Emergency Lighting

[a. boozer]

Am part way through the construction of our new house, and as the area in which it is situated suffers fairly frequent power losses, am considering installing an emergency lighting system. The type that I am looking at has a charging unit and two car batteries, whilst the actual lights are quite small units fitted flush with the ceiling. Does anyone have experience of this type of set up, and as importantly any idea of prices to install and fit? Any leads to to manufacturers and suppliers would be appreciated (We are in Ban Chang, Rayong) There will be fifteen ceiling lamps needed.
I hasten to add that when it comes to electrics (and many other things), I am a complete imbecile!

[baldrick]

do you want to have a second set of lights on another circuit ? 12VDC ?

[HINO]

Hey Boozer,

Have you considered a small emergency generator wired in to the house supply to switch over the load to the essential circuits? Lights, refrigerator and such?

May not be the cheapest solution but in your location may be a better alternative.

[a. boozer]

do you want to have a second set of lights on another circuit ? 12VDC ?

Baldrick. Sorry maybe I should have explained my meaning better. The fifteen lights that I am talking about are a totally separate circuit from the mains system, they would be powered by the two car batteries, operated automatically when the main power supply is cut.

[a. boozer]

Hey Boozer,

Have you considered a small emergency generator wired in to the house supply to switch over the load to the essential circuits? Lights, refrigerator and such?

May not be the cheapest solution but in your location may be a better alternative.

Hello HINO, Thanks for the suggestion, I already have that under consideration, as a secondary back up system, which could be operated once the initial battery operated unit has cut in and is supplying the necessary light. If power was off for any length of time, I would obviously need to keep the refrigerators running (warm beer - Ugh!), but a small generator would not also do that, but also provide power for the electric water pump (as we do not have mains water).
Maybe a belt and braces situation, but in my eyes, after living for some years in rural England, in an area that also suffered more than the occasional power loss, I want to play safe - £ - s - d (Sorry $s), permitting!

[BugginOut]

I was just perusing Honda generators last night. They have 120/240V systems that generate 1000W and run over 15 hrs on a gallon of gas all the way up to 10000W units for industrial purposes. You can also daisy-chain the units using the 30A outlet.

I mean, what are you going to do if your batteries are dead? And if you're planning on having a generator anyway, what's the point of the batteries?

EU2000iA Companion

• 2000 watts, 120V
• Built in 30A outlet for easy parallel capability with another EU2000i
• Ideal for TV/DVD, satellite, fridge, coffee pot, and more
• Great for RV applications
• Eco-Throttle - runs up to 15 hr on 1 gal. of fuel
• Super quiet
• Inverter - stable power for computers and more

MSRP $1,199.00


EU3000iSA

• 3000 watts, 120V
• Power for your furnace, fridge, microwave, most 13,500 BTU RV AC units, and more
• Super quiet
• Convenient electric start
• Fuel efficient - up to 20 hrs on 3.4 gals of gas
• Inverter - stable power for computers and more

MSRP $1,999.95

[a. boozer]

I was just perusing Honda generators last night. They have 120/240V systems that generate 1000W and run over 15 hrs on a gallon of gas all the way up to 10000W units for industrial purposes. You can also daisy-chain the units using the 30A outlet.
I mean, what are you going to do if your batteries are dead? And if you're planning on having a generator anyway, what's the point of the batteries?

BugginOut, Many thanks for the information on the generators, I will need to price them here in Thailand. The whole point of the batteries is to give instant lighting in case of a power failure.
I know that cheaper single units are available in Home Mart, Home Pro etc. but want to make a neat tidy installation in the new house.

'Daisy chain', am unfamiliar with that expression, does it mean run in series?

[blackgang]

But still 120V is no good here in Thailand as everything is 220V, and you can buy a good Gen set that will power your house, air cons and all for about $1,000 US.
But then you will have to buy the switching gear separate from that so that the gen set can not be run at the same time that the mains switch is closed and run all your electricity back up the line and kill some poor asshole working on the line or run your neighbors house too.
But remember that the bigger it is the more fuel it will burn.

[DrAndy]

Most commercial buildings nowadays have a back-up lighting system

all they are is a rechargeable battery and a spotlight or two

they are connected to the main circuit, thus keeping the batteries fully charged. They come on automatically if the power goes off

cheap enough and simple for any emergency blackout

[BugginOut]

But still 120V is no good here in Thailand as everything is 220V, and you can buy a good Gen set that will power your house, air cons and all for about $1,000 US.
But then you will have to buy the switching gear separate from that so that the gen set can not be run at the same time that the mains switch is closed and run all your electricity back up the line and kill some poor asshole working on the line or run your neighbors house too.
But remember that the bigger it is the more fuel it will burn.

Yeah, those were lifted from the US website for Honda, but they sell them here too and they are not 120V. I cut-n-pasted those because they were in English and in dollars.

[at]Boozer:
Yes, daisy chain is slang for running parallel.

"Built in 30A outlet for easy parallel capability with another EU2000i"

[blackgang]

Daisy chain that I heard of is a broad laying in the back seat of a sedan with both doors open and a line forms to the left and disburses thru the right door.

Now thats a real Daisy Chain.

[DrAndy]

what if her name is not Daisy?

[blackgang]

Not her name anyway, but the name of the procedure, as in "Pulling a train", same thing really.

[mikehunt]

Am part way through the construction of our new house, and as the area in which it is situated suffers fairly frequent power losses, am considering installing an emergency lighting system. The type that I am looking at has a charging unit and two car batteries, whilst the actual lights are quite small units fitted flush with the ceiling. Does anyone have experience of this type of set up, and as importantly any idea of prices to install and fit? Any leads to to manufacturers and suppliers would be appreciated (We are in Ban Chang, Rayong) There will be fifteen ceiling lamps needed.
I hasten to add that when it comes to electrics (and many other things), I am a complete imbecile!

An explanation of the different types of emergency lighting systems available:

REMOTE POWER SUPPLY.
An emergency luminaire designed to operate from a remote central battery system.

SELF CONTAINED.
An emergency light with integral battery charger, inverter(where used) and controls for sensing power failure. It will change over to the built in emergency batteries and vice versa upon power failure.

MAINTAINED.
An emergency light in which the single emergency lamp operates on both normal and emergency supplies. This light will behave as a normal light whilst the normal supply is available i.e. it can be switched on & off.

NON MAINTAINED.
An emergency light in which the lamp operates on emergency supply only, on failure of the normal supply. This light is normally off & comes on only when the normal supply fails.

COMBINED (SUSTAINED).
An emergency light containing separate lamps for mains and emergency operation. Can be either combined maintained (emergency lamp on when switched active is on) or combined non-maintained (emergency lamp on only when the unswitched active is off).

Generally, most of these types of emergency lights will run on batteries (built-in batteries) from about 90 minutes to about 120 minutes.
They need to be tested at least once per year, especially in countries that have a higher ambient temperature than 25 degrees Celsius. The test usually involves running the lights on their batteries for at least 90 minutes. If any light fails the test, it usually means that the battery is buggered & needs to be replaced.

Standard battens (fluorescent lights) are available in maintained, non-maintained & sustained configurations & are self contained.

[More Volts Igor]

Here in sunny Bangalore (India) we have regular (at least once a day, sometimes lots of short ones) power outages. Why we're building an electric railway sometimes beats me.

Our apartment has an 'inverter' (their word), works just like a PC UPS (except it doesn't beep all the time) and runs one low energy lamp in each room, the telly and the ceiling fans. It's labeled 1000VA (although it has no indication of the actual load we're pulling) and keeps stuff alive for around 30 mins or until the building genset starts. The lights etc. just work as normal when the mains is on. Ours is marked as made by "SWASTIK POWER ELECTRONICS (INDIA) PVT. LTD".

Since you are doing a new build why not wire for a system like this, you should be able to get similar units in Thailand or use a cheap PC UPS possibly with external batteries to jack up the runtime (there may be issues running fans from a real cheapie if it's not at least decent sine-wave output).

If you want autonomy over about 30mins then look at the baby gensets as backup to the battery backup.

[HINO]

Boozer,

Many ideas and thoughts as always.

Here's my second one.

Forget the expense of the backup lights especially if you intend to have a Genset anyway. Invest in a decent Gen that is capable of putting out at least 5KW that has an automatic start setup and the needed switchgear to wire it seamlessly into your main system. I would think the proper gear is available even here to do this. The output of the generator needs to be cabled correctly to feed the circuits you want and also there must be a cut out to prevent power being back fed onto the grid coming in to your house. Sensing devices in the control box monitor the input to the house and if it drops out for "X" time the Gen starts up and the auto-switch cut out the incoming line and switches to the back up. All this will not be cheap but should be reliable. Another thing that needs to be maintained. Periodic checks to make sure it works and such. I never priced this stuff but I bet we're talking 5k dollars at least. But I know you like cold beer so this is a small price to pay.

[a. boozer]

Thanks Fellas for your input, I am considering my options at present. I feel that the price quoted by my builder for the installation of the emergency lighting to be somewhat high! Any further suggestions/thoughts would be appreciated.
By the way, I do have a box of candles, just in case!

[BugginOut]

Daisy chain that I heard of is a broad laying in the back seat of a sedan with both doors open and a line forms to the left and disburses thru the right door.

Now thats a real Daisy Chain.

[blackgang]

Check with Gerbil, he has got a system like you want I think.