Complete build near Scranton, PA (USA)

[First post; this seems to be allowed by the rules. Please advise if I'm mistaken.]

Quick overview: I teach English online to Chinese children. My client is very strict. A brief flicker of power would result in a reboot of my desktop/router/modem, and the few minutes involved would cause immediate income loss and eventual termination. My (very limited) understanding is that a UPS would give me a few minutes to run and start a generator, but the problem is that this would still require me to leave the camera for a few minutes, with the same financial results. (Please spare me the "that's not fair" / "they'd understand" comments; the company just terminated an excellent teacher because her own child died while she was teaching.)

I need reliable power that will last six hours. I'm open to various ideas, but it sounds like these powerwalls might be a good solution.

What you folks are doing on this forum looks very interesting, but I'll be very honest: I don't have the time or ability to build my own system. (Sorry!)

What I would like to consider is having someone (with reasonable experience) build and install a system for me, outside of Scranton, PA (USA). I will of course pay you for your time and materials!

I'm happy to discuss here or by email; I'm David (at) Beroff (dot) com. Thanks in advance!

Seriously, just buy a decent sized UPS. UPS scale and while small ones can give you minutes there are also big ones that can give you hours or even days if you want. And they are not as expensive as you might think, especially if you need it for your job. When doing something related to any source of income you maybe want a proper support contract as well.

For the cost a 3000w ups will run that for a few hours. Possibly up to 6 depending on the number of extra batteries you have and the load.

Thank you. It looks like the price of these are approaching US$1k. Wouldn't parts + labor for a comparable 18650 system be considerably less? Or am I missing something basic? (Remember; I know very little about this whole subject, and I'm trying to learn.) Thanks!

I agree with the DarkRaven and jdeadman. For what you want to do, and decent UPS with extended battery power should be all you need.

If all your equipment (computer, internet, phone, etc) that is needed to teach is all in one room, then set the UPS in that room.
If you want to make it a little more hidden, take the UPS to where your breaker room is. Take the breaker that goes to that room and install a recepticle coming out of the breaker, plug the UPS into that, and connect a plug to the wires going to that room. Then power up the UPS.
If you want longer battery life, it's easy to add batteries in parallel to increase run time. Take the case off and connect what ever other batteries in parallel with the one that's already in there.
If it's a 24V setup, then you'll need two batteries in series to connect parallel.
If going this route, I would highly recommend going with Marine Grade Deep Cycle batteries as they are designed to discharge at a slower rate and can handle the deeper discharge of extended run time.

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Added: You don't need a super expensive UPS. You can find some 3000Watt (3kW) units on eBay for around $100-$200, and maybe about $40-$80 shipping (depending on model, size, weight, etc).
I personally would go with a server style UPS unit rather than a small "personal" unit. They are designed to run for hours on end without issues.

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Here's an example of one unit: http://www.ebay.com/itm/APC-3000RM2...0V-No-Batteries-Cut-Power-Cable-/142472430912
however, it is 48V setup, so you would need 4 12V batteries connected in series.

Thank you, Korishan. Could I pay you a fair consulting fee to answer the "UPS's for Idiots" type of questions, e.g., that particular item states "no batteries, cut power cable", so I'd presumably have to address those points, and you mention both series and parallel, so I'd want to ask some really stupid questions before making a disastrous newbie mistake. So I could PayPal you say, US$25, and then you'd send me a complete "buy this not that" list, and maybe a few diagrams. We can take this offline if you'd prefer: David (at) Beroff (dot) com. Thank you in advance.

Something like this probably not suitable for you then. However, you should find out first if you even need a 3kW unit. Check what devices you need to power from the UPS and what their combined power usage is.

OK, DarkRaven. I actually own a watt-meter. (Is that the right term?) I will measure this after I am done teaching this morning. Thanks.

Only reason why I went with the 3kW model was because it was the largest for an average guy could get ahold of and easy to install. Also, with the proper battery setup, it would handle the long duration of a load without issues as well.

You could easily go with a 1kW unit as it'll be smaller and cheaper. Just do a search for "smart ups 1000" or "sua1000" The "sua" is specifically part of the APC units. If you wanted TrippLite or any other, then just do the 1000 and you'll see other brands.
There are many units that will only need the use of parallel batteries as they run off of 12v setup. This is fine, just less efficient. But it would be much easier to setup.
In the unit I listed, all you would need to do is connect a 10 gauge extension cord to the already portion sticking out. Or, you could even wire in a plug directly on to it and then use the extension cable. The batteries would be really easy to setup as you'd just need an anderson cable connector (which, it might come with the second one anyways) and then get 8 gauge wires (10 would work, too. 8 just has less voltage loss, though) and connect the batteries up in the correct configuration and then plug one end with the anderson plug and then connect it to the UPS.

Even with the watt-meter, I wouldn't go with a smaller unit than 1000 watts (1kW). It is mostly to do with the build quality of the UPS. Smaller than that, they aren't designed to run longer than about 5-10minutes under a medium-heavy load. I have a 650 watt unit that I used during a power outage recently, and I'm going to have to replace parts on it as it now buzzes loudly. I can't even be in the same room with it now. It also got so hot that even with the cover off of it for circulation, it melted a hole in the plastic cover of one of my multimeters that was sitting on the board (this was the circuit side of the board, no components were on this side). I was only running a few lights and a small lcd tv during this time, but I was using it for about 2-3hrs a day for a week. So, if you plan on using a UPS, and you plan on power outages that could last several hours, you definitely don't want anything less than 1kW. Even if for 30mins, I'd not go with anything less. But, that's my opinion.

No, I don't want any $$$ for helping out. I'd gladly give any advice as I can without charge. However, if you want to pay for a plane ticket and a weeks stay, then we might be able to arrange something

Apologies for the delay. Life moves forward. Another power outage this morning reminded me that I'd never pursued this further. (Thankfully, the even "only" affected one class, so the financial consequences were bad but not yet fatal.)

So, I measured my current usage, as follows:
Desktop, (tested with the full stress of rendering video at 100% CPU usage), 155W. Monitor, 24W. Modem, 7W. Router, 9W. Lights, 58W. Total: 253W.
Consider double or triple that for varying load and future growth. So, your 1kW recommendation makes sense.

I agree that I should pursue "much easier" (Korishan's comment) over efficiency, seeing as I already procrastinated four months, and I need to just do this already. Plus, if I'm understanding right, the efficiency consideration would only be an issue when using the battery power, correct? i.e., Am I losing anything during the "normal" time when the setup is being charged by the municipal power grid?

So, I'd need to buy the UPS itself, the batteries, the 10 gauge cables, (how many?), and what else? Connectors?

Thank you.

DavidBeroff said:

(Please spare me the "that's not fair" / "they'd understand" comments; the company just terminated an excellent teacher because her own child died while she was teaching.)

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That's insane.

You only need the UPS, nothing else. It contains a battery / a set of batteries and has an AC input which you can plug into an available socket and it has some AC outputs to connect the devices that you need protected. Look at apc.com, they even have a tool that helps you to select the right UPS for your needs.

Oderus420 said:

DavidBeroff said:

(Please spare me the "that's not fair" / "they'd understand" comments; the company just terminated an excellent teacher because her own child died while she was teaching.)

Click to expand...

That's insane.

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That's just how it is. The client's attitude is that, if one needs to take time off for frivolities like power outages or family deaths, it needs to be scheduled three weeks in advance.

Grieving Mothers Firing Sparks Backlash Against Chinese Education Startup

David Beroff said:

That's just how it is. The client's attitude is that, if one needs to take time off for frivolities like power outages or family deaths, it needs to be scheduled three weeks in advance.

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My apologies, but I would not work for such a company and I would advise others to not work for them either. But, that's just me. :s

BTW, being in the USA, that company can get into really big trouble for those practices. People just need to report them the authorities.

DavidBeroff said:

Oderus420 said:

DavidBeroff said:

(Please spare me the "that's not fair" / "they'd understand" comments; the company just terminated an excellent teacher because her own child died while she was teaching.)

Click to expand...

That's insane.

Click to expand...

That's just how it is. The client's attitude is that, if one needs to take time off for frivolities like power outages or family deaths, it needs to be scheduled three weeks in advance.

Grieving Mothers Firing Sparks Backlash Against Chinese Education Startup

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Well, she did get her job back so that's a good thing.

Korishan said:

My apologies, but I would not work for such a company and I would advise others to not work for them either. But, that's just me. :s

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You're certainly entitled to your opinion. As for me, they pay me very well, with plenty of other benefits, and so I just shut up and work until the day that it's my turn to get terminated.

Korishan said:

BTW, being in the USA, that company can get into really big trouble for those practices. People just need to report them the authorities.

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Hardly. It's not an employment relationship. And the company is in China. If someone doesn't like the arrangement, they are free to leave. {shrug}

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Oderus420 said:

Well, she did get her job back so that's a good thing.

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That was only because a lot of people made a lot of noise. The original policy is still (essentially) in place. Others have been dismissed for far less, such as electricity/Internet outages, which is why I posted here.

DavidBeroff said:

You're certainly entitled to your opinion. As for me, they pay me very well, with plenty of other benefits, and so I just shut up and work until the day that it's my turn to get terminated.

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That's just the point, you entered into this relationship knowing up front what the consequences are. The unfortunate events of the lady with the child was what it was, unfortunate. She entered with the agreement knowing the consequences, therefore subject to termination. She wasn't terminated because of her dying child, but because she broke the contractual agreement.

Now going back to your predicament, like everyone has suggested, get a UPS. Then take out the SLA batteries, extend the cables and hook up some golf cart batteries to it. How long you need to run for is dependent on how many batteries you have. How many batteries depends on how much power you need. Get a kill-a-watt meter and start testing all your equipment.

Also I'd suggest getting a rack ATS. There's so many times a UPS failures causes the computer to go down more often than actual power outage. Usually it's because the APC units I used to get used to do a power test and when the batteries die, it just shuts down the UPS, causing my servers to crash. After that I avoided APCs along with their crappy charging circuits that causes me to replace batteries every 2 years at every network closet. I heard they've since fixed those issues with updated models, but they lost me as a customer.