure of what you're doing you could get hurt and I would certainly not want that.

Edit AGAIN : Guess I forgot when I was ordering things from APC, I really didnt care about the cost heh heh... let me look up a few things. I might even have some scrap ones in my stuff at my office that I can modify for your needs. Essentially its all about the size of the batteries and whether the device can charge them and keep them charged, another thing I have experienced with battery backups is that once you unload that battery, its time for a new one. By the way if I dont get back to you in a few days remind me by PM, I go out of town alot and tend to forget

 

How would I begine to run all of my electronics to include the lights on my tank off of solar panels?

wpuld led lights.

 

Wow you guys are kicking my ass

I dont know much about solar power, Do you already have a solar system in place? If so what are the specs, is it setup to charge a system of batteries for failover ( so you have power at night, cloudy days, so on...) What is the max amp load you can place on the panel circuit?

Is this a system you intend to install specifically for your fish tanks?

 

LOL no I dont have it in place or even what kit I night get just thought if I was doing leds I would try and go green and wanted to some help, and since you offered ;D

My thought would be that they would run to a charger then charge the battries then run the socket, or somthing like that.

 

hmmm . . . . well anything available from APC seems like it would be a few grand to have a systemwide backup for more than a few hours.

I wonder if a system designed and built by yourself would be dramatically cheaper?

 

mt thought is to run the major componets such as the lights and skimmer off the solar panles then everything else off the main power. but if I can get away with another type of power such as wind or somthing of that nature I would.

there has to be someone else who tried this at one time?