Uninterruptible power supply?

[Beatmonkey]

I live in an old building in a big city but we loose power randomly, for a few hours, maybe once every few months. I'm worried this will happen during flower cycle and thinking about purchasing a UPS, to keep the lights on.
I'm not sure how much power I'm pulling from the wall.

mini Grow with Autoflower :

- about 100w of overhead LED
- 5 meters of smd5630 led light strip
- a couple small fans

Anyone have any idea if it's worth the $ for the ups, what's a good one that doesn't cost too much? Or should I even worry about it since I'm growing autos.

Thanks

 

[Chris Scorpio]

Are u home when it happens

I have a nice Honda generator that works great, not automatic, but is a life saver

 

[Beatmonkey]

Are u home when it happens

I have a nice Honda generator that works great, not automatic, but is a life saver

Not usually. And it's a small apartment so I don't think I can run a generator.

 

[Oldbear]

That's a tough one. I don't think a few extra hours of darkness will harm them. Unless its often.....

 

[Nightmask]

I slightly looked into a UPS a while back but after a little research decided against getting one. The reason being because a UPS unit that's entry-level-ish but still a few hundred dollars worth will only keep the power going for maybe 5-10 minutes. A UPS is great for those freak black-outs when using a computer because it gives you a few minutes to properly save your work and shut down properly so you don't lose everything you've been working on for the past 2 hours but forgot to routinely save. It's not designed to be like a generator to produce decent amounts of energy over a long period of time. Though maybe there are more expensive and more powerful units available that would suit your needs.

Or you could look at a small generator or maybe even a car battery/batteries (not sure if a car battery would have enough power or how to hook it up or if it would even work though).

Here's a link for a page on "How to Select an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) for Your Computer" for more info on a UPS if you're keen on one of them.

I found another page with UPS info and here's some of what they said (I'd link the page itself but there's not much more info than this):

For a few hundred dollars you'll find an entry-level UPS with a 550VA rating, supporting around a 330 Watt load, such as APC's Back-UPS Pro 550. By APC's own figures, this UPS can run 300 Watts worth of equipment for around four minutes. Even if you can get the load down closers to 150 Watts - perhaps enough to run one PC, a monitor and a some networking gear - you'll still be lucky to get more than 10 minutes before the UPS runs flat. That's not a lot of time.

Even a 1500VA UPS isn't likely to keep your computer running for more than an hour. This isn't to say that a small business-grade UPS is useless, just that you need to be realistic about what it can do. Large businesses looking to run an entire office for hours during a blackout generally put a diesel generator on the roof, but that's obviously not practical for most businesses.

the UPS' job is to ensure you don't lose any work rather than to let you keep working for hours when the lights go out.

Apart from blackouts, a UPS is also useful for coping with power brownout and spikes. The onboard battery and surge protector helps smooth out the power flow the reduce the chance of damaging to your equipment.

 

[Beatmonkey]

I slightly looked into a UPS a while back but after a little research decided against getting one. The reason being because a UPS unit that's entry-level-ish but still a few hundred dollars worth will only keep the power going for maybe 5-10 minutes. A UPS is great for those freak black-outs when using a computer because it gives you a few minutes to properly save your work and shut down properly so you don't lose everything you've been working on for the past 2 hours but forgot to routinely save. It's not designed to be like a generator to produce decent amounts of energy over a long period of time. Though maybe there are more expensive and more powerful units available that would suit your needs.

Or you could look at a small generator or maybe even a car battery/batteries (not sure if a car battery would have enough power or how to hook it up or if it would even work though).

Here's a link for a page on "How to Select an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) for Your Computer" for more info on a UPS if you're keen on one of them.

I found another page with UPS info and here's some of what they said (I'd link the page itself but there's not much more info than this):

Thanks.