An electrical question for short term power backup

Thank you all so much for the advice/direction gonna hit the net and do some heavy reaserch.

A while back I purchased a small solar set up and a deepcycle battery for under $200.
It provides enough power to run a small LED tv, charge the phones ,laptop and it also came with some low wattage 12volt lights.

Here is a collection of alot of info that may assist you in your quest.

www.alternative-energy-news.info...

otherpower.com...

Good luck!

Peace,
K

You can also change all or some of your household lights to LED and run these direct from a 12v battery. Use solar or wind to charge. You can even charge it from a bicycle set up.

P

First you need to determine how much power you need for powering your loads (over, micro wave, heater, etc). A quick google seach should give you some answers.

You need to generate an alternating current at 60 or 50 Hz depending on where you live! A car alternator will produce direct current power since it has a bridge (diodes and capacitors placed in special way to make the oscillating current smooth) on the output. However, the car alternator itself (minus the bridge and voltage regulator) will give you an alternating current like a sine wave.

So you need a system that will take the alternating current out put from the alternator activated by the wind and then convert it to direct current with a bridge and voltage regulator, this direct current will be stored in batteries . The current from the batteries can be used to recreate an alternating current for you appliances in time of need.

It really comes down to how much you want to spend. That of course reflects on what type of quality of a set up you want-and how long do you want to keep it hot.

The set up at my cabin here has been running for more than 7 years and in that time all I have bought new is a back up inverter. Without knowing how much you want to spend it's quite impossible to set anything up.

The new 'luggage packs' are a hit with some suburbanites because they eliminate the dangers of a generator and they can provide household power in a power outage event for 36-48 hours. Most are strapped to a dolly or wheel trucks which is hooked to a small solar panel to keep it charged. Family campers like them too as you can just roll it out of the ole Suburban and take it too your camp site.

About the only drawback is that they look kinda stupid being rolled around. You will be bombarded with questions like "what is that ugly thing"

I have given up on wind turbines here-just too inconsistent and when you have winds-like last night-of 40 mph you must disassemble them or they will end up in the next county.

One thing that is VERY inportant in my opinion is that you get an inverter that outputs PURE sine wave! They may cost more, but you will not damage some devices with it as you would with a non-pure sine wave inverter. I had a rechargable flashlight that almost melted/caught fire due to a non-pure sine wave inverter (power resistor must have been glowing!).

Some things just don't run right with non-pure sine wave. Other things are unsafe!

reply to post by XL5


That is a good point. I have a TS Power 600watt 50/60hz line conditioner that I payed a boat load of money for 10 years ago. It was between the outside propane generator and all my computers. I only recommend products from Northern tool-you more than likely know why-and they have promised me over and over that the Sinewave N Power 5000 watt inverter makes the line conditioner obsolete. So far there have been no issues with dirty power. I'm still kinda wondering about it-it makes a bizarre racket. Anytime a Tech tells you that " the noise is routine" is not that assuring. It goes WWWWWwwwwwwEEEEEEEEeeeeeeOOOOOeeeeeWWWWooooooo Like those oldtime British sirens that went Bbbbeee-Bbbbonkk-Bbbbeee-Bbbbonkk

Spooky, if the inverter is making that sound with a constant load (lights, space heaters, ect) I wouldn't call it normal. To see if it is normal though, you could search it up on youtube and listen for the same sound.