Making a "custom" UPS

[MadFly]

My dad has 2 truck batteries lying there in the corner of the garage, he has no use for it, so I was wondering how can I put it to use. Seeing that South Africa is suffering from alot of power outages, and somthing called load shedding, I would like to make 1 UPS from those 2 truck batteries.

What do I need? What sort of converters and adapters and stuff?

And then probably the most important Q of them all, how do I put everything together that once the power is off, I can still run my server and pc's for a few more "hours" or minutes or how ever long those 2 batteries will last, off that UPS made from the 2 truck batteries?

[weEvil]

1. What ratings are the batteries? Volts, mAh... anything else.

2. How old? Physical condition.

3. I'm assuming lead acid. Do they have a 'top up' cap on them?

I'm sure you can get a standard battery recharger, like for automobiles to charge them up.

As for running your equipment off them, you need some kind of DC to AC converter.

I have one for my car that hooks up into the lighter socket. It runs off 12v and its rated for 60W continuous.

You would need one rated 130W or more depending on what your equipment sucks down, and how much equipment you are hooking up.

Oh and one more thing. I hope you are aware of the dangers of messing around with lead acid batteries.

1. If you overcharge them, they can and do explode.

2. If they discharge less than 40% the acid begins eating the lead degrading your battery.

3. Risk of fatal (that means you die) electric shock if you do something stupid. Read up if you don't know.

Edited February 22, 2008 by brucevangeorge