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Building an Alternative UPS

2) 300 Watt Power Inverter Estimated Cost: $50 - $80 Input: 12 V Nominal DC Output: 115V AC If you want the same one that I've got... get a SIMA SPV-3 300 Watt Power Inverter. It'll come with a cigarette lighter adapter as well as two alligator clamps. Guess which ones we're going to be using. If you guessed the clamps, you guessed right. These can range in price from $50 all the way up to the $80 I have listed. Really, the best thing to do would be to search for "Sima SPV-3"... Trust me, you'll get a lot of results and some excellent prices. If you're going to be running more than one computer or if you are going to be running a LARGE monitor and lots of accessories, I might suggest that you try a 600W inverter instead. The conclusion page will have a simple equation to follow in order to determine how much that'll cut out of your runtime. 3) 12Volt "SureCharge IV" Float Charger Estimated Cost: $30 - $40 These little beauties will never over-charge the battery by automatically sensing when the battery needs to be charged. With lead acid batteries, their care is exactly opposite of most Ni-cad and Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries and should always be kept at a full charge. This little thing can be had for around $30-40 and keeps me from ever having to charge the battery to maintain it.

However, these little chargers won't charge the battery back up to it's full capacity if you should happen to run this battery for a long time and drain it. So for that, I'd recommend picking up a cheap 6 amp automatic charger from your local walmart for $20 too. This you can use on your car battery too so you won't be.. *cough* wasting money. Don't leave this on the battery all of the time, only after you've run off the battery for a few hours. And despite what anyone else may tell you fairy tails about charging your batteries in only a couple of hours, you should leave your battery on this thing for no less than overnight after a good run. Otherwise, let the float charger do the work for you.

4) 12Volt Car Battery Charger 2Amp, 6Amp or 10Amp Estimated Cost: $20 - $30 There's no need to go spend a fortune on this but it's important to get an automatic battery charger (designed for cars) which will charge at, AT LEAST two amps. To be honest, you really want to try and get a 6Amp or 10Amp variant because they will charge the battery up from dead alot quicker. This charger will only be used to charge the battery back up after a long use. Like if the power goes out for a few hours, you'll want to disconnect the float charger mentioned above and the connect this for a few hours to bring it back up.


Written By: Jayson C Block
Date: 7-5-04
Views: 13794
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