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Battery Pack and Inverter

YotaBota

Mike
Premium Member
I was doing yard work and the battery in the cordless weed eater died. Went to get the gas weed eater, it was out of gas and the gas can was empty. Where I was working was to far for the extension cord. Now what? I bought a BIG portable battery pack and inverter, it's only one 15A plug it's going to the corded machine for a while.:)

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I was doing yard work and the battery in the cordless weed eater died. Went to get the gas weed eater, it was out of gas and the gas can was empty. Where I was working was to far for the extension cord. Now what? I bought a BIG portable battery pack and inverter, it's only one 15A plug it's going to the corded machine for a while.:)

I did something similar at my previous house. I installed a battery backed 12V sump pump. Worked fine for short outages. Then we lost power for a week and the basement started to flood. I ran 10 gauge wires to the garage and put jumper studs on the wall. After that we parked the car in front of the garage and jumpered it to the studs to run the backup system. Worked awesome.

Need to do that here. Have the pump already. Project 42n.
 
I did something similar at my previous house. I installed a battery backed 12V sump pump. Worked fine for short outages. Then we lost power for a week and the basement started to flood. I ran 10 gauge wires to the garage and put jumper studs on the wall. After that we parked the car in front of the garage and jumpered it to the studs to run the backup system. Worked awesome.

Need to do that here. Have the pump already. Project 42n.
FWIW,
I installed a water powered sump pump for when we have electrical outages, obviously only works if you have city water that is maintained during electrical outages, but it does work very well.
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FWIW,
I installed a water powered sump pump for when we have electrical outages, obviously only works if you have city water that is maintained during electrical outages, but it does work very well.

Word of caution. I had one of those. NEVER AGAIN. They work fine when new. But mine failed me every time I actually needed it. The jet and valve calcify in the ground water that fills a sump pump hole from the wall tiles. The calcium deposits stop the jet and the valve from working properly.

After my first basement flood, I was told they are ok if you take them apart and clean them out monthly and exercise them weekly. That was simply too onerous for me, I stopped doing it, and it bit me HARD again. That was when I removed it and installed a home made 12V system using a BIG high lift boat bilge pump system with independent float switch.
 
Word of caution. I had one of those. NEVER AGAIN. They work fine when new. But mine failed me every time I actually needed it. The jet and valve calcify in the ground water that fills a sump pump hole from the wall tiles. The calcium deposits stop the jet and the valve from working properly.

After my first basement flood, I was told they are ok if you take them apart and clean them out monthly and exercise them weekly. That was simply too onerous for me, I stopped doing it, and it bit me HARD again. That was when I removed it and installed a home made 12V system using a BIG high lift boat bilge pump system with independent float switch.
Thanks for the warning, I installed it about 1-2 years back and it seems to be working fine. I'm going to unplug the electric and see what happens. Just tested and It's still working.

How long before yours stopped working?
 
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Thanks for the warning, I installed it about 1-2 years back and it seems to be working fine. I'm going to unplug the electric and see what happens. Just tested and It's still working.

How long before yours stopped working?

I'd say two years from when it was first installed.

How long it takes to calcify is probably related to the volume of water going through your sump pump. There might even be a sweet spot - too little and it glues shut, too much and it cokes up. I don't know.

I think the second time was about 9 months later.

My current system even has an alarm that notifies my security monitoring company and my cell phone.

I believe in prevention, awareness, backup, and monitoring for security, smoke/fire, CO, and flooding. My farm insurance discount pays for the monitoring. service.
 
I was doing yard work and the battery in the cordless weed eater died. Went to get the gas weed eater, it was out of gas and the gas can was empty. Where I was working was to far for the extension cord. Now what? I bought a BIG portable battery pack and inverter, it's only one 15A plug it's going to the corded machine for a while.:)

View attachment 36003
Congratulations...... It's about time they came up with an exoskeleton battery pack on wheels. Time to get in the shop and mount the mower deck to the front of it, or are you thinking of a tow behind?:p
 
Congratulations...... It's about time they came up with an exoskeleton battery pack on wheels. Time to get in the shop and mount the mower deck to the front of it, or are you thinking of a tow behind?:p
Have to be a tow behind,,,,,,, the loader goes up front.;)

Thanks Don, the other half loves all the tech stuff, I just want to drive it.:)
 
I'd say two years from when it was first installed.

How long it takes to calcify is probably related to the volume of water going through your sump pump. There might even be a sweet spot - too little and it glues shut, too much and it cokes up. I don't know.

I think the second time was about 9 months later.

My current system even has an alarm that notifies my security monitoring company and my cell phone.

I believe in prevention, awareness, backup, and monitoring for security, smoke/fire, CO, and flooding. My farm insurance discount pays for the monitoring. service.

We also have the alarm to cell, definitely worthwhile.

I have the float for the water backup located above the normal high water level set by the electric sump, so unless the electric fails the water powered float is resting in its low or closed position. The float mechanism connects to what looks like a diaphragm style valve via a 1/8" tube, the diaphragm valve is about 18" above the floor so not submerged. I'm not sure how that 1/8" tube actually triggers the valve ( water, vacuum)?

Need to keep an eye out for 12V pump, what size battery do you use?
Our electric sump does not seem to operate very often.
 
We have the float for the water backup located above the normal high water level set by the electric sump, so unless the electric fails the water powered float is resting in its low or closed position. The float mechanism connects to what looks like a diaphragm style valve via a 1/8" tube, the diaphragm valve is about 18" above the floor so not submerged. I'm not sure how that 1/8" tube actually triggers the valve ( water, vacuum)?

Your system sounds different from what we had. So I cannot really comment on how it works.

What I can say is that my system failed because of crust like calcium deposits formed from the normal high calcium in the ground water that drains into the sump pump. In my case, that water comes from the gravel foundation inside and outside of the basement wall concrete footings. It is standard construction practice. But some homes may use crushed granite or beach stone which would not produce the calcium like limestone gravel does.

The crust deposits did two things. It froze up the valve, and it choked up the venturi nozzle.

Need to keep an eye out for 12V pump, what size battery do you use?

I use a regular marine deep cycle battery sitting in a plastic box on a wood platform near the sump-pump. NEVER put a battery directly onto a concrete floor. It's probably 500 to 600 CCA and 50 to 75 AHrs. It's just a standard car size - nothing special. Even the deep cycle rating isn't that important because it isn't used often enough to be damaged by the deep draw.

You can buy pumps that are designed to use in a 12V backup sump pump system. But given how horrible my last flood was, I went into hyper defense mode and did everything overkill. Hence the large expensive high lift marine bilge pump.

I also didn't plumb the backup system output into the regular sump output either because I didn't trust a check valve. Instead, it goes into a 2" abs drain pipe of its own that just goes out onto the lawn where there is a downhill slope away from the house. I didn't worry about erosion because it hardly ever gets used and what is a little lawn repair?

I phased my system similar to the way you did with a few extra elements. I decided to use the subfloor gravel as an accumulator. So my electrical switch is located about a foot above the regular sump pump float switch. That way, the backup pump doesn't come on until after the water fills the pump hole and the gravel under the floor. Even in a heavy downpour it takes several hours to fill the gravel.

My alarm levels are also 2 phased. The first is a simple alert that the gravel is starting to fill, and the other is an alarm set to go off if the water goes above the backup trigger point.

Our electric sump does not seem to operate very often.

Sounds like you are lucky and your location is not prone to flooding. This might be a very good thing for your water powered backup system. I'd still check it regularly though. At our previous home (the one that flooded) I would actually wake up in the middle of the night if the pump DIDN'T come on regularly! My wife used to say that it proved I was either wired wrong from birth or dropped on my head as a baby.

Where we are now, the pump works fairly often in the spring and goes on vacation all summer and fall. Winters are quite variable.

I think you would be well advised to figure out exactly how your system works, determine its weakness, and address them as appropriate. A flooded basement totally completely sucks!

One more thing. We had both storm and sanitary sewers at our last house. They can fail too. I broke up the concrete and installed big serviceable check valves in a valve pit. I checked and cleaned them once a year. I highly recommend that to anyone who has sewers.
 
NEVER put a battery directly onto a concrete floor.
Here we go:D
There seem to be some pretty mixed opinions about this.
It sounds like if the battery is in good condition, as in not leaking or covered in crud, then there is no problem.
Cause this thread needed a good tangent.
 
All rite, let's make it a battery and oil tangent, LOL.
Maintain and check your battery and pump, put level sensors in and or float valves, keep pumps off bottom unless spacers or legs on them, check intakes/screens. And remember, it will work when you are watching it.
 
There seem to be some pretty mixed opinions about this.

I knew when I wrote it that somebody would take issue with that. Thanks for not disappointing me! LOL.

I'm sorta in your camp. If if if if.

But I have had too many problems with it over the course of my life. Prolly because of ONE of those ifs. That said, never had a problem in a plastic base on a wooden platform even with the ifs. Sometimes experience is worth listening to. This coming from an automotive engineer who knows the science! LOL!
 
I knew when I wrote it that somebody would take issue with that. Thanks for not disappointing me! LOL.

I'm sorta in your camp. If if if if.
Not camping, just passing through.
Only thing I know about batteries is that if I let them go dead in a vehicle over the winter I have to buy a new one in the spring.
Also If I save up enough dead batteries on the concrete shop floor eventually I'm able to trade them all in on a new one and begin the cycle again.
Hey... maybe it isn't that concrete floors kill batteries, they ATTRACT themo_O
 
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