Down and Out.... DTE really S_UCKS

[Fire$torm]

Sorry guys but I'm out of the game until the worst power company on the planet can get our part of the grid running. DTE's estimates restoring power by 9:30 PM. BTW the storm that knocked out power lasted all of FIFTEEN minutes with wind gusts topping 22~24 mph.......... Sad I know.

Got on the net by Jerry Rigging a cheapo UPS to a car battery so I could power the cable router and my lappy.
Gotta conserve the battery.... See ya when I see ya............

F$

[Steve Bohlen]

Got on the net by Jerry Rigging a cheapo UPS to a car battery so I could power the cable router and my lappy.


That is simply awesome.

^:)^ ^:)^ ^:)^

[trigggl]

Gotta conserve the battery.... See ya when I see ya............

Hook a battery charger up to your UPS. 8-}

[DrPop]

That is just hilarious! Who'd a thought ... did you have an inverter lying around just for that purpose? 12V batt --> UPS --> router/computer :D

[c303a]

If you are a real die hard cruncher you would hook up jumper cables from your car and charge the batteries. Just think, 2 birds with one stone. You could sit in your air conditioned car at the same. Of course you would have to calculate how many stones per gallon you got.:D:D:D

[trigggl]

That is just hilarious! Who'd a thought ... did you have an inverter lying around just for that purpose? 12V batt --> UPS --> router/computer :D

A UPS holds its charge with an internal 12 volt battery. I guess F$ knew this and decided he'd hook it up to an external. Obviously, a car battery holds a charge longer than the small internal battery. The small one in his UPS was probably old and expired.

[Mumps]

As an example, I know the batteries in the APC SmartUPS line are nothing more than deep-cycle batteries just like you find on smaller motors. Like motorcycles, dirt-bikes and little kiddie rechargeable vehicles. You can go in to Batteries+ and replace your SmartUPS batteries for $25 or less. :-)

[DrPop]

As an example, I know the batteries in the APC SmartUPS line are nothing more than deep-cycle batteries just like you find on smaller motors. Like motorcycles, dirt-bikes and little kiddie rechargeable vehicles. You can go in to Batteries+ and replace your SmartUPS batteries for $25 or less. :-)

Really!? That is great news! :D I have an APC 1500 - I think that's the model, it's pretty beefy and quite heavy, but the battery is going south (beeps occasionally and the indicator LEDs come on)...maybe I could replace the thing for much cheaper than the $125 or so I saw online?:)

@Trigggl - so basically the UPS just has a certain wattage inverter built in? We could roll our own - huge "Cruncher Style" UPS's then, with deep cycle marine batteries and a REAL full size inverter! :D

[Mumps]

Really!? That is great news! :D I have an APC 1500 - I think that's the model, it's pretty beefy and quite heavy, but the battery is going south (beeps occasionally and the indicator LEDs come on)...maybe I could replace the thing for much cheaper than the $125 or so I saw online?:)

Yup. Should be. If you open it up and pull the batteries out, you should find a pair hooked together in that 1500. Standard batteries. Part number on 'em will match the ones you can find at Batteries+ and even WalMart. :-)

[Fire$torm]

That is just hilarious! Who'd a thought ... did you have an inverter lying around just for that purpose? 12V batt --> UPS --> router/computer :D


A UPS holds its charge with an internal 12 volt battery. I guess F$ knew this and decided he'd hook it up to an external. Obviously, a car battery holds a charge longer than the small internal battery. The small one in his UPS was probably old and expired.

That's right Doc! :D The UPS is about a year and a half old but can only power a P4 desktop for about 10 minutes tops. My Gateway has battery backup (internal) but the gateway only provides phone service on battery. That only lasts about 3 hours and much less if you make numerous calls.


Really!? That is great news! :D I have an APC 1500 - I think that's the model, it's pretty beefy and quite heavy, but the battery is going south (beeps occasionally and the indicator LEDs come on)...maybe I could replace the thing for much cheaper than the $125 or so I saw online?:)

@Trigggl - so basically the UPS just has a certain wattage inverter built in? We could roll our own - huge "Cruncher Style" UPS's then, with deep cycle marine batteries and a REAL full size inverter! :D

Correct. There are a lot of DIY UPS How-Tos on the net. The main issue with the setup I had is that the APC UPS I have does not put out enough current to charge a car battery. Me thinks it is time to build my own UPS, but only for the Gateway and the lappies. Cost to build one for my desktop is out of my league money wise. The Gateway is a must since phone service comes from it.

[Mike029]

Sorry to hear F$. But you are awesome!! I feel inadequate with my flashlight and 8 extra batteries. :o I do have a hand winding am fm radio. <):)

[Duke of Buckingham]

:rolleyes: Power to the crunchers. Electric power of course. I hope this crises passes fast. Better luck F$.

Duke:D

[YoDude9999]

See ya when ya get back! More babies are born after power outages as proven during the big blackout in NYC some number of years ago. Maybe you should look into that idea!

[trigggl]

Really!? That is great news! :D I have an APC 1500 - I think that's the model, it's pretty beefy and quite heavy, but the battery is going south (beeps occasionally and the indicator LEDs come on)...maybe I could replace the thing for much cheaper than the $125 or so I saw online?:)

@Trigggl - so basically the UPS just has a certain wattage inverter built in? We could roll our own - huge "Cruncher Style" UPS's then, with deep cycle marine batteries and a REAL full size inverter! :D

We install 2KVA inverters into our aircraft all the time. Sometimes we even install a 2nd or third. Of course those run off of 28VDC. I'm sure they would run off of two batts in series. Or maybe I can sneak out of the facility with a lead acid A/C battery and an inverter. Never mind the camera at the turnstile.


Yup. Should be. If you open it up and pull the batteries out, you should find a pair hooked together in that 1500. Standard batteries. Part number on 'em will match the ones you can find at Batteries+ and even WalMart. :-)

Or steal the one from your neighbor's security system.

[Fire$torm]

See ya when ya get back! More babies are born after power outages as proven during the big blackout in NYC some number of years ago. Maybe you should look into that idea!

Oh drat, I forgot to say that I've been back :P Power was out for approx 23.5 hours. The scary thing (In regards to DTE) is that several houses on my side of the block were still without power after we got ours back....

And even more scary, that fifteen minute rain knocked out power to over 48,000 homes. Now how does a Non-severe storm do that to a power company? Only in Michigan. I will never complain about Illinois again (liar).

[DrPop]

Oh drat,...Only in Michigan. I will never complain about Illinois again (liar).

Haha! :)) That's what I always said about Iowa! (Did my grad schooling there.)

About the UPS theory...hmmm....I'm really thinking about this. See, when I got all the GPUs in the Dr.Pop rig that one time, it was sucking down more than the APC 1500 UPS would allow, apparently, because the leds went onl. That is a serious battery backup - it's not small.

I'm thinking now... a possible solution would be to get a deep cycle marine battery, and hook that up to car battery type charger. Then go from the battery to an inverter - say 1500W or so. Then power the 1000W PSU on the DrPop rig with that.

The downside to all that is the heat output and inefficiency...not sure I could hack that, knowing how inefficient it would be going AC to DC to AC again. That would be insane. Is there anyway to gate it, so that it uses AC all the time, and then only sucks off the DC when necessary? That way you could just have a tiny trickle charger hooked up to the deep cycle batt - heck, even a small solar panel charger would keep it topped off good...

[trigggl]

I'm thinking now... a possible solution would be to get a deep cycle marine battery, and hook that up to car battery type charger. Then go from the battery to an inverter - say 1500W or so. Then power the 1000W PSU on the DrPop rig with that.

The downside to all that is the heat output and inefficiency...not sure I could hack that, knowing how inefficient it would be going AC to DC to AC again. That would be insane. Is there anyway to gate it, so that it uses AC all the time, and then only sucks off the DC when necessary? That way you could just have a tiny trickle charger hooked up to the deep cycle batt - heck, even a small solar panel charger would keep it topped off good...

I can't think of any simple way to switch from household power to inverter power cleanly if the household power goes out. By simple, I mean something an electrical engineer could put together with parts from Radio Shack. A battery charger isn't going support a 1kW PSU. Perhaps a surge suppressor would be enough to account for the spike that will happen when it changes from household to inverter.

That would be a heavy duty relay, though and probably a sizable capacitor. I guess you could steal one from your neighbor's air conditioner compressor while you're stealing the battery from their security system. Come to think of it, there's probably a sizable relay in their compressor, also.

[Fire$torm]

Well...... They did it again! And this time no storm no wind and no Warning! %()$&#_%^@!@*%^#@)$&#@

DTE maintenance shut down my part of the power grid from 1:45PM until 5:55PM. Had to Jerry Rig a 200mm fan and portable TV to a car battery for my Uncle. He is a 74 years young handicapped diabetic, so I needed the fan to help keep him cool.

DTE really sucks Goat Nuts.

[trigggl]

Well...... They did it again! And this time no storm no wind and no Warning! %()$&#_%^@!@*%^#@)$&#@

DTE maintenance shut down my part of the power grid from 1:45PM until 5:55PM. Had to Jerry Rig a 200mm fan and portable TV to a car battery for my Uncle. He is a 74 years young handicapped diabetic, so I needed the fan to help keep him cool.

DTE really sucks Goat Nuts.

I gotta say, hearing about stuff like this makes me really appreciate my electric company (and nuclear power plants). You don't need electric going out when highs are averaging in the 100's. The run time on my computer is showing 40 days and that's probably from upgrading my kernel.

Of course, there's been no storms to knock power out, but still, the drain on the network due to all the air conditioners must be enormous. #:-s

[Mike029]

Do they have to pick the hottest part of the day to shut people down? WTF!!!

[Fire$torm]

Well they did it again :mad:

Lost power around 10am and they say power should be restored around 3:30pm. Jerry rigged my APC battery backup with a car battery so I could run the Xfinity gateway and my lappy. Take That DTE! <finger_Gesture>Middle</Finger_Gesture>

[John P. Myers]

Maybe this will help :D

1150
Logisys 12V Cigarette Plug to 4 Pin Molex Power Cable

[Fire$torm]

Maybe this will help :D

1150
Logisys 12V Cigarette Plug to 4 Pin Molex Power Cable

Thx but it isn't quite what I need. A few years back my Uncle purchased a 850 CCA SLA battery for his truck. But the truck needed more repair work then he first realized. So he donated the truck to Purple Heart charity (Link (http://www.purpleheartdonations.net/)) but kept the battery as a spare for the Impala. Then the first time the power went out, after I had moved in, I used the battery to power my old Dell lappy so he could watch a movie on DVD. Been using it for that sort of thing ever since.

Anyhoot I will make a custom carrier (when I jet off my lazy @ss) for the battery with female plugs for x2 car adapters, a few Molex for 12V fans and such, plus x2 USB connectors (w/ 5V voltage regulators behind them) just in case we need to charge a phone or something.

Lazy = Need to Jerry rig.... :P