uninterupted power supply for ultra?

Weezbo

and after having been them you can "feel" their consternation *~/:) ...'Larry' :)

bob_34

uninterupted power supply for W-M Ultra?

i'm in the process of installing an ultra 155 in my own home as an experiment to see if i like them enough to start installing them on a regular basis. since the unit is highly computerized is anyone installing uninterupted power supplies with them or do they run well enough without them? i was reading some of the literature last night and noticed a cool feature for my drafty 1875 victorian. if the reset curve is too low on a day with alot of wind penetration the boiler overides the curve when it senses the zone is running longer than normal by upping the high limit a few degrees every 10 minutes until the zone is satisfied. pretty cool. bob.

John Boyer

bob

Had some problem(s) with them when they first came out. The Ultra would go into a hard lockout if the power went out even for two minutes. WM has fixed the problem (so were told) and so far so good. Good luck.

Robert O'Connor/NJ

John Boyer

Shawn?????

Who is Shawn, and why does his name come up when I post?

Dan........!


Robert O'Connor/NJ

Glenn Harrison_2

Mr O'Connor

You have a bad cookie stored on your computer.

You need to clear your cookies. Keep in mind this will delete which threads you have looked at. and may delete threads you have saved. So make a note of what you have looked at and saved before you clear your cookies.

Kal Row

TWO THINGS...

make sure a relay opens the boiler demand signal (ie the thermostat circuit) when the power drops out, also you need to run the pumps outside the ups via a relay - cause the magnetic pump load will eat up a ups's battery in 2min - whereas an inexpensive 600va ups could keep the electronics alive for hours

if you actually want to run the whole show during a power failure - then you need to be looking at a 10kva ups

bernie_2

power supply

a good idea is to install a surge arrestor on the system to prevent voltage surges and drops. since the module is primarily a computer this would be the prudent thing to do to protect the unit while allowing the unit to reset after a power outage.

John Boyer

Glenn

Thanks Glenn, its not the first time this has happened. If I could only be D' Weezbo for a while (instead this time, Shawn) it would have given me the secret power of Weez and future telephycohydronic abilities and I really would unlock the Alazcometric teriumbo.

Sup Weez...


Robert O'Connor/NJ

Plumdog_2

spikes

Kal, what is a ups?
I asked the Viessman guy about surge protection and he agreed that it was a real good idea but didn't elaborate.
What is a good product and method to provide protection from lightning strikes down the line? We lost just about all our electronics to lightning 2 years ago, and yesterday a tree about a mile away was blown to smithereens!

bob_34

thermostat dropout relay

i plan to keep the old boiler as is for a backup and run the return in the old boiler as the return for the ultra [ not running any water thru old boiler as that would give inaccurate return temperatures]and run the feed from the ultra right back into the air scoop and on its way. the old boiler and relay will run the 6 007s so the ups would just be for the ultra. not sure what to do with the bypass circulator power drain on the ups yet. the end switch on the old boiler relay will die with the power outage. just curious as to why it is important that the themostat needs to drop out with power off from outage? also, i think these boilers have been out about 2 years so i'm wondering what other types of service calls, if any, they have generated in addition to the hard lockout that was corrected by the factory. bob.

bob_34

spikes, ups and surge protectors

since these boilers are pricey does it make sense to have the incoming 110 go through a surge protector then a ups? i know the surge protectors on well pumps work to a point but if the lightning strike is big enough the pump dies. on the other hand i can't ever remember having any piece of heating equipment hurt by lightning in 25 years. so, has anyone lost a boiler computer to lightning? maybe it is not a statistically significant problem to worry about. on the other hand you hear about peoples computers getting damaged by lightning now and then so..... bob.

Kal Row

UninteruptablePowerSupply...

> Kal, what is a ups? I asked the Viessman

> guy about surge protection and he agreed that it

> was a real good idea but didn't elaborate.

> What is a good product and method to provide

> protection from lightning strikes down the line?

> We lost just about all our electronics to

> lightning 2 years ago, and yesterday a tree about

> a mile away was blown to smithereens!



most good ones come with surge protection built-in
the are a few kinds

1)rapid switchover - but with a ¼ sec dropout – though there are good ones - with no appreciable dropouts, these also happen to have the best surge protection

2)“on-line" where the load is always on the inverter off the battery and the line current only keeps the battery charged – so the load is completely isolated – very expensive


next is the rating, typically they last 15min at the rated load – so a 450va unit will last about 15min at 4amps 110v – now you see why it’s important to isolate the pumps from this show – the ultra, it’s pump, and a system pump – is easily 4amps

you need to get a bunch 110v coil small relays
one is hooked up to line voltage and has the NomalyOpen contacts inline with the thermostat so that when the power drops out the t-stat demand opens #5&6 on ultra’s low voltage terminal block

and the other is switches the ultras pump #5&6 on ultra’s line voltage terminal block

a 1000va unit set up like this should give you quite a few hours – cant tell you exactly how much – until you hook up an amprobe on the load side of the ups and give me the current flow

now it you have domestic hot water on this show then you want the dmhw pump alive on the ups – this calls for a large ups like 3KVA or more

bob_34

thanks kal. you have set me on a course of learning more about ups. can you give me a ballpark on the "very expensive" type of ups. and is any of this likely available at the office supply store in the computer isle or are we talking a higher level of product? bob.

jerry scharf_3

protecting electronics

Bob,

This is an involved subject that computer people have dealt with for years.

First a few guidelines:

handle lightning first! This will fry things and no power strip can drop the power of a stike induced surge. This is especially important in the southeast and midwest.

Don't buy protection that's less reliable than the boiler! There are a bunch of cheap UPSs out there that will trip out for no real reason. Seen it happen.

Surge protectors are cheap, no reason not to have one. I often don't like switched strips, just something else to get bumped and break power. These can by guaranteed or not. I would put in a guaranteed one for this. I don't think they are much better, but in case your boiler did get hit you're have someone to ask to share the pain.

Remember these things aren't 100% efficient. Oversize the incoming side by at least 50% above rated output (needs to run full load, charge the batteries and waste energy at the same time.)

On to how much power do you need. There are two parts to this. one is how much draw there can be at any time. The other is how long you need it to run. With the same battery capacity, a 5KVA and 500VA unit would run about the same time.

To compute the power needed, you add up the loads of the parts. This is done by taking the rated watts of the components, multiply each by it's load factor and add them up. A reasonable load factor for things you can't get data on is 1.3. This is caused by the fact that motors and power supplies are different than regular light bulbs (I won't bore you with details. If you want more, I can pass on some basics without too much pain.) For this you want to assume they are all on at the same time, and then add some cushion factor. Cushion covers things like startup inrush current, future growth and againg of electronics.

Now comes the hard one, run time. I once heard the following joke: "How do you know a battery saleman is lying? Their mouth moves." The UPS people will give some wild estimate of run time at full load. What you get to do is the following: Make a guess of the average load (probably less wild than the manufacturers) then divide the published runtime by the load percetage (10% = .1). Getting half that would probably be a reasonable bet in the first couple years, less after that.

Here's my setup:
I have a UPS, but I don't run by boiler off it. It's a 5KVA APC unit with extra batteries, and it's just for computers and networks. I have the boiler connected to a generator panel with a manual transfer switch between mains and generator. I can live with my boiler being down for a few minutes, and we have an excellent local municipal power utility.

jerry

Kal Row

sola is now powerware...

http://www.powerware.com/australia/
http://www.apc.com/index.cfm
http://www.falconups.com/ --- ups tuorial on line
http://www.tripplite.com/
http://www.solaheviduty.com/products/ups/Index.htm
http://www.refurbups.com/


googel "UPS power" and knock yoursef out..
remember you are looking to more Kva not all those fancy features a regular computer needs

bob_34

thanks again kal for taking the time to look up this stuff.
greatly appreciated. here 's another question. i have a good size honda generator i can run during power outages. i know they surge and the computer on the ultra won't like that. is there a way with ups and surge protectors to adequately deal with that to keep everything happy? bob.

bob_34

thanks again kal for taking the time to look up this stuff.
greatly appreciated. here 's another question. i have a good size honda generator i can run during power outages. i know they surge and the computer on the ultra won't like that. is there a way with ups and surge protectors to adequately deal with that to keep everything happy? bob.

Kal Row

if you have an ATS...

Automatic-Transfer-Switch - that will start the generator and switch selected loads to it, then you can run your entire boiler room on a 1-3kva “on-line” UPS plugged into the ATS (pumps’n’all without special relays’n’stuff) – and your heating system will never know that the power went out, and you can also include indirect domestic hot water comfortably, (fyi: the UPS amp rating has to handle the simultaneous starting loads of all pumps in the system – eg a 007 can might peak at 1.3amps starting, a 0012 at 2.9amps, multiply that by 110 to get the approximate Volt Amperes)

Once you have a generator - it changes everything since you now have a comfortable amount of time to do load shedding and orderly shutdowns of individual systems, such as shutting all computers in the house – taping shut the deep freezer, etc

scott w.

ac panel surge supression

just put in a new ultra and rewired the old ac panel with the addition of surge suppresion at the ac panel. Supposed to protect the whole house from lightning damage.I set up the new panel so I could feed circuits in the house with a honda generator.

In case of a power outage DO I need to be concerned about surging voltage from the start up from the generator damaging the electronics in the ultra?
Couldn't I just flip the breaker off for the boiler then after the generator is up and running flip the breaker back on? Would this work to avoid the surge on start up?

The engineers at WM could't have made the electonics in the boiler so sensative that a generator would blow the chips?

Being in the telecommunications industry proper grounding and electrical connections (green wire grounds) are very very important in getting the over voltage condition to go to ground and not through the electronics.

I have seen homes with broken grounds out at the electrical transformer on the utility pole (utility company responsability) and home owner could't figure out why he had to keep replacing refrigerators, computers, telephones, ect,.



Any good electrical engineers read this stuff?

Kal Row

the engineers at WM did not build the ULTRA!!!...

it's a is a 15yr old proven european design that they oem'd

when they first came out in the USA, they went into hard lockout on power problems - which means that you would have to be presnet to reset it from the front panel eset button - nas sometime even disconnect power for 5 minutes

however they fixed it, and ULTRA's can now handle the same amount of junk on the line as your tv does

thing is, if you tv craps out - big deal - if you dont have hot water - thats a different story - so i would surge protect - InMyUnHumbelOpinion