UPS

[Chappers]

Down here what i plan for is cyclones, flood, fire and people to last me for about a week. Well the other day we had a blackout for two days (20,000 homes)... well i have two UPS charged for this type of thing and a got to say for a short term solution they worked a treat, hot meals with the frypan and hot water with the kettle what more do you want?
 
It was a good test run and i thought they did their job well, so if are only planning for short term in semi-urban area like me they might be something to think about.

Cheers

[243dave]

Well I guess I'll be the dumb one and ask.  What is a UPS?

[Couger]

me too.  UPS is synonymous with brown trucks.

[Almtnman]

Uninterrupted power source

[243dave]

I figured the PS was power source but the U had me stumped.  Now you've got to give some info as to what kind of system set up you have instead of leavin us a wonder'n.   

[Graybeard]

How large are your UPS units? My largest can't even keep up with the power needs of my big screen TV.

[okieshooter]

It is like a battery you can connect to 110 outlet and then plug into the front of it for power. I work in communications and we have them on a lot of our equipment. All I know about them is the bigger the better if you have an outage. They will not keep a cell tower up for more than a couple hours usually.

[Almtnman]

I was familiar with them as we used a lot of them at my old job in a large steel manufacturing plant. The ones we had were large and had many rows of batteries. They automatically kicked in to that power source if we had a power failure. Running an operation that could not afford to shut down as it would cause millions in damages it was necessary to rely on an alternate source of emergency power. Ours could keep all the computer operated equipment and controls running for about 10 to 12 hours which gave us time to transfer to other sources of power or get the problem solved. Of course we had our own generators that kept the place running, so the UPS units were there in case we lost our generators for a while. If we suspected a strong storm that might cause Alabama Power to lose power or major lines down, we would totally disconnect from their source and provide our own. I spent a few times in storms out in a switch yard disconnecting 44,000 volt breakers to cut lose from the power company so we wouldn't get knocked offline with our generators in case one of their 44,000 volt lines had a break due to a strong storm. It would make the hair stand up on the back of your neck doing that especially when you heard the sizzling when disconnecting a breaker. Some of the cell towers have propane operated generators to kick in if losing regular power, not all but some.

[teamnelson]

That's a good call Chappers, you can get inexpensive ones at your local electronics store that'll give you as little as 30 minutes, which if you're caught unexpectedly is enough to power down computers, and valuable electronics, and maybe charge up a phone/radio. Which model are you using if you can cook off it for a couple days? I found a crank generator for USB is cheaper for what I'd use a UPS for, namely keeping the phone and radio alive, and maybe the iPod to pass the time.

[Chappers]

I don’t know how much they cost, at the beginning of this year my work was updating their computers and chucking out the UPS i grabbed two and my mate got about 15 of them. They are a powerware 5 115 with one input and three outputs, input 240v/50Hz,2.5A,1 and output 240v/50Hz,2.1A,1. i don’t know how long would they run for, i was using it for short times (eg: boiling water in the kettle). If i got a few more form my mate could i link them up to make a battery bank?

[nessmuk101]

I do a lot of camping and burn wood for heat, so when the power goes out I cook over a fire.   Of course I live in a rural area so I can do this, i don't know what I would do if I lived in a condo in a city, but that is what MRE's are fore.

[Couger]

Down here what i plan for is cyclones, flood, fire and people to last me for about a week. Well the other day we had a blackout for two days (20,000 homes)... well i have two UPS charged for this type of thing and a got to say for a short term solution they worked a treat, hot meals with the frypan and hot water with the kettle what more do you want?
 
It was a good test run and i thought they did their job well, so if are only planning for short term in semi-urban area like me they might be something to think about. 

How does one procure these "batteries?"  And what do they cost?  I could see investing in something not too terribly expensive that would last for a "knwon" length of time between charges.

Can these UPS devices be trickle re-charged?  Like form a solar or wind-driven source?