Battery Back-up

[Joe Nagel]

Hello everyone
I'm a newbie here but I have been reading the posts for a few months and have been able to learn alot from everyone.

Now I have a question that I haven't seen mentioned. Last night as I was engraving a $250 bottle of cognac for a customer and I got to thinking what happens if my electric power to the house goes out in the middle of the run? :mad:
Does anyone use a UPS (uninteruptable power supply) or any kind of back-up power on their laser? and if so what size would I use? I have a 25watt epilog mini.

Thanks!
Joe

[Joe Pelonio]

I had an APC 350VA 200 Watt UPS with both the PC and laser on it. The first time the power flickered I found it to be way too little for the laser, so I added another and now have one for each. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) it hasn't gone out again so I don't know how long the laser would run on it. I'm guessing not long enough to finish a job. Without a much heftier UPS you'd have to go back and add white on top of the areas already engraved and restart it, which could be tricky. Especially with an expensive bottle of cognac. Maybe Epilog Tech Support can tell you what you'd need in a UPS.

[Jim A. Walters]

I installed a 3300va monster on my system. Got it reasonable (except for shipping) on eBay. It has the separate connector on back to hook more batteries to it. I was thinking of hooking a deep cycle marine battery to it for longer outages. We have a production job that needs 23 minutes to finish a rack of 42 plates. I must admit, I haven't crash tested it yet. I think that I will test it once we move into the new office. This size UPS requires a 30 amp dedicated circuit. It has one of those large twist lock plugs.

[Joe Pelonio]

I just had something go right related to this issue. I happened to be standing next to the laser when the lights blinked and I went onto the
UPS for a second. I quickly looked at the timer on the laser and saw that it was at 2:38. The laser rebooted so I had to resend the job, but then I just started it with the lid up until it got to 2:30, held the lid right close to the bottom, let it go at 2:36 and away it went right where it had left off with no double engraving or material waste.

[Jim A. Walters]

Wow! It must have been a miracle that you were able to see the timer before it shut off. Good logical thinking!

[Joe Nagel]

Thanks for the idea Joe!
Even if the UPS carried the laser long enough to let it finish a line of text or in your case give me an idea of where to restart lasering it could save me alot of trouble.

Joe

[Joe Pelonio]

I was lucky to be right there, my little UPS only kept it on maybe 3-4 seconds. Normally what I'd have done is to turn on the pointer and let it run door open until it was close to catching up, but then there would be some bits with double engraving.