Is there a UPS suitable for fish tank filter that restarts automatically
October 22, 2018 1:15 PM   Subscribe

I have an old Tripp Lite UPS into which I have my aquarium filter plugged. It has worked well for many years, but it no longer has the longevity we need for our sometimes-long power outages in the Colorado Rockies.

I don't know the exact electrical load, but it is just a small AC motor running an impeller. However, one thing that is not ideal about this UPS, and some others that I have found, is that if allowed to run down, it will shut off and when the power comes back on, it requires a manual restart (pushing and holding a button for a few seconds). Obviously, not good for the fish if we are on vacation when it happens! Can someone recommend a good value UPS (no need for purely sinusoidal wave-forms and such) that will faithfully come back online when power is restored? I'd rather have my money go into a longer run time than into fancy features. The number of choices out there is too big to wade through, so I figured someone here is already powering their fish filter with a UPS! Thanks.
posted by Don_K to Home & Garden (7 answers total)
 
APC is one of the most respected brands in the UPS game right now. Finding out the exact load would be a good idea to help price things out for your multi-day use case. Just a basic ~$20 Kill-a-Watt monitor should be good enough, if you can't find the wattage labeled on the pump itself. (Or I guess you could just check what the watt-hours rating on your current UPS is and try to match it.)

"Automatic restart of loads after UPS shutdown" is listed as a feature on most of the units in their Smart-UPS line for networking but not the Back-UPS or Back-UPS Pro lines. From what I can tell, that's the same feature you've requested. The Smart-UPS units start from ~$140 or so, depending on capacity and other features.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:14 PM on October 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


It's a little ambiguous in your question, but it sounds like your existing tripp lite UPS is supplying power for less time than it used to? If so, it almost definitely just needs a new internal battery. Why not repair it (or have it repaired?)
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 6:30 PM on October 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


It's strange because I've deployed thousands of Trip Lite UPSs and have never run across this "press button to restart" thing. Any yeah, you probably just need a new battery in the UPS. You might even be able to get a larger capacity battery than the one you have. So it's definitely a 'feature' of some sort. We probably just had the higher end Tripp Lites (they had their own ethernet jack and I had to write the scripts to configure them... you want PITA, gah!)
posted by zengargoyle at 8:41 PM on October 22, 2018


Can you get a pump that runs on DC instead? Seems silly to have to use a UPS when you can get a battery as big as you like for much lower cost. A trickle charger (and a couple of diodes to keep the current flowing the right way) and you'd be set.
posted by kindall at 10:23 PM on October 22, 2018 [4 favorites]


it will shut off and when the power comes back on, it requires a manual restart

Which is something I've never come across, actually. Maybe it's something to do with how the mains comes back on after power cuts.

There are basically tree types of UPS: offline/standby, online, and something inbetween called line interactive or somesuch. All of them that I know put out power when either mains input is present or, when not, the batteries still have charge. Without further intervention. Standby UPSes, the cheapest variant, do so by basically having a relay that connects the output to the input when mains input is present and within specs. When the mains input fails the relay switches the output to the inverter, and when mains power comes back on the relay reconnects the output to the mains input. If yours requires pushing a button I'd expect that some fault, having occurred during running on batteries or switchover, prevents automatic reconnection.

As for the suggestions above: the DC filter pump running off a suitable battery is the most sensible. The next option is to find a cheap APC Smart-UPS with busted batteries on Craigslist or somesuch, and fit new batteries. They usually run on two or four (depending on capacity) 12V 7Ah or 12V 12Ah sealed lead-acid batteries, commonly used in alarm systems and emergency lighting.
posted by Stoneshop at 2:08 AM on October 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: Thanks for the answers! Well, the motor is AC, and there is no way of getting around that without some major deconstruction of the filter assembly. I think it is likely that my Tripp Lite is a lower end model. It certainly does not restart automatically and does not have a replaceable battery, which is wasteful, in my opinion. I like the idea of a used APC that I can purchase new batteries for.
posted by Don_K at 6:15 AM on October 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


The battery may not be 'replaceable' but they usually are, with a screwdriver. I had a low end APC unit with a 'non replaceable' battery, but after opening it up and googling the battery model number, I easily found a replacement.
posted by defcom1 at 2:19 PM on October 23, 2018


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