Hello DGC.
Is it beneficial to use a battery backup in the grow room?
I have been using battery backup UPS’s with my computer and AV equipment for years. They offer short term battery backup along with surge protection. The LED lights, timers, ventilation controllers, etc. are all electrical equipment made in similar processes to our computers, and I would like to be able to have some time to react to a power outage.
I would like to use them for my lights (and controller/timer) as well as my inline fan (and controller). They would never be used for heating, air conditioning, or other high power consumption devices. I don’t think that it would stay powered for the advertised 1 to 2 hours with lights, but might just get me through the more common short outages, and give me enough time to do something in the case of a longer outage.
Anything that I should be taking into consideration? To be honest, if Niwa had a battery backup version of their grow hub, I would already have a couple.
I can’t see it handling your fans and lights. I would be scared of overloading it and causing a fire. Run it outside a couple times and see what happens. Keep a fire extinguisher near by. Lol.
While the lights would pull watts consistently it would have a much lower peak power consumption that my PC. I don’t see why using a UPS appropriately spec’d for the power draw would be cause for an overload. If I am wrong, please explain.
My plan is to use one UPS for each of my two 4×4 tents. Each tent has 480w LED bar light with it’s timer, an AC infinity fan and it’s controller that run at 64w, and 3 additional 15w. This is less than 600w total, per tent. Most gaming PC’s with higher end graphics cards are recommending power supplies of at least 750w, and appropriately matched UPS’s for them and their monitors that also pull in another 100-150w, not to mention any other device that may be plugged into them.
If you are within your ratings let her rip. I think a battery back up system would be big pimpin! I did not realize that computers use that kind of power and those things can put out that kind of juice. Maybe you have a new business in the making?
I use one for my air pumps, my water pumps, and my fans. I don’t bother with the lights, although putting a small household led bulb in there on the backup would keep the light cycle as well.
How valuable this is depends on your environment. Mine is partially aeroponic, so rather critical for me. If you’re growing in soil, probably not as big of a deal. As long as it’s rated for the consumption, and you’re not overloading the single plug it has with that wattage, you should be fine, that’s what they’re designed for. I wouldn’t use more than a thousand Watts on a single plug personally on standard residential wiring, but that applies to plugging anything into the wall.
If you’re backing everything up, life should continue uninterrupted until you run out of juice. Me personally, I’m concerned with the humidity levels and the pumps if my power goes out, but your environment given your username is going to be very different than a Canadian basement.
Not enough capacity to be useful for most growers. I can see it being helpful in a hydro situation for powering pumps or other low wattage mission critical stuff, but a typical UPS device really cant provide enough power to run lights or fans for an extended period of time.
Most UPS systems are designed to only last for like an hour max. The idea is they give you enough time to safely save your work and shut your computer down when the power goes out. UPS systems are typically designed to prevent data loss and damage to computer hardware, not to keep the system running long term. They aren’t designed to power a computer for an extended amount of time, let alone a much more power hungry grow light.
Good day PBB, this could work short time but if the outage is any more than an hour or so your going to have to figure something else out anyway. I’m not sure if your location allows for you to run a generator. If so I’d just keep a backup generator with some fresh gas around. Probably a little more up front cost but a better long term solution if you have issues.
I’m not sure how much those back ups are but you can get decent 3500 watt gens for 3 or 4 hundred bucks.
I keep one handy all the time as I have a lot of outages in my area.
Just my ten cents, good luck my man 🤙🏻🤙🏻💯🤙🏻🤙🏻
I have a Cyberpower 1500 on my main carbon filter. The one that will exhaust outside if the others fail. Never tested it to see how long it will run. Maybe an hour, but no idea. Power outage is usually no more than a couple hours. So I could wait till the place starts leaking smell, and run it.