Power failure, but I did the unthinkable

My power failed wednesday this week when the cold front came across. No storm, just wind and suddent temp shift.

Anyway, power blinked earlier in the day. I wasnt up to working out after work, so took a nap. Woke up to see the lights blink again and turn off my tv. They blinked a few more times and was off and on for a few minutes each. FInally off.

I went to make a turkey sandwich, grab a drink out the fridge and frozen water bottle for my back and neck. I had light from 3 power failure lights that pop on when the power fails. A garrity 4 aa model, 2 aa model in bathroom and an led one in bed room. I turned on my ccrane radio to a local tv channel to hear what was going on.

After eating headed to find a head lamp, cheap old led one from energizer and made a protein shake. While in the bed room/smoke room I saw my 225/450 inverter on my desk that I never put on my wheelchair. I decided I would act my age and size and just yank a battery from the wheelchair, grab the inverter and watch the myth busters and other shows on the discovery channel.

I decided it was a bit warm and hooked up my floor fan and my floor lamp for light. The tv tripped the fault mode, but it is an auto resetter. I tried again and it worked. THe fan wasnt quite as fast as it is with line power, so cranked it up to medium. I also had my alarm clock running as it was connected to the same power strip. After an hour, lights came back on. I kept with battery power for 30 minutes to make sure it wasnt a false alarm. I then used a battery charger to recharge the battery. Its a group 24 12 volt sealed gel cell 70 amp hours. The 6 amp charger read 25% remaining and took all night to recharge. I didnt want to put it right back in the wheelchair since it charges in series with two batteries and it wouldnt charge them right.

Ah, yes. Nothing like sitting in the power outage with a 100 watt cf light, 19 inch tv and 20 inch box fan running. Sure beats finding and turning on those pesky lights.

I did this as well the last time my power went out (sometime during March or April) of this year. A transformer up the street failed and shorted out our entire block.

Edison took a while to get a truck out to our area and it was beginning to get late. I had a report to do (no laptop yet) so I decided to borrow my friend's power inverter (exactly like this one) http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=3266877

I plugged my computer monitor and desktop into it and tried connecting it to a pair of Dewalt batteries with peices of wire and aligator clips on the lighter plug and battery terminals. It ran my LCD monitor just fine but wouldn't run the PC. I then connected it to my mom's car in the garage with a very long extension cord and tried it again. Still wouldn't start the PC. It did finally get the computer running but I had to have the car engine running.
It worked fine for about 15 minuites then overheated and tripped the thermal protector. I thought I had fried it at first but it just wouldn't run for about ten minuites.

Ok, no more computing on emergency power for now. I went back to the DeWalt batteries and connected a 20watt compact fluorescent bulb, a small boom box radio, and my 13" TV. I didn't get to operate the TV for too long but it still kept the light going until power was restored a little past sunset.

I tried it on my fan but my fan dosen't like the modified square wave output of an inverter. It would run slower than normal and make an annoying humming sound.

I have a 150/300 watt inverter with no fan, never tripped it heat wise, but it does get hot. One reason I decided to go larger and get themodel with a fan in it. It ran cool the hour it was on.

The other inverter is on my wheelchair to power a heating pad and or laptop. Its hooked to a 24-12 volt converter hooked to the charger port of the wheelchair to give me 12 volts. I know they make 24 volt inverters and they are more efficient, but didnt know that til after the fact and they are a bit more than what you can pick up at target or walmart.

If I lived in an area prone to rollingblack outs, I would have one and a bank of batteries ready to go.

You can tell Cobbs house in a blackout, he's the only one in the neighborhood where the streetlight outside his house is mysteriously still on... (G)

I asked about back petaling power into your homes wiring system. Folks thought it was a bad idea.

If I own property, I would have one of those solar automatic security/yard lights.

cobb said:

I asked about back petaling power into your homes wiring system. Folks thought it was a bad idea.

Click to expand...

VERY bad idea. Not only will you be trying to power everything in your house (e.g. water heater), even if you sort that out there's a possibility you can back feed the transformer outside your house and energize a high voltage line your power company thinks is dead. That poses a very significant danger to power company workers.

If you want to do this properly, you can get an electrician or your power company to put a "transfer switch" on your feed that lets you switch between a generator or inverter and the commercial power.

The local power company here is actually pushing invertors/battery banks as backup systems vs. generators, so you solution is pretty cutting edge!

Cheers,
Bob

We were without power for about an hour this morning. I used my River Rock Headlamp to read the paper. Was FAR too lazy to whip out the generator!

Later as I was giving Platelets at The Blood Center Humble, the power quit for a couple minutes. Fortunately the machine had a battery and was able to resume! It was over so quick I didn't even get my EDC out. Ambient outside light was pretty good anyhow...

Bob, I would turn off the main braker and others I didnt need. I think my idea was to turn over the heater blower with my gas heat to run it in the winter if needed. Heat seems to be hard to do, next to cooling with limited power. Ive decided not to bother with that since i live in an apartment.

I do know some folks who were impressed with my setup and were going to get some deep cycle batteries, charger, box and inverter for back up power to power some items.

PB, I was impressed with the stuff they had my mom on earlier this year. Everything had a battery in it. The air bed she was on was unplugged and ran 4 hours before it deflated. They were unable to get it to work and someone saw the plug was missing as they left it in the other room when they moved her.

As a side note, most wheelchair users who use a ventlator have a 3rd battery to power it and the vent itself has an internal battery. I think the external battery does 12 to 26 hours and internal like 30-45 minutes.