The benefits of a power outage
This week we had a schedule power outage so that Edison could replace a faulty transformer. The power was off for about two and a half, or maybe even three hours (based on how much I had to adjust the timers).
During the outage we used the van's batteries and inverters (with the solar panels on the roof of the van keeping them topped) to power the network infrastructure in the house, from the cable modem to the firewall, network servers, and various application servers. Even the primary wireless access point was running off this rig.
I wouldn't want to try to keep things running like this over night, but it was nice to see that we could at least keep some stuff running indefinitely while the sun was out. I'll be thinking about bigger batteries and true sine wave inverters later this fall.
During the outage we used the van's batteries and inverters (with the solar panels on the roof of the van keeping them topped) to power the network infrastructure in the house, from the cable modem to the firewall, network servers, and various application servers. Even the primary wireless access point was running off this rig.
I wouldn't want to try to keep things running like this over night, but it was nice to see that we could at least keep some stuff running indefinitely while the sun was out. I'll be thinking about bigger batteries and true sine wave inverters later this fall.