Cheap Battery Charger or Inverter

Here's an idea for you. An Un-interrupted Power Supply (UPS) is generally used to keep your computer running during a short power outage. Rather than replacing the $30 battery, a lot of unknowing people/companies throw out their UPSs when the battery won't hold a charge anymore.

Inside of this boxes are two things that are useful, a battery trickle charger and an inverter that takes 12VDC and changes it to 110VAC.

My company tosses them out all the time rather than messing with them - maybe yours does too. So go dumpster diving and build something!

Typically what's the amperage rating for these two ckts. contained in the (UPS)?

Steve in Mi said:

Typically what's the amperage rating for these two ckts. contained in the (UPS)?

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Amperage depends on the size UPS you have and there are many different sizes.

The 110V Outlets on the back of my UPS (650VA model) states 410W (around 3.5A) maximum. The charger probably isn't more than a couple amps for charging the 12V/12AH battery inside. This is the similar to my motorcycle batteries and it maintains them at about 13.7 volts.

Note: The UPS is meant to charge a maintenance free sealed battery.

I designed my own system and have mentioned it on here before. My Office runs on two six volt batteries with a ( Large Deltrans Tender ) charger on the mains as well as two Solar Panels. If the mains go off I can just work on regardless. The Charger is on a time switch so it only works at night when I have off peak power and the Solar panels charge during the day and yes I get a charge this time of year in our Winter.

I run all the items I need in my office - Computer , Scanner , Printer etc as well as the Fax machine, Answer machine and Phone. It is a far better set up than the UPS system you buy just for the computer.

To copy this idea all you need to do is have a power box form an invertor to run what you need or like me you could get an electrician in to hard wire some power point than run from an invertor.