On Sat, 26 Aug 2017 11:38:25 -0700 (PDT), Uncle Monster
wrote:

On Saturday, August 26, 2017 at 12:34:06 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On 26 Aug 2017 16:59:02 GMT, KenK wrote:

Yesterday my power was off for 7 hours. I survived. I thought
maybe my setup would help others come up with ideas to protect
themselves too.

Of course there are generators, but they are quite expensive
if your power outages are rare.

I use a 12V deep discharge battery and a wall-wart trinkle
charger. I have a little 12V oscillating fan and a small 12V
flouresent light unit. So far this has worked well for me,
even in the 90 degree + temperature inside yesterday. When you
are old as I am the very heavy battery is hard to move around
so plan its home and your usual power outage retreat to be
close.

Perhaps if you have no power backup you might consider
something like this. The battery is by far the most expemsive
item.

The first time I drove my truck up near the house, ran 2 inverters off
of the battery and every once in a while I started the truck to
recharge the battery.
After that I made this to top up a battery.
http://gfretwell.com/electrical/redneck_power.jpg


I recall seeing a 120/240 vac alternator that could be installed under the hood of a pickup truck or SUV that was driven off the vehicle's engine and it was meant to be an emergency generator for your home. I saw it in Popular Science or Popular Mechanics many years ago and the thing was quite large which is why it was meant to go under the hood of a large vehicle with a lot of room under the hood. I searched a bit and found generators for service trucks but nothing like I remember seeing in the magazine. ?(?)?


They used to sell a regulator you could put on a car alternator that
put out 120v AC but at a very high frequency. It would run "universal"
motors (typically ones with brushes) or regular lights. I suppose it
also would work with wide mouth switching power supplies like new
electronics use.
I looked for a regulator or just a hack to make my little alternator
backup machine put out 40v or so that would charge my golf cart. That
is a big pack of deep cycle batteries that could be used in an
emergency.
So far, no joy on that. I can still use my machine to charge the
batteries 2 at a time.
Since then I did get a regular 5500w generator that I have never used
in 6 years. It is still in the box.