Facilities Management #3

Part #3 The Midnight Train to Georgia

I made my move. I was prepared to revolutionize back up power. Now one confession. This was many years ago and the Generac product was in its infancy as far as the consumer market was concerned. Also as previously mentioned I would have had to build a safe/secure house or fenced in type structure probably on my roof. Either way it simply wasn’t economically safe or structurally feasible for my building.

I had what I thought at the time was a better idea. I bought a small gas generator at Home Depot. I wheeled it into the office bathroom. I formed an aluminum dryer exhaust flexible pipe to route the exhaust out the window and I was at first base. I then bought a mid-size UPS unit and plugged it into the computer and phone at my station. My plan was easy. Each station will have a UPS and during an outage I would fire up the generator. At a couple hundred per station with a generator to keep the UPSs live I thought I gamed the system.

I have made my share of mistakes in my life, but this one took the cake. When we test fired up the generator it was so loud you couldn’t hear anything in the entire office. The fumes and smell were horrible. My mechanic is running around with the extension cord trying to recharge the unit but simply could not keep up. Bottom line, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. It eventually took weeks to get the smell of gasoline out of the office. Everyone who used the bathroom reminded about the safety factors of having a gas can inside. My mechanic, who is aware of my disdain for returning things made me an offer to take the generator off my hands and there I was back to square one.

I start surfing the internet to solve my dilemma and I wound up on Redditt. Usually, I avoid that site. Frankly it intimidates me. I am not an idiot, but Mensa has never called me either. I start my research on extending the range of a UPS and found a guy who built a system where old car batteries were daisy chained into his UPS unit. I am starting to get close. Turns out he was making a system to replicate his associate’s (extended run time) battery bank. That was the missing link.

I google extended run time and sure enough it exists. You have your primary UPS, and then you have your back up units to get the power you require. I wind up at APC, now owned by Schneider Electric and there she stood. The SUA750XL. It immediately reminded me of Wayne’s World when he sees that guitar in the window and says, “It will be mine”. This is probably the only product I ever bought where I read every page of the manual. The verdict you ask. You buy the main unit and then you can plug in 9 more back up units eloquently referred to as the SUA24XLBP.

As you can see, the back of the unit is taking shape. Although the main unit has 8 outlets it would be too time-consuming to re-plug in the event of a problem or working on or moving the system. I decided it was best to plug the workstation plugs into my favorite surge protector and then plug a single cord into my primary UPS.

I probably have 15 of these surge protectors in my office. Yes, it is expensive but that is secondary. The reality is, or should I say fear is, most surge protectors are too cheap. At The Home Depot they sell 2 packs of plastic 6 outlet surge protectors for $6.99. I am not going to risk thousands of dollars of equipment for $6.99. The first time I bought this model was because the outlets were spread apart enough to allow phone charger adapters and power supplies to fit nicely. Then I found the 15-foot cord was handy for my different installations. Most importantly I would beef up my Joules protection level handsomely.

And so I begin. My initial order of one primary and three backups arrives and we hook them up. It was at that point we so aptly named them “Gladys Knight and the Pips.” We plugged them in together and within two hours all 5 lights were lit up. It was show time. We shut down a station, then route the surge into the Gladys Knight and we were in business. After the station was turned back on and logged in, we unplugged Gladys from the wall outlet. The station did not blink, did not miss a beat. The only way one can tell we were running on auxiliary power was the Gladys beeps every twenty seconds when running in self-sustained mode.

This looked good on paper but even slicker in person. We finally maxed out our first battery bank and determined one full bank can power two complete workstations. We still had some modifications. At roughly sixty pounds per unit, we had to upgrade to steel shelving and then we had flat steel bars at 1/8 thick placed under the shelf poles to spread the weight a bit more evenly on our eighty-year-old floor. We also modified work rules so when we were in emergency power, operators could not do any personal surfing, emailing, or whatever. Business only to skimp on power waste.

While we were building battery bank 2, we finally had a power outage. Although I was not there to witness, it was a joyous story. First there was a power surge so strong the office TV shut off. As further described, everything blinked but station one hummed along like a Rolex. Within approximately a year we had 4 full banks encompassing 40 units powering 7 stations. With all parts, shelving and accessories we had around $12,000.00 invested in the program.

From studying the product, I was aware upfront that the batteries have an anticipated lifespan of 5 years. If we amortize the investment over the projected lifespan it would come to $50.00 per week. I thought then and still think now it is the greatest insurance value we maintain.

We ran successfully on cruise control for well over 7 years at that point. Then two events occurred. First one was we were getting a warning light that we had a malfunctioning battery. Secondly, we discovered that our product was discontinued. The company had many replacements and other manufacturers produce extended runtime back up systems. In our case we decided to refurbish our units.

It took a lot of muscle, but we had to unplug each battery for a hour or so on the particular bank of batteries until we determined the troubled unit. At that point we decided to buy and install replacement batteries systemwide. The system was worthy of a complete overhaul. Upon research it was simple. Gladys was an RBC7 battery, the Pips were RBC11.

We chose Ebay to source the batteries. It was a bit challenging. The majority are made in China and studying the feedback, versus price, versus shipping and disposal proved to be a unique challenge. We finally found a Chinese produced battery warehoused and shipped through a South Suburban seller and they were $43.00 all in per unit. After some time, the entire operation was refurbed, and we never skipped a beat.

Looking back, we could not be happier. The best feeling is taking all the risks and putting it behind you. It is a simple, self-supporting, scalable and affordable solution.