damage to silence pump??

[lovetoreef]

Roger -

if i use a traditional computer ups to back up my tunze silence return pump, will the modified sine wave damage the pump?? when i have run it on the ups, it runs a tad rough, but, otherwise normal?? of course, it would be running when the power is out - thanks.

gerard

 

[rvitko]

It is not recommended long term, but for a brief outage of a couple hours it shouldn't cause any harm.

 

[lovetoreef]

what about 30-40 hours worst case situtation?

 

[rvitko]

That would probably be pushing the limit of the UPS, most are about 300-500 aH which will translate to 10-15 hrs at best.

 

[lovetoreef]

well, i plan on using an inverter/charger unit that will be tied to a deep cycle marine battery with a rating of around 75 AH ... the inverter provides a modified sine wave though

 

[rvitko]

75aH will run the pump for about 2 hrs factoring the losses from the inverter. It is very difficult to get more than a few hours from a return pump that uses 115V running off a battery, the best solution for a longer duration is a generator. I would consider the UPS a tide over from when the power files from when you get home, a generator would be required for longer run times.

 

[lovetoreef]

okay - thanks for the information - that makes it much easier for me

 

[lovetoreef]

well, as these things go, i got ahead of myself ... i was able to purchase an inverter/charger setup made by xantrex that provides battery, switching capability etc ...

so, roger you are saying even with a battery rated at 70 AH i am only going to get 2 hours from my return pump (using one of the silence return pumps at 40 watts) at best? do you use that much power in convertering the power over from dc to ac??

could i use a safety connector with my wavebox and install an air stone with battery powered air pump adjacent to the wavebox as a means to keep oxygen levels up?? thanks.

 

[rvitko]

70 Amp Hours means the battery can run 70 Amps for 1 hr. If you take the pump is rated at 30W at 120V, it is .25A roughly, not considering the PF. But from an inverted 12V source it will draw about 3A considering losses of the inverter and the Amps required for the conversion. Now that I calculate it out I see I was wrong, it looks like 20Hrs or so is possible.

 

[lovetoreef]

okay - that is much better - with a 100 AH battery, i am getting a decent run time until i can get the generator online

the next question is how well the silence pumps will run on a modified sine wave ... is there a pump on the market that runs "better" on modified sine waves than a tunze pump??

 

[rvitko]

Without going to a low voltage DC pump like the 5001, you won't really find anything better. The 5001 can be used as a return but doesn't handle head pressure as well, it also is set up for metric pipe and you would need 24V to get the full power from it.

 

[lovetoreef]

do you have a link with information on the 5001 ... i won't have a ton of head pressure and i can make the metric connections work, but, not sur how to handle the 24V??

 

[rvitko]

You would hook up 2 12V batteries in series so the negative of one ran to the hot of the other and you connect the free hot and free neutral to the safety connector 6105.500. You can find the 5001 on Tunze.com, I will send a PM as well.

 

[lovetoreef]

roger - thank you for the link - i sent you a few follow up questions.