Hello,
During the recent wind storm event in January, HamWAN lost
utility power to some sites. This triggered network outages
that affected users and repeaters that relied on those
sites. It was far from our finest hour. "When all else
fails", HamWAN should not be the first in line. I'd like
for 2021 to be a year we focus on reliability. Having a
reliable power system at every site seems like a good place
to start that journey. In each of the power failures in
January, a generator system failed to activate. In these
cases, we need at least 24 hours to mount a response in
fixing generators. This means our battery backup systems
should be sized for at least 24 hours of runtime. I have
acquired a couple UPSes that can achieve this. They are
composed of the main UPS:
https://www.apc.com/shop/us/en/products/APC-Smart-UPS-XL-Modular-3000VA-120V-Rackmount-Tower/P-SUM3000RMXL2U
And one external (and chainable!) battery expansion module:
https://www.apc.com/shop/us/en/products/APC-Smart-UPS-XL-Modular-48V-Extended-Run-Battery-Pack/P-SUM48RMXLBP2U
They also feature an AP9631 network interface module in each
UPS, so we can monitor and control the power system. As you
can see, each UPS costs about $3600 new, so the two I
acquired would be $7,200 new. However, I managed to find
used units and purchased brand new batteries for them.
The
total cost for these two systems is $963.71. One of
them is deployed at Rattlesnake ("Snoqualmie shack")
already:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/HTomAzJUnrjuJ3bw8
If we ever want to expand the battery capacity of these, we
can simply plug in more battery modules.
I'm hoping to deploy the 2nd system in the other building on
Rattlesnake ("DNR shack"), but that hasn't happened yet.
--Bart
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