Power backup for power cuts?

[Pit Pony]

https://kruegerassociatesllc.com/products/alcad-si...

In 1986, I did my industrial placement on my degree with Marathon Alcad, who were bought out by their French competitor Saft, and renamed Alcad. I think they were once Chloride Alcad. The site is now a B and Q. In Redditch. Probably on contaminated land due to the cadmium. Anyway they seem to be still in business. If you want proper standby power they are the people to give you it. At a price.

[S6PNJ]

OldGermanHeaps said:

Unprotected bare 18650s on a no name chinese pcb?
How is your fire insurance?

Up to date, but yes, I take your concern!

Pit Pony said:

https://kruegerassociatesllc.com/products/alcad-si...

In 1986, I did my industrial placement on my degree with Marathon Alcad, who were bought out by their French competitor Saft, and renamed Alcad. I think they were once Chloride Alcad. The site is now a B and Q. In Redditch. Probably on contaminated land due to the cadmium. Anyway they seem to be still in business. If you want proper standby power they are the people to give you it. At a price.

Thanks, but I'll stick with the 4 various APC branded UPS devices I have (3 with IEC outputs and 1 with UK socket outlets).

[OutInTheShed]

The Three D Mucketeer said:

Anyone got any update on UPS kit for small comms devices for Digital phone on FTTPI ....so for ONT and SMARTHUB

I looked at BT/EEs offering CYBERPOWER , but out of stock and you need two units (one for the ONT and one for the Hub). I have other hubs in my "comms room" which would benefit for UPS/SURGE .... SMARTTHINGS/HIVE/CONNEXION/FIREANGEL/EERO so I'm thinking of somethings with 8 sockets... all only a few amps.

Choice seems to be CYBERPOWER or APC
This looks favourite at the moment

APC by Schneider Electric BACK-UPS ES - BE850G2-UK - Uninterruptible Power Supply 850VA (8 Outlets, Surge Protected, 2 USB Charging Ports), Black, Pack of 1

Edited by The Three D Mucketeer on Monday 8th April 23:22

What do you really need?

If I really cared about keeping my home phone and router afloat, the router is 12V, I could power it from an old car battery which is kept float charged.

Personally if the mains goes off, I can make coffe on the gas hob and use my mobile to get online.

The key thing to understand about a lot of 'UPS' boxes is that they are only good for a limited time. They are trying to give you an orderly shutdown or handover to a diesel generator, they are not in the business of running anything for hours. This was more the case years ago when I cared about this problem, the UPS would overheat if you tried to run stuff from it for tens of minutes.

[Timothy Bucktu]

OldGermanHeaps said:

Unprotected bare 18650s on a no name chinese pcb?
How is your fire insurance?

These UPS modules use an industry standard TP4056 charge control chip with MOSFET over/under voltage protection. That said, they don't have a temperature sensor on the battery. My advice to anyone playing with these boards is to fit a thermal fuse up against the battery just for piece of mind. I fit the lowest rated ones available which are 73 degrees C.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/173835949437?mkcid=16&a...

[OldGermanHeaps]

Timothy Bucktu said:

These UPS modules use an industry standard TP4056 charge control chip with MOSFET over/under voltage protection. That said, they don't have a temperature sensor on the battery. My advice to anyone playing with these boards is to fit a thermal fuse up against the battery just for piece of mind. I fit the lowest rated ones available which are 73 degrees C.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/173835949437?mkcid=16&a...

https://secondlifestorage.com/index.php?threads/word-of-warning-about-tp4056.12537/
Also, is there any balancing circuitry? And what kind of guarantee of getting legit quality 18650 cells can you get just now? Its a minefield and not worth burning your house down over.

Edited by OldGermanHeaps on Tuesday 16th April 00:21

[S6PNJ]

OldGermanHeaps said:

And what kind of guarantee of getting legit quality 18650 cells can you get just now?

I can't speak for anyone else, but the 18650s I've got have come from old Dell laptop battery packs and are Panasonic branded in the majority. Yes I know they won't be full capacity and won't be balanced pairs, but I accept those limitations.

Seems I also have some Sony ones as well. https://secondlifestorage.com/index.php?threads/so...

Edited by S6PNJ on Tuesday 16th April 08:52

[S6PNJ]

Oh and damn you OGH! Yet another discussion forum for me to lose hours of time in.

OldGermanHeaps said:

https://secondlifestorage.com/index.php?

[OldGermanHeaps]

S6PNJ said:

I can't speak for anyone else, but the 18650s I've got have come from old Dell laptop battery packs and are Panasonic branded in the majority. Yes I know they won't be full capacity and won't be balanced pairs, but I accept those limitations.

Seems I also have some Sony ones as well. https://secondlifestorage.com/index.php?threads/so...

Edited by S6PNJ on Tuesday 16th April 08:52

The risk in that is those are completely unprotected cells. The dell pack has a UL and TUV certified protection and balancing pcb with all kinds of design review and supply chain protection to ensure you get what you think you are getting. When you trust an aliexpress or ebay vendor you are pretty much guaranteed to be getting whatever fake or qc fail parts the vendor could source for as little as possible.

[MXRod]

A UPS is ok in the short term , but for extended power cuts a petrol generator is the way to go .
We have a small UPS keeping home security going , but the main backup is one of four petrol generators , 3 acquired as non runners and bought back to life ( see generator restoration thread ) , three will support the whole house one at 3kva and two at 5.5kva and a Honda EM650 which I used to have for work, all can be fed into house via a changeover switch.
The larger ones are inverter type giving out pure sinewave power , the Honda has a more raw output , not ideal for etectronics

[Timothy Bucktu]

OldGermanHeaps said:

Timothy Bucktu said:

These UPS modules use an industry standard TP4056 charge control chip with MOSFET over/under voltage protection. That said, they don't have a temperature sensor on the battery. My advice to anyone playing with these boards is to fit a thermal fuse up against the battery just for piece of mind. I fit the lowest rated ones available which are 73 degrees C.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/173835949437?mkcid=16&a...

https://secondlifestorage.com/index.php?threads/word-of-warning-about-tp4056.12537/
Also, is there any balancing circuitry? And what kind of guarantee of getting legit quality 18650 cells can you get just now? Its a minefield and not worth burning your house down over.

Edited by OldGermanHeaps on Tuesday 16th April 00:21

They run off a single LiPo...so no balancing required. If you run more cells in parallel to increase capacity, then ensure they are matched cells. Common sense?

Hyperbole is starting to emerge, so I'll bow out saying don't use these boards if you don't understand what you're doing.

[Derek Smith]

As an aside, I was in charge of an area control room in my force area, and we had a UPS. It was, in the main, nothing more than a way to flatten any spike.

After around 12 years or so, the control room went from 9 VDUs and computers, with a guaranteed 2-minutes, enough to cope with the generator coming on line, to 26 VDUs, plus the telephone system display consoles. Oh, and the two dozen or more VDUs, plus computers and telephone displays in the CCTV room. There was an unexplained lead off the feed-out which I never managed to fathom.

I was told they were going to shut down the power supply for a major upgrade, but the UPS would cope. I told my bosses it would not. They pulled out the 'agreement', little more than a 12-year-old advert, for the UPS showing 2 minutes minimum. The problem was they hadn't told me until two days before the shutdown, so they had no plans for losing 1/4 of radio control of the force area, and the busiest area by a factor of over 2. Nothing I could say. No argument, no facts, no sulks could get them to even look at my report.

First thing, I sent four of my staff to a remote control room, used in emergencies, without telling the bosses. I'd worked out the UPS would last less than 20secs. I was out by 17secs. I went to see my bosses the next day and they refused to see me. Next time my chief inspector asked me to meet with him, I refused to go.