Large battery backup ideas

[USMA36]

I'm looking for a large battery backup setup. I'd like to power my maxspect gyres, VarioS 8 return pump and possibly my skimmer. I don't want the normal ecotech or maxspect battery backup the batteries don't last very long and I want to power more than just wavemakers. I'd like to find plans to build something myself. I'd like to know what is the best setup. 2 x 100ah 12 volt batteries for a 24 volt system or 4 batteries for a 48 volt system. Is using an inverter the best way to go on a system like that or keep everything dc and only power dc equipment? My draw would be at most about 200 watts per hour for everything. What would be a good sized inverter? Transfer switch? I have been searching for a detailed diy plan but haven't found what I am looking for.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

I would try to keep everything DC if possible, but you'll have to do some DIY to get everything connected and working. Inverters are fine, but most have a pretty high power loss, especially for loads that are well below their rated capacity. My 1,100w inverter pulls almost double the required power from my batteries to run small loads like Jebao wavemakers.

As far as what voltage to run the system, I would keep it at 12V unless you're getting into very high current draws. 12V equipment is cheap and available. Running a 24V or 48V battery bank might make sense at higher currents though.. you can use smaller wires while still drawing the same total wattage.

 

[Westside Guy]

FYI, do a search as I once read that someone on R2R converted a Tesla battery for his tank's backup. In my opinion that would be the ultimate battery solution.

 

[USMA36]

I would try to keep everything DC if possible, but you'll have to do some DIY to get everything connected and working. Inverters are fine, but most have a pretty high power loss, especially for loads that are well below their rated capacity. My 1,100w inverter pulls almost double the required power from my batteries to run small loads like Jebao wavemakers.

As far as what voltage to run the system, I would keep it at 12V unless you're getting into very high current draws. 12V equipment is cheap and available. Running a 24V or 48V battery bank might make sense at higher currents though.. you can use smaller wires while still drawing the same total wattage.

If I keep it 12 volts with no inverter I don't think I could run the VarioS 8 return pump. Is there a formula to figure out how much power I'd lose with an inverter.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

No, unfortunately, not without measuring the actual current draw of the specific inverter. If you run the inverter close to its rated capacity you'll get close to 90% efficiency, so I'd map out your planned power usage and get an inverter a little bit bigger than that.

You can also get a voltage booster to produce 24v/36v from a 12v source. But that's a bit more advanced if you don't have much electronics experience.

 

[theatrus]

You’re spending a pretty penny to get a good inverter, of course a good inverter is required if you have any AC synchronous or other non-DC pumps in the system - they’ll suffer big time without a true sine output.

My suggestion would be to use a 12VDC or 24VDC battery system and DC/DC converters for higher voltage needs (or lower!). Depending on how much of a product you want you can add relay switching from wall adapter to battery for each device, or just run everything off the battery system 24/7 with a large enough charger.

I feel like battery backups are a very underserved part of the market especially since most equipment is now DC powered. Time to put on the thinking hat.

 

[USMA36]

You’re spending a pretty penny to get a good inverter, of course a good inverter is required if you have any AC synchronous or other non-DC pumps in the system - they’ll suffer big time without a true sine output.

My suggestion would be to use a 12VDC or 24VDC battery system and DC/DC converters for higher voltage needs (or lower!). Depending on how much of a product you want you can add relay switching from wall adapter to battery for each device, or just run everything off the battery system 24/7 with a large enough charger.

I feel like battery backups are a very underserved part of the market especially since most equipment is now DC powered. Time to put on the thinking hat.

DC to DC is all I ready need. I just want to more power than the ecotech or icecap batteries. I would also need to figure out how to power my varioS 8 return pump. Worst case I suppose I could sell the VarioS and get a vectra ME and buy the adapter to power that from a battery. I guess a system using 2 100 ah batteries wired in series would be good. Id love to find an I'm depth tutorial with lots of pictures to help me build it.

 

[USMA36]

You’re spending a pretty penny to get a good inverter, of course a good inverter is required if you have any AC synchronous or other non-DC pumps in the system - they’ll suffer big time without a true sine output.

My suggestion would be to use a 12VDC or 24VDC battery system and DC/DC converters for higher voltage needs (or lower!). Depending on how much of a product you want you can add relay switching from wall adapter to battery for each device, or just run everything off the battery system 24/7 with a large enough charger.

I feel like battery backups are a very underserved part of the market especially since most equipment is now DC powered. Time to put on the thinking hat.

I think I'd to use a relay switch. Is there someplace I can find plans for a system like that? Do the ecotech batteries use a relay?

 

[Ratherbeflyen]

DIY battery backup

I made my own battery backup. It uses a 110v power relay to automatically switch between wall power and the battery backup. I used a couple of 7 amp hour batteries sealed lead acid batteries. My icecap 3k gyre pump comes with a 24v DC power supply, so I was going to run two 12v batteries in...

www.reef2reef.com

I made my own battery backup with a relay switch. I get ~ 4 days of wavemaker run time with a couple of 7 amp hour batteries. You could easily use larger batteries to power more equipment for longer.

 

[cool2burn]

I mean if you can pay 5k for a tank and $200 for a fish protect it right! https://www.tesla.com/powerwall

 

[USMA36]

Is there a tutorial out there on how to build this with off the shelf parts? Specifically one that uses a dc return pump as well as wave makers.

 

[USMA36]

I want to use 2 100 ah batteries in series so I will have a 24 volt 100ah backup. I'd like to power 2 maxspect gyres or 2 MP40s and one VirioS 8 or Vectra M2. I'm leaning towards the vectra because it has battery backup programing in the controller. How do I wire the controllers to the battery, can a vectra m2 be used on a 24 volt backup system using their booster or is that only for 12 volt back ups. Does anyone have a shopping list of what I need to buy other than. The batteries??

 

[Pistondog]

If I keep it 12 volts with no inverter I don't think I could run the VarioS 8 return pump. Is there a formula to figure out how much power I'd lose with an inverter.

The varios runs at 24 vdc in, so 2 deep cycle marine batteries in series would run for days i think.

 

[DavidNZ]

I have just built (yet to install) a battery backup for my pumps and Apex (just the Coral Box wavemakers, no return pump).

Ratherbeflyen, very similar to your backup battery (great to see others had the same idea as me), except I have used individual relays activated by the 24VDC of the pumps power supplies.

I would advise against using 2x12V batteries for 24V as when fully charged a SLA battery is actually 12.7-12.9V, so you could be putting almost 26VDC into them, which might be fine, but it is always best to run at a lower voltage than higher, plus 2 100Ah batteries in parallel will give more than double the run time as the pumps will run slower at 12V and draw less power (assuming your return can maintain flow like this)

I would also suggest looking into LifePO4 batteries instead of SLA (and chargers to go with them). LifePO4 are more expensive, but last a lot longer and have a higher depth of discharge of 80% or more, compared to SLA which is 50%

 

[Tft12]

@USMA36 Did you ever get your battery backup built and running?

 

[USMA36]

Actually I did. I ended up using a 60ah AGM battery and wall trickle charger. Right now I only have 2 mp40s on it which that battery will run those for days. I am going to upgrade to a 50 or 75ah LifePo4 lithium battery. It’ll last a lot longer and then I can run a Vectra L2 in 10% and the battery would still last over a day.

 

[Tft12]

Actually I did. I ended up using a 60ah AGM battery and wall trickle charger. Right now I only have 2 mp40s on it which that battery will run those for days. I am going to upgrade to a 50 or 75ah LifePo4 lithium battery. It’ll last a lot longer and then I can run a Vectra L2 in 10% and the battery would still last over a day.

Nice. So did you decide not to put Gyres on battery backup? On a past system I had a number of MP60s on a 155ah battery. I found your thread while trying to find out how to make a DIY battery backup for my IceCap Gyre 4Ks.