The electric power around here isn't all that reliable, with occasional outages, and many short drop-outs that are enough to get the UPSes to kick in and then shut off a few seconds later. All of our most fragile electronic kit is protected with a UPS; we have three and they're not cheap. So news of an improvement to the quality of our leccy supply is welcome.
We are warned of a scheduled power cut tomorrow, from 8h45 to 14h15, that they tell us is to improve the delivery of electricity. Well, let's hope so. This little lash-up is to keep the fridge-freezer running. I have no idea how much power it takes, but I will find out tomorrow if 1.4kWh is enough to keep it going for five and a half hours.
Update: The power cut has come and gone, timed to the advertised minute. I took the advice from Microdave (see comments) and cooled the freezer down from its normal temperature of -18°C to -24°C and then set it back to -18°C when it was connected to the backup system. When it is cooling, it consumes about 140 watts, so the batteries could keep it going for about a day if necessary.
Ways around things ......
ReplyDeleteI would run it with the thermostat turned full up before the mains goes off. Then leave it for 20-30 minutes before connecting the inverter. Chances are it wouldn't have run during this period anyway, and you'll save battery power by not having the inverter running. All inverters have a "parasitic" drain on the supply, it's what is needed just to run the internal circuitry. On one like you've shown it will be in the order of 1 amp @ 12 volts. Obviously you can't avoid that if running appliances which need a continuous supply, but for a fridge/freezer you could turn the inverter off for half an hour, then back on and see if the fridge starts up. If it doesn't, try in another 15 minutes.
ReplyDeleteGood thinking Microdave. I hadn't thought of that, and have just set the freezer up as you suggest.
ReplyDelete