|
Back up power for incubators
O.K, so my hot water bottle idea sucked.
The power went out last night for quite a while. I watched the incubator drop 2.5 F. Then I had second thoughts about opening the door to put warm water in - thinking it might be better to leave the door closed and well insulated.
Didn't matter. We didn't have any water pressure as the whole town was without water. My barbeque was without propane (1 minute into cooking supper no doubt!) and I thought I was screwed.
Today, my mom asked me if we used the "eliminator". You see, at Christmas mom bought me one of those little units that look like a ghetto blaster (but are like 30 lbs of batter) and can be used to boost vehicles (I've boosted 3 dead vehicles, and I am still on 90% power)
Anyways, these little units rock. They can also be used to run 120 V AC power appliances for short periods of time.
The incubator is not high wattage, and the thermostat only brings on the heat maybe 10% of the time. I'm going to hook up the "eliminator" to the incubator tommorrow and see how long I can keep it running.
Now my question to Roy or anyone who might know. Is there some kind of electrical relay I could find that would sense a loss of commercial power and turn on the auxillary power unit (eliminator). I know Hospitals and other places have large ones for their back up power units, but could I find something small and cheap, and if so where could I find such a thing?
Ryan
|
Threaded Mode