Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)

[soandso]

Hey there, I'm a RDWC person and longtime lurker. For my last grow I installed a heavy duty battery backup unit or UPS. If you're not familiar with them, they're basically heavy surge protectors that keep power running to whatever you have plugged into them when the power goes out. Mine's about $200, nothing like a generator, but enough to run four 4 watt air pumps for a couple of hours. I initially did this to prevent my roots from drowning because of previous 3+ hour power outages. For this upcoming grow I'm thinking of adding a 1 watt LED bulb to the room, set to kick in during the chance of a power outage as well.

The reason for all of this is to minimize stress/chance of hermies/zombie plants.

Power goes out, air keeps pumping to the roots. Power goes out, light keeps hitting the plants. But I'm concerned that a 1w LED won't make a damn difference. What about 2? The more watts, the less time for power. The idea is that in the event there's a power outage the plants will remain in daytime mode like nothing happened and not shut down for the "night," which only causes stress when the main 600w HPS inevitably kicks back on. Power outages are rare and only temporary, and hopefully never more than an hour.

Will plants recognize a 1w LED and stay "awake", or will it stress them all the same?

I'm just looking for some feedback if anyone's got any. Thanks!

 

[rives]

Unless your UPS is quite small, you probably have more capacity than you think. The UPS on my computer is an APC Back-UPS RS 1200 (1200va), which sell for $150-200. According to the monitoring software, my machine is pulling 109 watts and the UPS should support it for 58 minutes when the power goes out. Our power goes out so frequently that I have the UPS, a diesel generator, and a circuit in my house that toggles over to an inverter powered by 4 golf cart batteries and an automatic charging circuit. It drives a sprinkling of lights throughout the house, the ignition circuit on my on-demand water heater, etc. I think that you would be better off with a low-wattage cfl (or two) than the led's. I am not opposed to led's at all, I use a Lumigrow ES330, but I think that in order to get enough light to do any good, you are going to need a number of them. Trying to find a commercially available product to suit could be difficult, and led lamps are still quite expensive.

 

[Maj.Cottonmouth]

What if power goes out during lights off? How would you keep it from coming on during a dark cycle?

 

[trichrider]

imo a longer dark period will not stress your girls, girls love to sleep late...as long as they get their 12 hours.

 

[rives]

What if power goes out during lights off? How would you keep it from coming on during a dark cycle?

Run your control circuitry on the UPS.

 

[Tuhder]

I run two APC 1500. One on veg res pump and one on flower res pump. They hold up quite well, My only qual with them is the damn beeping that goes on forever when the inverter flips to battery. Its a nice tool also for monitoring voltage.

 

[Weezard]

Hello soandso, howzit,bro?

Hello soandso, howzit,bro?

I run two APC 1500. One on veg res pump and one on flower res pump. They hold up quite well, My only qual with them is the damn beeping that goes on forever when the inverter flips to battery. Its a nice tool also for monitoring voltage.

You can cancel the beeping on the APC line UPS with the push of a button.
Same with the Tripplite.
I have a small one for my air pumps and a big one for the DVR and cameras, another big one for 2. 50 W. Led arrays.
When the power fails, (alla time), I run around muting the beeps from 4 UPS units.

A big UPS and a 90 W. UFO would do the trick for the O. P., yah?

Aloha
Weezard

 

[Tuhder]

Hahaha. Thats funny. I didnt know I could mute them. Now the beep serves a purpose other than to annoy me

 

[soandso]

Thanks for the feedback. I especially like how prepared rives is for power outages. The reason I bought such a small led (1w) in the first place is because I'm worried about those longer 1,2,3 + hour power outages and I want my air pumps and at least some recognizable light to keep my plants/setup going as long as possible.

This one 1w led bulb I have is rated at 70 lumens. If 70 lumens isn't enough to keep 4 plants "awake" for a relatively short amount of time, would one 23w CFL (1600 lumens) or one 42w CFL (about 2800 lumens) be enough?

Is an immediate drop from 90,000 lumens to 2800 or 70 just as stressful for a plant as going from 90,000 lumens to 0, no light? If so, there's no point in bothering with this. I'll just keep air going to the roots and hope none of my plants zombie out from a broken light schedule.

The CFLs would use a lot more electricity and significantly lower my run time, but if that's what it takes, and it will reduce stress on my plants, I'll do it for sure. Maybe I'll get another UPS like I probably should. At the moment, I'm trying to avoid that.

@Tuhder I never knew you could turn the beeping off either They are definitely not on the quiet side.

@Maj.Cottonmouth I just plan on keeping my main light and an auxiliary light on two separate timers set to the same schedule. The auxiliary bulb will be plugged into the UPS and fire on during a power outage only if the timer says so.

 

[Weezard]

Backup yer backup.

Backup yer backup.

"Is an immediate drop from 90,000 lumens to 2800 or 70 just as stressful for a plant as going from 90,000 lumens to 0, no light?"

As long as you have enough blue it should be jus' fine.

Plants are equipped to tolerate very cloudy days.
15 - 30W. of blue leds would be plenty, as would a 23W. CFL
A darker time during the day is not the same thing as too much light at night.

But yes, another UPS would be a good investment.

Costco had high capacity units that I can run a large TV on for hours.
It has saved my girls several times.

Aloha,
Weezard

 

[soandso]

"Is an immediate drop from 90,000 lumens to 2800 or 70 just as stressful for a plant as going from 90,000 lumens to 0, no light?"

As long as you have enough blue it should be jus' fine.

Plants are equipped to tolerate very cloudy days.
15 - 30W. of blue leds would be plenty, as would a 23W. CFL
A darker time during the day is not the same thing as too much light at night.

But yes, another UPS would be a good investment.

Costco had high capacity units that I can run a large TV on for hours.
It has saved my girls several times.

Aloha,
Weezard

You think by now it would be engraved into my skull that I'm only trying to replicate nature, and you're absolutely right, some days in nature are completely rainy/overcast/cloudy.

I'm going to pick up a blue spectrum 23w CFL and stop worrying about it now I'll put this 1w LED somewhere in the living room to show guests an example of the future of lighting heh

I own two 1500VA/900W UPS's and never even thought to check Costco If you don't mind Weezard, what are the specs/brand/price on that one that runs a large tv for hours?

 

[Weezard]

No get too excited!

No get too excited!

You think by now it would be engraved into my skull that I'm only trying to replicate nature, and you're absolutely right, some days in nature are completely rainy/overcast/cloudy.

I'm going to pick up a blue spectrum 23w CFL and stop worrying about it now I'll put this 1w LED somewhere in the living room to show guests an example of the future of lighting heh

I own two 1500VA/900W UPS's and never even thought to check Costco If you don't mind Weezard, what are the specs/brand/price on that one that runs a large tv for hours?

Prolly should have defined "large TV"
I have a 55" screen, but it's rear projection.
Eats about 100 Watts.

(Plasma screens run north of 600W.!.
So I can't afoord to feed one.)

Got an ol' Tripplite 1050 on my green machine and da cable box.
'Bout 120W. load.

Lost power one evening and didn't know it 'til da beeps started.
Ran around muting them checked my e-mail and forgot da TV was on.
(Side effects).

Was over an hour later when I "heard voices" inna living room.
TV was still crankin' it out.

I think I got it on-sale for about $200 at Costco >5years ago.
So I bought 2.
They're still runnin' fine.

My APC UPS for da 'pooters has been replaced twice now.

I'm a Tripplite fan.
Aloha,
Weezard

 

[foaf]

also, a cheap way to make a UPS that lasts a long time is to get a UPS that fits your wattage requirements, usually a pretty small one will run a couple of air and fountain pumps. It has to be one that has a replaceable 12v lead acid battery, but that is most of them. You buy a big deep cycle 12 volt RV battery, they are about $120. You wire the large RV battery to the leads where the tiny UPS battery was, removing the original UPS battery. Its a cheap way to get a longer duration than even a huge UPS, but in reality you dont need a huge expensive UPS because you dont need a lot of watts, which all giant, long lasting UPSs provide.