I have a dozen rack mount APC Smart UPS 2200 Units!

[pkell1572]

Hello all, I am trying to figure out the coolest most useful thing I can do with 12 2200 UPS units.  I was thinking about having them front end a nice size generator.  There has to be some way to use these things to save my family when the zombie apocolypse comes!  Thoughts?

[mobile_bob]

are they all 120vac output?

figure on them being 1600watts into an average load
they will also surge to about 2500watts for at most about 3 seconds
which make starting some inductive loads easier.

as far as i know you cannot parallel the outputs to gain capacity on one circuit
but you can drive as many individual loads as you have units to drive, and battery capacity
to provide.

they are pure sine wave units,

iirc they are 48vdc front end bus (internal battery pack) if they are the xl series which most of the rack
mount are, they are able to handle a much larger bank.

figure on them being about 86% efficient and you will be pretty close, might be a bit better
but i doubt over 88% in any event.

because they have onboard battery charging, that is a big advantage in my opinion.  that charger can handle a much larger bank in the xl series.

i would not be afraid of using them at all, just rack em up and use them
add more battery capacity and an engine driven dc generator (alternator) with a good 3 step controller
and you are set, unless you have a big well pump to power up, they should power most any other household load 120ac load.

thats all i know about them

i have a few of the 1400xl rack mounts, one 2200xl and a 3000xl, along with a bunch of little 700 series
which are also pure sine wave with 24vdc front end and are good for about 450watts or so iirc.

if you got em use em!  why not?

bob g

btw, they will auto start without connection to the grid if you press and hold the test button up front, once started they will beep every 15 seconds or so,, do not try to defeat the beeper, the smart circuitry knows there is a fault and will then refuse a startup... so in order to quiet the beeper, simply press and hold down the test button again after startup for a couple seconds and the beeper will quit driving you nuts.. 

[pkell1572]

Wow you read my mind on several questions.  Combining several units, the beep!  They are all 120volt 20 amp imput.  I think I saw somewhere 1985 watt load at full capacity.  They are not XL series.  Too bad.  You can still use external batteries no?  Have to splice/modify?  I do have a well pump and it does not look like they can be used for that.  So you would use a dc battery charger/alternator to charge the batteries not an AC generator and use the internal charger?  Would you run several units off one large battery bank? I did a little research and it would seem I would need to get a 40,000 watt generator to run all these and charge them at the same time.  That seems crazy no?

[mobile_bob]

i don't know if you need to run them all, or not, only you would know that, however
i would run as many as needed on a single battery bank, and i would not use the internal
chargers to do the charging. i would use an external engine drive charger, or solar, wind or other charging
source.

you could retain the charging capability from a few of the units, however realize it will take a much longer time to recharge a large bank with them.  we are talking days and days in all likelihood.

so maybe you put together a 48volt bank, maybe 400amp/hrs to start and use 4 of the units to power certain loads?  gain some experience with them and batteries, and then work on alternative charging sources, meantime the ups charger will keep the battery bank maintained for you?

bob g