Power outages and how to keep the lights on

I haven't been able to find a whole lot on what people do about power outages. I thought i would share what I have come up with so far for ideas.

The options seem to be either battery power or a generator.

Let's start with generators.
Pretty much any generator is big enough to handle a couple cfl's to keep your light schedule on track. You can find ones for $200-$300 at walmart, costco, wherever. If you want one to run your high power lights and fans, it can get a bit more expensive, around $500. If you want to run multiple lights you may be looking at $1000 or more. Add in some more cash if you want it to be automatic since you will need a transfer switch. Generators obviously also make noise.

Battery power.
Choices are computer uninterruptible power supplies, specialty giant ups meant to replace a generator, or build your own.
A computer UPS can run a few cfl's for a few hours. Don't bother with high power lights unless you buy a commercial unit at $1000 or more. The small units will only get you a few minutes with a 1000 watt load on it.
There are a few options on building your own. Deep cycle sealed car batteries, and float charger, and a power inverter can be used with some wiring and a relay. There are also a few charger/inverters for sale in the $200-$300 range. You attach a sealed battery to it and it will charged off AC power, then switch to running the inverter off the battery when it loses the AC power. This seems to be one of the best options as far as battery backup goes. It would run a big load for a few hours. It would run some cfl's for many hours. The formula to calculate backup time is Volts x Battery Amp Hours / Watts. You can add multiple batteries and use cfl's to keep your grow on schedule for several days of no power.

Link for a charger/inverter

Link to DIY charger/inverter

i always have a generator on hand 4000wtt'er

I had a 20,000 watt whole house generator install a few years back when power went out all over the east coast and it kicks on 30 seconds after the power goes out and runs off natural gas so I don't have to fill it up every 2-3 hrs, it will run for weeks until power is back on.

20,000 watt that's huge what the hell are you running a block
how you get that in with no people asking question
the gas means you need a plumber so you had to either hide or start your grow after they move that beast in and install it
though gas sounds like a hassle in the beginning it a good investment since no cop snoops at your gas bill and you carrying jugs of gas or propane yes look weird ya is for camping for a week end right
batteries are more expensive and last shorter natural gas gen sounds perfect also if you need more info on gens or batteries look at off the gird living which is related to this

bump
Anyone use the UPS / battery method?

I'm to the point of actually trying to set something up now, thought I would try again for some more ideas on what people use. A $3000 generator is not possible for me right now.

I just need enough to keep the light schedule on track until power restarts, or i get home and can connect a portable generator.

I got logged out and lost a huge detailed post with explanations and formulas so it breaks down to this:
An inverter and charger and battery for about $300 will run two 14watt cfls and an 18watt air pump for about 19 hours off of a 75Amp hour DC car battery. Add more batteries to add more run time. This will be enough light and air to keep my flower and veg rooms alive for a day. The small cfl bulbs wouldn't need ventilation.

Link for formulas
http://www.windturbine.ca/batteries.html

does anyone here use solar panels for their power? Is that sketchy to do?

Furthur said:

does anyone here use solar panels for their power? Is that sketchy to do?

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Solar can be used to charge a battery system as well. Depending on how much sun you get it could take quite a large panel.

I'm also trying to figure out how to use LEDs instead of the CFLs for an even longer run time.

Furthur said:

does anyone here use solar panels for their power? Is that sketchy to do?

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Alot of people do it, when they grow out doors.
The set up cost for solar would be quite a bit, and you would need battery backup in there, and you could still run into problems if its overcast for a month and your sucking your batteriers dry with 4000 watts.
It can be done, but no where near economically, for someone starting out. now if you have 40k to invest in your grow... maybe

squirrelfooker said:

bump
Anyone use the UPS / battery method?

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I live on a mountain where the power goes off frequently around midnight for periods of two minutes or so. Because of this, I have looked into UPS and it seems if you are trying to get a deal you have to look at UPSs made for computer use.

I used to work where the company required 700 computers on shelves, and there would usually be 3-4 computers hooked into each UPS device (just a little black box with 6 outlets), which would last them probably around 10-30 mins if we didnt have to immediately shut down the computers (no AC, room would overheat)

One or two UPS's probably wouldn't supply a decent sized grow room's lights for very long, but for my new grow room I will probably install an extra fluorescent bulb in each of my two rooms to be the only devices on the UPS. Due to the low power intake of fluorescents, this should last me a decent amount of time so that I can place candles or a flashlight inside my grow rooms. Hope this helped

Get a backup generator or a UPS.

Are there any small cheap auto transfer generators around? Either gas or preferably natural gas. The smallest I seem to find is 8k watt and cost around $2000.

If all you want is to keep the light sched on track, a UPS to run some CFLs.

Could add in a relay so the CFL's are off until the power goes out. (house power energizes the coil, UPS -> CFL power run through the NC contacts)

BigBudBalls said:

If all you want is to keep the light sched on track, a UPS to run some CFLs.

Could add in a relay so the CFL's are off until the power goes out. (house power energizes the coil, UPS -> CFL power run through the NC contacts)

Click to expand...

Most likely what I will end up doing.
A sealed car battery, a charger, and an inverter setup so that when power is available the battery is charged. When power goes out a relay would disconnect the charger and connect the inverter which would be connected to a small air pump (i do dwc 18 buckets that use air) and some cfl's. My normal pump is 100 watt but I have an 18 watt air pump that should be enough to keep them alive.

Also does anyone know if a normal 120v plugin timer like we all use will work on a modified sine wave inverter? I can't seem to find the answer to that.

WAY over complicated and priced. Get a standard computer UPS and go. (relay will help) You don't need a ton of light to keep the photo period going. Unless you get blackouts of hours at a clip often, you are going the hard route that way.
A car battery is a *bad* idea. You want a deep cycle battery. A car battery is designed for a short (seconds) of high current draw, not long periods of low draw.

squirrelfooker said:

Most likely what I will end up doing.
A sealed car battery, a charger, and an inverter setup so that when power is available the battery is charged. When power goes out a relay would disconnect the charger and connect the inverter which would be connected to a small air pump (i do dwc 18 buckets that use air) and some cfl's. My normal pump is 100 watt but I have an 18 watt air pump that should be enough to keep them alive.

Click to expand...

BigBudBalls said:

Unless you get blackouts of hours at a clip often, you are going the hard route that way.
A car battery is a *bad* idea. You want a deep cycle battery.

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I'm talking backup for as long as possible. I do lose power several times a year for between 1-2 days.

Also a yellowtop optima or equivalent should be fine right?

I want automatic power for pumps and small lights for as long as possible. Besides $2-$3k on a standby generator batteries is the best I can find.

Hi folks! I live in an area (country) where we get frequent (3 times per week) power blackouts at random times of the day, so scheduling for the periods of darkness to coincide with the blackouts is not an option. The power goes out for 3-hour periods.
I've thought of UPSs, but they seem to be insufficient to keep my MH and HPS lamps running for that long, and a generator would stand out like a lighthouse in the dark.
Has anybody tried using HID car headlights (they're damn bright!!) with a 12V battery and a domestic plug-in charger? Wouldn't that work? Please enlighten me (and my plants) as I'll appreciate your valued opinion.

Where I'm at a 4500k generator costs between $400 and 600$. I ran a 4500k generator last year for 3 weeks due to weather related power outages. I did not run a grow but I could run 8 lights, deep freezer, refrigerator, t.v., cable box, ps3, three space heaters, and ofcourse the computer. So I think this size generator would be sufficient to power most grows, and fuel consumptiom is 5 gallons every 9-11 hrs. depending on the load.