Hps ballast/light running off a UPS system?

We get power loss here once every few days for an hour or so, I currently do cfl's which are ran by a ups system rigged to a large car/truck battery. They hold up for an hour or two no probs with the ups when the power is out.

What if I want to use an hps with the ups? Will it not work much like a heater won't work through the ups? Or will I just need like a 2kv ups system with a couple of large ass batteries?

Any help would be great

depends on how much wattage the HPS uses, and the ballast...the initial KICK required to start up an HPS might be too much for smaller power inverters...its like fans...they require more electricity to start it up, but not to keep it going...only real way to tell is to get a killawatt electricity monitoring tool and plug it in, fire up your lamp, and see what the maximum wattage used was:

http://www.thegreenhousebermuda.com/power/killawatt/default.aspx <-- one of these...you can find them for about $15-$20 on the internet

Thanks for the reply. That's what I am worried about is the initial spike in power to start the hps, it's just like if I try to power a fan heater it will just shut down the ups system.

It's such a nightmare, now I have to run more cables from my switchboard to bypass the ups plugs in order to keep the hps on a grid only no backup basis.

Im not able to keep my 400w hps on a UPS, it overloads it. The UPS is already the size of a shoebox, to get a larger one would require a bigger footprint which I cant afford the space

cheeze me said:

We get power loss here once every few days for an hour or so, I currently do cfl's which are ran by a ups system rigged to a large car/truck battery. They hold up for an hour or two no probs with the ups when the power is out.

What if I want to use an hps with the ups? Will it not work much like a heater won't work through the ups? Or will I just need like a 2kv ups system with a couple of large ass batteries?

Any help would be great

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The cost of getting a UPS system that could even run 2kwh's for an hour is out of the question, it won't work or will cost you a crazy amount of $$$. You'd be better off just trying to time your off cycle to fall in your power out time if its consistent or just eat the fact that your going to lose an hour of light every day (don't try compensate with more on time however). Its not that bad really.

Hell you could always go with a solar backup if you've got the scratch, should ONLY run like $15,000 or so lol.