back up power questions

What precautions have you taken incase of a power outage where you keep your ball pythons?

As most of you know, the proper temperatures for these snakes is of utmost importance for their survival.

I am trying to find suitable back up power for my snake racks and am considering this one.
http://www.ebatts.com/part_852-1807.aspx

Does anyone know if this unit will work well? If not, can you point me in the right direction?

We have a whole house generator, comes on in about 30 secs of no power.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I keep a box of Hot Hands around just in case. It's not ideal, but it will keep my snakes from dying.

I'm curious to know if you can hook a 120v outlet up to a car battery or something as a makeshift backup? Is there any kind of non gas-powered rechargable battery pack with a reasonable amount of juice?

Something to keep in mind is if your thermostats are proportional that may not work with a generator.

I've contacted Helix before and asked them to elaborate on the issue:

"Hello, yes you will not be happy using any signal conditioner, UPS, even some older or sloppy power generators, ahead of digital equipment that electronically controls output power. The Sign-wave that these products produce is "square-ish" and not acceptable for use with triac driven devices. ( Including Helix DBS-1000 and any truely Proportional thermostat.) .This Square sign-wave tends to turn on the power at a low level when the system wants the power OFF.
On/Off thermostats ( at least most of them) should not have this
problem.

If your looking for back up incase of power outage...

You can set up a Ranco (On/Off) thermostat, 1-2 degrees lower
setpoint,and separate small fan and heat element.
Basically the Ranco is never putting out any heat , unless the
temperature drops to the lower (secondary system) set point. This saves the relay
inside and makes the Ranco system last a 1000 x's longer

It could also speed "temperature" recovery after opening the incubator,
and closing it.

Thanks for thinking Helix,
Jeff Washburn
Helix Controls, Inc."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MrLang

I keep a box of Hot Hands around just in case. It's not ideal, but it will keep my snakes from dying.

I'm curious to know if you can hook a 120v outlet up to a car battery or something as a makeshift backup? Is there any kind of non gas-powered rechargable battery pack with a reasonable amount of juice?

---

No car batteries like all batteries output DC current. Wall plugs use AC current. You can buy an inverter wich will convert DC power to AC but a battery wired directly to an AC device will end very badly.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adam Chandler

Something to keep in mind is if your thermostats are proportional that may not work with a generator.

I've contacted Helix before and asked them to elaborate on the issue:

"Hello, yes you will not be happy using any signal conditioner, UPS, even some older or sloppy power generators, ahead of digital equipment that electronically controls output power. The Sign-wave that these products produce is "square-ish" and not acceptable for use with triac driven devices. ( Including Helix DBS-1000 and any truely Proportional thermostat.) .This Square sign-wave tends to turn on the power at a low level when the system wants the power OFF.
On/Off thermostats ( at least most of them) should not have this
problem.

If your looking for back up incase of power outage...

You can set up a Ranco (On/Off) thermostat, 1-2 degrees lower
setpoint,and separate small fan and heat element.
Basically the Ranco is never putting out any heat , unless the
temperature drops to the lower (secondary system) set point. This saves the relay
inside and makes the Ranco system last a 1000 x's longer

It could also speed "temperature" recovery after opening the incubator,
and closing it.

Thanks for thinking Helix,
Jeff Washburn
Helix Controls, Inc."

---

They do make digital equipment friendly back-up generators now adays. They have a pure sine wave output. We have 3 of them where I work to keep our servers working if the power goes out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The Serpent Merchant

They do make digital equipment friendly back-up generators now adays. They have a pure sine wave output. We have 3 of them where I work to keep our servers working if the power goes out.

---

Can you elaborate on this type of generator? If you can give a make/model number and tell how long they provide power, I would appreciate it.

We ended up geting a 5500 watt generator and some heavy duty extension cords from Lowes. Should be sufficient to keep the three space heaters powered up on low-medium settings. And... No worrying about frying proportional t-stats.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by alkibp

Can you elaborate on this type of generator? If you can give a make/model number and tell how long they provide power, I would appreciate it.

---

Inverter generators. They'll do the trick, but are way more expensive and don't produce as much power.

http://www.portableinvertergenerator...nerators-work/

Honda gens are pure seine wave I am sure there are others but most are just modified. Proportional systems are not likely to work properly with modified seine wave. On off ones will however.

there are some UPS systems that are pure as well but generally they will not power any heating system for long enough to be useful.

OP I suspect the battery unit you are looking at is similar it is likely a short term option. I have looked at a back up system and found that 2 or 3 deep cycle marine batteries will give my system about 12 hours or so.

The option I have investigated is a DC inverter with a transfer switch build it 3 deep cycle batteries and a trickle charger Much like the system emergency lights run on. Power goes out and the system powers up the back up system. It is independent heat and t-stat (set to 85) and when the enclosures drop down to this point the s-stat kicks on I have about 12 hours of 50% usage in reality I will get a bit more as my system is very efficient and I should get a bit more as i usually run at about 10%.