On Tuesday, September 29, 2015 at 12:53:10 PM UTC-5, Mark Lloyd wrote:
[snip]

I've tripped and fallen several times when I was at home because I couldn't
see my housemate's black dog during low light situations.

I once had a big black dog and he often slept in the hall.

Here, I had a can named Lilly, and she spent a lot of time sleeping in
the hall. I don't usually need much light there but I wanted just enough
to see her. For that purpose, I put up a string of red LED holiday lights..

I also have an old UPS that shuts down if much power is drawn from it,
but it lit those LEDs for several hours this May.

--
Mark Lloyd


I enjoy repurposing technology which is why I rescued the discarded UPS units. Most of them need only a new SLA battery and the smaller ones are perfect for running switches and wireless routers along with LED table lamps. I have two big workstations hooked to a 1.5kw rack mount UPS standing on edge behind one of my 23" LCD monitors on my computer table and a pair of 500w UPS units running the monitors, desk lamps and networking gear in that one room. There are a few more ups units in my housemate's office hooked to a pair of desktops and network gear in that room. It's been some years ago but I came across a 6 foot tall 30kw UPS unit that had run a computer system for a large hotel. It was a beautiful piece of equipment that a surplus equipment dealer had obtained. It was working when replaced with a new smaller ups for a more modern less power hungry computer system that had been installed at the hotel. The beast put out true sine wave three phase 208 vac which would run a fraking house during a power outage. I wish I could have gotten my hands on that thing before the employees of the surplus dealer destroyed it by scattering the big batteries and other parts around the yard. Something like that coupled with a natural gas genset for a home could supply seamless unblinking power for the house making all the neighbors jealous. ~_^

[8~{} Uncle UPS Monster