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For a long time I wanted to have something like a Xantrex Portable Backup Power System 1500.
The idea of having a silent, off-grid power supply ready for taking in camping trips or wherever I
need power for small repair jobs was not possible for several reasons: I live in Romania and over
here our grid is 220V (Xantrex being 110V) and the ridiculous pricetag of anything similar. Sure, a
small gas generator would have been enough but I hate hearing such noise in our camping trips.
Besides, I wanted it to be able to charge it from solar panels.
Last week I was cleaning the attic and I found an old Mustek 800Pro UPS I knew (and forgot) I had.
It had no battery but It worked. I also had three 12V/7.2AH SLA batteries. Searching the net on this
generator subject I noticed several similar builds that shared the same idea. They were using an
inverter for AC output but I decided to repurpose that UPS unit I found. This is a controversial
subject but using a UPS unit has its perks. I'll get to this part later on.
So I headed to a local hardware store and came home with the needed stuff. The main thing was the
project box. It had to be able to contain everything, be sturdy enough to take the weight and provide
some side panels for the external connectors. I found this blue tool box that eventually gave my
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project a name (very original, I know). The next steps describe the 7 days process. Total cost of the
project (excluding my work) - around 180 USD. Cheap, silent and very useful.
DISCLAIMER: This project is NOT for people that do not have advanced skills in electric work
and electronic circuits. While building this project LETHAL voltages are available on some
parts of it. I take no responsibility for any injuries that may occur while building this by other
people.
ADVICE: If you feel like taking this with you on a holiday trip, avoid getting there by airplane
as you'll never pass airport security with this. (Good luck trying to explain the security officer
that this box full of wires and stuff, with something that looks like a timer on the lid is just a
glorified UPS unit.) :-)
Step 1: Layout and planing
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I started by gathering everything I wanted to use on this project in a separate box. Power plugs,
electrical wire, batteries, electronic circuits, connectors, etc. My workspace is very small so I needed
to have everything at hand. The blue box I found had the perfect size for my project. It also had side
panels I could use for mounting the external switches and sockets. The only thing I wasn't happy
was the flimsy plastic It's made of. But I handled that too.
Inside this box I wanted to have the UPS electronic board along with three 12V/7.2AH SLA batteries
I had around. The batteries will be connected in paralel for a total amount of 12V/21.6AH battery
bank. Not much but enough tor light loads. I first dismantled the UPS unit and kept only the
mainboard and the transformer. Then I arranged all the components inside the box. It soon occured
to me that I had to arange things so that the weight get evenly distributed. As the box had a top -
centered handle I had to arange things like the last photo of this step shows. Any other layout was
out of balance and made the box impossible to carry around. Then I decided I have to reinforce the
box as the bottom was soft and started to bulge a bit when lifted. See the next step.
The schematic shows the general layout. I'm no technical engineer but you should understand it. It's
actually pretty simple. Like a LEGO game for grown-ups. Except that, let me repeat this, it all should
be made by people with proper skills. The 220V live lines are LETHAL when touched. Not depicted
here, the grounding wires were all preserved and connected to the input plug ground wire. This way,
whenever a power surge happens, it can stay connected to any wall socket and use the grounding of
the grid. When camping however no grounding will be available. (Unless you're willing to stick a
copper rod 2 meters deep into the ground and connect it to any grounding wire of the generator.)
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Step 2: Getting the box ready
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The box needed reinforcing (the perfect Pelikan boxes are unavailable here). The combined weight
of about 15 kg of components was more than it was designed to handle. So I used a very sturdy
plywood sheet (cut to the shape of the box) to hold everthing. This plywood got four rubber legs
(second photo of this step) mounted using 8mm bolts. This way, the entire weight was supported
by the plywood and its four legs while providing some clearance from the ground. This was very
good because such a heavy box could easily get punctured by some small rock on the ground.
Reinforcing job done, I got my good old DREMEL and started to cut out the power connectors and
switches. This was a pig of a job. The dremel is too fast for cutting plastic and it melted everything in
its path. It all went like I was cutting butter with a hot knife. No second chances. Just mark your
shape and start the mess. Oh, be advised, the smell of melted plastic is horrible as always. Use a
vell ventilated area when doing this. Try not to inhale the fumes.
The DC panel (the fourth photo of this step) needed some special treatment. I wanted to have a fan
cool down the UPS board as I always noticed that MUSTEK UPS running hot wether its charging or
providing power. That will shorten your battery life. So I used a 60 mm PC fan I had around. At first I
wanted to have a switch for it to turn it on or off but then I remembered I had a small circuit I built a
long time ago that was a thermal switch for fans. (insert here two days looking for it ). I found it and I
decided it will be great as it had a thermistor I could use on the cooling radiator to read the
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temperature and turn the fan on or off accordingly. I cut out the fan hole and mounted a protection
grill over it. The small fuse visible on top is for the DC plug.
Step 3: Assembly time
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I used the grooves on the bottom of the box to run some wires under the plywood sheet. This was
for wire management only. Then I started adding the components. The second photo shows the
UPS trasformer bolted to the plywood. Also I kept some of the old UPS case to shield the UPS board
from the rest of components. That was also bolted to the plywood. The third photo shows some
plastic ribbons I used to secure the batteries in place. I run those thru some cuttings I made in the
plywood. My plan was to use industrial-strength double-sided adhesive tape on the bottom of each
battery and use these plastic ribbons as an added security. You wouldnt's want those things to start
move around the box. The last photo shows everything in place. It's all very sturdy. The thick grey
wire (actually an ethernet CAT5 cable) is for the lid connections, more on this in the next step.
All the electrical connections were insulated and verified. Do not take shortcuts when doing
this. It's important that you make this part properly as dangerous voltages are involved and
you or your loved ones may risk electrical shock when using this unit.
The entire assembly involved several undo operations as the space got cramped in places and I had
to mount some things and then the ones on top of them. The last photo also shows the external
battery connectors (two 8mm bolts) that were connected the the positive and negative of the battery
bank. Those got two plastic spacers (one red and one black) indicating the polarity. I'll also put a
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plastic cap on them to avoid shorting them. Having external connectors is very important. You could
put a solar regulator on those and use a solar panel to recharge the bank. You could also start a car
off them if your car battery dies. Or you could just connect aditional batteries to increase the capacity
of your bank.
Step 4: Lid connections
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On the box lid I mounted a panel voltmeter. I wanted to have a quick look on the battery bank
voltage whenever I wanted. The panel voltmeter I had needed a separate power supply of 9V to run
and at start I was thinking of using a 9V battery and holder. But then I would have had another
battery to watch out for. So I used another circuit I built some time ago, an isolated power supply of
9V that was perfect for the job. This way the voltmeter takes power from the same battery it's
measuring.
The link is here:http://www.thebackshed.com/windmill/articles/PanelMeter.asp
The three LEDs are taken from the UPS front panel . The yellow one turns on when it's working in
"offline mode" providing power to the power sockets. The green one turns on when it's working as an
UPS. The red turns on whenever AC overload occurs or battery voltage gets too low (11.8V). Then
the power output is automatically stopped to protect the battery. This is one of the great features of
using an UPS as an inverter as you already have charging/generating/discharge protection in one
unit. Be aware that these UPS units are not designed to run for extended amounts of time. Therefore
I used a Pentium II cooler on top of the existing one as well as a cooling fan. As long as you handle
the heat, you're fine. Oh, one more thing. The UPS had a lound buzzer that I discarded. The status
LEDs are enough.
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The lid (last photo of this step) was powered (bank voltage and LED connections to the UPS board)
via an Ethernet CAT5 wire. This one had eight pairs of wires. Two were used as power supply (and
battery voltage) for the voltmeter and the remaining three pairs for the status leds. A messy job
involving a gluegun and steady hands (the rest of the unit was already completed and the lid could
only be opened about 100 degrees). I will cover all these wires with a rectangular plastic cover to
protect & hide them.
Step 5: Testing
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I have yet to test this generator. The first power on test went fine, everything works. The cooling fan
turns on after about 10 minutes of charging via power plug or when turning on power output. Then it
turns off as it cools down. The UPS takes 0.5A when running as an inverter, with no load. The
voltmeter takes 60mA. The cooling fan about 180mA. Charging via the power socket is going to be
three times longer as the original UPS unit only had one battery. Now it has three.
I have a 5W solar panel I want to test this unit with but it's way too small to charge the entire bank.
Maybe in a month or so, if the sun keeps shining. :-) The generator powered a small TV set with no
problems. That TV was a 60W CRT type. I figure as long as I keep my load on this unit under 500W
things will be fine. I'll edit this instructables and post the results here as soon as I run some real load
tests.