Battery Backup

My sister had two of the big Marine Batteries which lasted a day and a half she ran some lights , watched some DVD movies on the tv and cooked pizza in the toaster oven. When the batteries ran low I swapped them with my diesel truck batteries got the fridge running and charged her batteries. Yes 5 days with no power a generator would have been nicebut I don't think you could have found one, everyone was sold out. I had the inverter at my house for over 10 years never lost electric. I live near a major highway no trees. I didn't lose electric during Irene

That's friggin awesome. My stove should run for a good two days on my setup. I thought about a generator but we went 10 years without losing electricity except when the grid went down.

stokersmoker wrote:OK, now I'm confused.

As Cecil said.... the battery back up gives you time to get the generator going, but, what if you're not home? It also give up to 8 hours for you to get home, discover there's no power and fire the generator up.

The mess occurs if: You're not home, power fails for 30 minutes, the fire dies, then the power comes back on. Now the stove starts moving raw coal into the ash pan.

traderfjp wrote: ..... I thought about a generator but we went 10 years without losing electricity except when the grid went down. ....

Never say never ... especially in this day & age ....

SMITTY wrote:Never say never

But you just said "never"! HA! Perhaps you should have said "Don't ever say ever and add an N at the beginning".

Ohhh, I kill me.

Heyy..... are AGM (absorbed glass mat) batteries inherently "deep cycle" batteries?

If you were going to pony up and buy two brand new batteries for a battery back up, what type and kind would you buy?

Ahhhh! Dammit!

AGM's can be regular or deep cycle ... but in my experience with the smaller ones, they handle abuse MUCH better than conventional lead-acid batteries. You can run them down, or let them sit for months without any maintenance & they'll still work. I have one in a push mower for the electric start. I've charged it maybe twice in the past 7 years. It's dead right now ... and has been for a couple years ... but I'd put money on it that I can charge it up again & make it work.

SMITTY wrote:It's dead right now ... and has been for a couple years

Agrhhhhhh! I may not know everything there is to know about batteries, but I know the worst thing you can do is leave one discharged. Go charge that bad boy....today!

Yeah now that you say that .... I'm going out there now to throw my good charger on it for a day. I'll let you know if it starts tomorrow. Should be a fun experiment!

EDIT: I just went out there - checked battery & still has 11V ! A regular lead-acid would have been in the tenths of a volt by this stage.

My DVC500 shuts down if it gets too cool, as in an out-fire.

On my old tripp-lite inverter its plugged in the wall , 3 seconds after the power goes off the inverter turns on and the inverter is sending power to the outlets on the inverter. When power is restored the inverter turns off and then recharges the batteries. Expensive unit new but it was an ebay score many years ago. You can go on there website they still make models very similar. It worked great during Irene for my sister the only problem is that her well pump is 220v. Now during the winter it will be different because it will have to run her furnase, but she only losses electric for maybe 4-5 hours at a time. Few years back we had that ice storm in MA and the trees and tree limbs were snapping taking out powerlines many people were out for 4-5 days that was just north of me. I know a guy that drove 2 +1/2 hour to Cape Cod to buy a generator.

SMITTY wrote:Yeah now that you say that .... I'm going out there now to throw my good charger on it for a day. I'll let you know if it starts tomorrow. Should be a fun experiment!

EDIT: I just went out there - checked battery & still has 11V ! A regular lead-acid would have been in the tenths of a volt by this stage.

Whelp, I turned the key .... at first nothing ... but a slow pull of the recoil, and another turn of the key & she cranked right over! This is the reason I use AGM's in all my non-electric start bikes. If you get lazy & forget to maintain the battery for .... oh ... 2 years or so, it will still work after a charge.

SMITTY wrote: If you get lazy & forget to maintain the battery for .... oh ... 2 years or so, it will still work after a charge.

Good stuff to know! I knew the Gel batteries that I use hold a charge about forever, but never gave thought to AGM.