Down and Out.... DTE really S_UCKS

[Mike029]

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

[Duke of Buckingham]

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

Duke

[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! 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!

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 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.

[Mike029]

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