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UPS for treadmill?

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ukiltmybrutha

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Hi,

My treadmill keeps us healthy but not so much when the power goes out. Once the power dies, if you are running 10mph you are running 10mph into the control panel which could cause serious injuries. Power in the area is unpredictable and can go out with no warning. I have no interest in a whole house generator and use my portable generator to power the whole house via interlock switch thanks to you fine folks here and I wish to go no further.

I used both sense and my kill-a-watt meter to identify that the wattage does not exceed about 750w with it set at max and elevating the platform at the same time.

I am reading that some UPS are not suitable for motors, etc. I just want to make sure this thing powers it long enough so that I can manually stop it and bring it to a smooth stop.

What kind of UPS should I be buying?

Thanks.
 
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mogandave

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I have a Schneider for my PC and whatnot that's been good to me.

I'm guessing the motor rating thing is due to motor start-loads.

fudatyoudie
 
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ripperd

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IMHO the motor rating won't be as big of a deal for a treadmill. Treadmills naturally are very soft start with low inrush.

I'm a little surprised yours doesn't coast down very well. Ours has a massive flywheel and coasts down at a pretty reasonable pace I think, although I've never tried truly cutting power to it.

The control electronics within it probably are fairly sensitive though. And 750w continuous is probably more like 1200+w peak as each time you step it slows down a little and the controller instantaneously pushes a little more current to the motor to get it to keep speed for that brief period of time.


You might be able to get away with something like this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00429N19W/?tag=atomicindus08-20

But a more sure-fire bet would be something like this: https://tripplite.eaton.com/1440va-...s-avr-120v-50-60hz-usb-lcd-tower~SMART1500TSU
 
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Innovate1

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Before setting up a UPS I would be inclined to try a power failure and see what happens. They have large flywheels to smooth out the footsteps. Do some running and have someone else turn off the power. You could start at slower speed and gradually work up to full speed, stopping if things get too abrupt. Knowing the power will go off means you will be expecting it and can react quicker than an unexpected outage so that needs to be factored in too.

Treadmills do have high inrush as the caps charge but it's a much shorter inrush than starting a motor. The power factor is low so they have much higher line current for a given power level. And the peak current is much higher than a true sinusoidal current of the same RMS level. So a UPS needs to be larger than the watts or even the VA rating of the load to give comfortable margin. I would probably start at something like 2 - 3 times more.
 
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paranoid56

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i would try it before buying a ups. i know on our peloton tred if you unplug it mid run it just slows down and stops. it didnt just lock up. nothing dangerous when it happened to me.
 
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ukiltmybrutha

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Hi, I already tried it and it stopped immediately when unplugged. I purchased a Costco model before these posts started ramping up. 900w unit. The majority of you say that is too little. I think that Sense would have caught any ramp up draw if it were any higher than 750w. I will report back and let you know what happens either way. Thanks.
 
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mike93lx

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Those outages are going to cause damage to stuff like fridges, a/c's, computers, tv's, etc.

Voltage drops and spikes and likely surges.

I'd at least make sure you have good surge protection on anything you care about.

Where do you live that the power drops out so much that you need a ups for a treadmill?
 
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ukiltmybrutha

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mike93lx said:
Those outages are going to cause damage to stuff like fridges, a/c's, computers, tv's, etc.

Voltage drops and spikes and likely surges.

I'd at least make sure you have good surge protection on anything you care about.

Where do you live that the power drops out so much that you need a ups for a treadmill?
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I have surge protectors on the items I care about. I lost one of my TVs due to that in the past. Mike, not too far away from you. Spotsylvania County.
 
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rlitman

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ukiltmybrutha said:
...I used both sense and my kill-a-watt meter to identify that the wattage does not exceed about 750w with it set at max and elevating the platform at the same time...
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Those measure thermal power (what you're billed for on your electric meter). Unfortunately the UPS (just like a generator) will experience "apparent" power, which is going to be more than thermal power by some amount (and with motors, that amount can be a lot, perhaps double or even more). In the case of a treadmill, the power usage depends on the horsepower of the motor, the weight of the runner, and the inertia of the system (flywheel, etc.). Every time your foot comes down the belt slows down and speeds up, and the motor power factor (as well as current) rises and falls to keep it running as smoothly as possible. That's about as bad a load as a UPS can expect, except perhaps a microwave oven.

I'd venture a guess that a 2000W UPS would run a treadmill well, but that's just a guess. There are two risks of overtaxing an undersized UPS. Either it just decides it's overloaded and shuts down (returning you to the power outage scenario we're discussing), or the pulsed power draw causes enormous electrical noise that can potentially damage your equipment.

ukiltmybrutha said:
The educated goal is to shut it off quickly after a power failure. Hoping for the best.
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Got it. You're trying to avoid injury. Well, an automatic generator wouldn't help with this anyway, since it requires time to start up and transfer, so a UPS is your only option. The good news here is you're not worried about run-time, so battery capacity and UPS cooling aren't a big deal for you.
 
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wyliesdiesels

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rlitman said:
Those measure thermal power (what you're billed for on your electric meter). Unfortunately the UPS (just like a generator) will experience "apparent" power, which is going to be more than thermal power by some amount (and with motors, that amount can be a lot, perhaps double or even more). In the case of a treadmill, the power usage depends on the horsepower of the motor, the weight of the runner, and the inertia of the system (flywheel, etc.). Every time your foot comes down the belt slows down and speeds up, and the motor power factor (as well as current) rises and falls to keep it running as smoothly as possible. That's about as bad a load as a UPS can expect, except perhaps a microwave oven.

I'd venture a guess that a 2000W UPS would run a treadmill well, but that's just a guess. There are two risks of overtaxing an undersized UPS. Either it just decides it's overloaded and shuts down (returning you to the power outage scenario we're discussing), or the pulsed power draw causes enormous electrical noise that can potentially damage your equipment.
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bingo. I suspect the UPS will go into overload shutdown mode....

i also suspect the electronics in the treadmill wont like the simulated sinewave output of the UPS either
 
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rlitman

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mike93lx said:
I believe most treadmills are DC. Does that change anything regarding power draw spikes under load?
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The motors are usually DC universal motors, though three phase AC motors are used in the better ones. Harmonic power issues would be inherent in the circuit (is the DC PWM for example, or VFD for an AC motor), while while the load itself varies due to the user. Harmonic loads especially get "louder" when run on something small like a UPS or generator, but good true-sinewave units do try very hard to actively filter noise. It's just that they have hard current limits, and when exceeded, bad things happen. Look at the inverter "generator" video Matthias Wandel did running a circular saw. The startup noise was enough to damage equipment (it ate his Kill-A-Watt). I'm not sure how much different the inertia of spinning up a circular saw blade and armature is than the impact of a runner's foot on a belt. Humans can exert quite a few horsepower in bursts, and while our "thermal" energy averages out much lower, each packet of energy can

I know that my lights blink when my air compressor runs. But the frequency of the blinking is way lower than the motor's speed, so it has to be load related, since the load ramps up and drops off with each piston stroke, which is much slower than the motor RPM, and seems to match the blink rate. That's the sort of trouble I'd expect a treadmill to make.
 
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Innovate1

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rlitman said:
The motors are usually DC universal motors, though three phase AC motors are used in the better ones. Harmonic power issues would be inherent in the circuit (is the DC PWM for example, or VFD for an AC motor), while while the load itself varies due to the user. Harmonic loads especially get "louder" when run on something small like a UPS or generator, but good true-sinewave units do try very hard to actively filter noise. It's just that they have hard current limits, and when exceeded, bad things happen. Look at the inverter "generator" video Matthias Wandel did running a circular saw. The startup noise was enough to damage equipment (it ate his Kill-A-Watt). I'm not sure how much different the inertia of spinning up a circular saw blade and armature is than the impact of a runner's foot on a belt. Humans can exert quite a few horsepower in bursts, and while our "thermal" energy averages out much lower, each packet of energy can

I know that my lights blink when my air compressor runs. But the frequency of the blinking is way lower than the motor's speed, so it has to be load related, since the load ramps up and drops off with each piston stroke, which is much slower than the motor RPM, and seems to match the blink rate. That's the sort of trouble I'd expect a treadmill to make.
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Most aren't universal motors - they are permanent magnet brush DC motors. Big difference. Higher end units may be 3 phase AC motors or other types.

A circular saw has brush currents that are horribly noisy and directly connected to the line. A treadmill motor, even if it is a brush motor (and most are), has the brushes on the output of a motor control. The motor control has huge capacitors that filter most of that out. You are comparing vastly different things.

I wouldn't expect a treadmill to damage a UPS but it may cause it to trip.
 
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