Anyone Have Battery Backup?

[De_Wildfire]

Anyone out here have cluster of car batteries and a charger to charge them all. Have pics? I am thinking getting four for emergency and tying them all together. How do you have yours set up?

['Doc]

Can't say I do. Too lazy mainly. Found a portable generator that's lighter, and doesn't require near the maintenance.
- 'Doc

[De_Wildfire]

Maybe I need to look for a small portable generator. That sounds easier and plus I can run more power over the air if I need it for emergencies. I'm part of the emergency communication services, so that is why I need emergency power. Too many take their land line and cell phone for granted these days.

[Foxhunter]

I was at a guys house last summer and bought from him a big power supply, a Uniden Madison, a real DaveMade 5-pill and a D104. Anyway we got to talking about "DC power" and he went around the side of the house and showed me his electric meter. It wasn't spinning. So I asked him (like he wanted me to) how is it he had power in the house?

So he brought me downstairs into the basement and there he had an entire bank of 24 truck batteries all jumpered together to power everything in his entire place. I wondered why he had dim lighting like 25W lightbulbs etc but I then could see why. He had the entire house running on DC through various means. I didn't stay real long and the house was kind of dirty in there but that was the first time I'd seen something like that. He had small solar panels set up and in a shed beside the house was a riding mower up on a stand that had car alternators all hooked together under the mower deck instead of cutting blades. If he got low on battery reserves he'd fire up the gasoline riding mower to give the battery bank a real boost!

Tripped me out. Maybe you could do something like that. I'd worry about outgassing and explosions though

['Doc]

If you do decide on a portable generator let me make a couple of suggestions.

Shop for it in the 'off season' when there are less chances of having a power failure. Otherwise, you will pay for it through your... nose.

I don't care how large of a generator you think you need, double it's size. Tripling it's size will only hurt your wallet and maybe your back when moving it. It's still going to be barely adequate.

Never leave a generator sit for more than a very short period with fuel in it. Which basically means run it dry before storing it. Doesn't matter what 'additives' you put in that fuel, it get's really nasty for your generator. In the same category, service it! As in regular maintenance with plugs, oil, filters, etc, etc. Most manufacturers give you a period in run-hours for that sort of thing, just wish they included an hour meter too!

A -very- heavy, weather proof extension cord that will reach from where ever you think you'll set that generator to a central point in your house is just barely the minimum to have on hand. You'd be surprised at how fast extension cords disappear from store shelves when you really need one.

Wheels! If the thing doesn't have wheels on it put them on, you'll be glad you did.

Starting/running instructions are a very nice thing to keep with a generator, weather proofed! I don't care how simple it seems to start with, you'll forget something. Well, I do anyway.

Just like other power supplies, generators have an ICS rating and a CCS rating. The number painted on the thing is usually a 'generous' ICS rating at best. Don't care what it says it'll do, when you plug in a coffee maker, the lights will dim.

And lastly, one of the things that really bugged the $#^+ out of me was they all need a bigger muffler!

There are a bunch of other things that would certainly be nice to know about using generators. I just haven't made those mistakes yet, so I don't know of them... good luck.
- 'Doc

[sparky17]

If you want just battery backup, I think you should be able to just charge the batteries, and then float them off your power supply. I've been able to reverse current some power supplies, and the power supply lights up when it's unplugged from AC when the battery is plugged in, not sure if it's terrible for this to happen or not, but it is of concern.

If you want the self sustaining mode, you should be able to operate indefinitely off of one of those 45 watt solar panel kits ($2-300 dollars for ~9 square feet of panel). Bare minimum of 15 watts of panel to be able to run on 'receive' mode indefinitely.

I'm using a 14aH battery (Actually I'm using 70 AA nimh rechargables) wired into a 5 watt panel. Gets me 50 hours of continuous receive mode without the panel, and the panel will recharge enough for about 5 hours of receive each day.

You can get small 7aH sealed lead acid batteres for about $30 that they have at the hobby shop and also at radioshack. For bigger stuff, I think the golf cart batteries (at Walmart I think) were a good deal, but they're 6v, so you need to pair them up.

[721HACKSAW]

My best bud just got a used electric golf cart, it's an Ezgo with 6 6v deep cycle batteries. He added a small inverter to be able to run different AC appliances while camping, I was amazed at the reserve capacity these batteries have, they could easily power a sump pump or lighting if needed.

[De_Wildfire]

Thanks for all this valuable information. Well, I guess I'll probably need a 10K generator to power a station, computer, fridge and some small bulbs. Now if I go with batteries, I'll have to run the radios under 10 watts and use a laptop computer instead of the big one and try to make it stretch until the commercial power comes back on. I think I may be leaning towards a generator.