Small UPS

[crystal ball]

Looking for a UPS to power MILs lifeline pendant dial out, seen a few on amazon for £80ish, any recommendations from those in the know

 

[ericmark]

It would stop it sending the report to the monitoring station that the power had failed, so would seem to defeat the whole point of having a pendent system.

When my mothers power failed we got an automatic report it had failed.

 

[crystal ball]

Yes but we would prefer the system was still live, not much we can do during power cut

 

[bernardgreen]

not much we can do during power cut

But you need to be aware of the power cut, you can then check by phone if the person is OK, more accidents in the home happen when there is a power cut.

Some of the pendant systems are ELV ( 12 volt ) with a plug top power unit supplying 12 v DC to the unit. These could be run from a 12 volt battery during a power cut.

Any changes to the way the unit is set up would almost certainly require permission from the monitoring company / council.

 

[crystal ball]

We only live around the corner so would be aware of a power cut, due to various disabilities the pendant is the best option

 

[davelx]

What is the load (VA) and how long do you need it to hold up? Small UPSs are really meant just to allow a clean shutdown when the power fails, but if the load is small enough might do what you need.

APC a a popular brand, I have one on my CCTV.

 

[bernardgreen]

We only live around the corner so would be aware of a power cut,

yes for a district wide loss of power but a cable failure could be just one street that looses power, or an RCD tripping in the house.

 

[crystal ball]

No RCD, but thats why we want a UPS that would maintain the lifeline

 

[ericmark]

I used a pendent system for years with my mother, that does not need UPS, maybe if you install a camera and use internet then the router will need UPS, but a house wide UPS is very expensive better individually items, emergency lights etc.

The fact that the pendent used the phone rather than internet was at some times a pain, as a phone needs answering, so when she pressed the pendent it would connect to monitoring service, but once dropped no way to get in contact again unless mother answered the phone or we used some internet device, we had a camera which also recorded temperature and had voice, I lived just 6 miles away, but in middle of night getting up and dressed and jumping in car because she caught pendent undressing was not funny.

The camera was good, in main living room only, but did activate one time to hear mother shouting help when she had knocked toilet door off with wheel chair, she had pressed button and alerted the call centre, but for some reason they had not heard her shouting. But the call centre was required, they called fire and ambulance, it did not matter if I was out, drunk, or anything else, they would ensure some one went to the house, and would where required give out key safe number and log it so it could then be changed.

It cost £100 per year and that included all the set up, door contacts, bed sensors the lot, all vie the local council social services.

I had UPS at work, they broke down more often than we had power cuts,

We only live around the corner so would be aware of a power cut, due to various disabilities the pendant is the best option

so why use UPS? emergency lights yes but the pendent has its own built in UPS so not required for pendent, if it is not, then get a proper pendent that has got UPS built in.

 

[crystal ball]

Pendant does not have UPS, but after looking into small scale UPS they will not be any good as run times are short, camera would be best option but no internet, the storm today got the wife worrying

 

[Bill Door]

We have a business at home and we live in the sticks with a lot of brown-outs and occasional power cuts. I've used APC UPS devices for over 20 years and they've been completely faultless. I have one which is 24 yrs old and on its sixth battery, running the pump on our fish tank.

I always crack the case and disable the alarm speaker though. It's more of an annoyance than any kind of help for me.

 

[crystal ball]

How long does it run for?

 

[Bill Door]

It depends on the load and the size of the UPS, but I've found that the APC run-time charts are reliable. We currently run 6 UPSs.

Generally any more than an hour of uptime is ambitious. I plan to have 30 mins for each application.

 

[ericmark]

I use a jump starting unit, has compressor, 200 VA power supply and built in charger etc, with a 20 Ah VRLA battery, enough to keep essentials running. But not automatic.

You can expand on this idea, any size battery you like supplying any size inverter you want, common to see narrow boats with 3 KW inverter fitted, but of course there are losses as a 60 Ah battery with a 120 VA inverter theory should last 6 hours, in the real world 5 to 24 hours depending on the load.

I googled the pendent you say is fitted and it said

Main unit can use 4 x AAA batteries for back up (not included)

so may be you just need to fit batteries? Before mother was bad enough to need monitoring station we used an Aldi mobile phone, with rear panic button which could be programmed, with no camera or games etc, it would last a week on a charge.

I would expect the unit I found

to last at least a month, but typical drain on AAA battery is 10 mA max, so a 7 Ah battery would last around 400 hours, or around 2 weeks so battery and charger would last a very long time.

I think step one is details of the auto dialler, I am sure it will have a sticker on the back saying how much it uses.

 

[crystal ball]

I will have a gander tonight when we put her to bed