[SOLVED] Can you plug a Cyberpower 1500 VA into a Jackery electric generator?

[yaggaz]

Tired of all the blackouts were are getting whenever a snow storm comes so we are definitely buying a Jackery. I'm going for the 2000 Pro model.

Basically I just want it to run the fridge, internet (modem/router) and my gaming PC. (Maybe have a seperate 500 one just for the fridge actually)

But it only has three outlets. Can the UPS plug directly into it? They are both sinewave I know that much.

And how long can I run a gaming PC like mine? I notice no PC examples are given here for run time:

https://www.jackery.com/pages/reliable-backup-power-during-outages

 

[bill001g]

I have never tried one of those kind of "generators". It is almost the same things as a UPS but always run on the battery rather than switching.

I know plugging a UPS into a gas generator is problematic. You have to have a signwave ones to start with but even then the smaller ones have issues. What happens is the UPS say is on battery. It will detect the power from the generator and switch off the battery. This puts a sudden load on the generator and it
gets a small voltage drop in the short time it takes to increase the RPM on the engine. The UPS detects this voltage drop and goes back to battery. The generator voltage will stabilize but since the load is gone it will drop the RPM. The UPS will then again switch off the battery to the generator and it repeats.

Pretty much a lot of UPS and generators just fight with each other. This does not happen with larger sign wave generators.

The way it will likely work is the UPS will see good power from this battery generator and switch to it until it is gone and then switch to it internal batteries.

Many of the cyberpower UPS will tell you how many watts of power you are drawing. Since the generators you linked put their numbers out in watt hours it is a simple matter of dividing that number by the number of watts you are using to get the time.

If it doesn't have a indicator you can get what is called a killowatt meter, a common brand is kill-a-watt. You can also use it to measure how much power the fridge takes both when it is running the compressor and when it is not.

Note the UPS will attempt to charge it batteries from your "generator" which is not going to be real efficient. So you will get the load from the pc plus the load from the battery charging. You want to have the UPS at full charge when it is running on the generator.

 

[yaggaz]

I have never tried one of those kind of "generators". It is almost the same things as a UPS but always run on the battery rather than switching.

I know plugging a UPS into a gas generator is problematic. You have to have a signwave ones to start with but even then the smaller ones have issues. What happens is the UPS say is on battery. It will detect the power from the generator and switch off the battery. This puts a sudden load on the generator and it
gets a small voltage drop in the short time it takes to increase the RPM on the engine. The UPS detects this voltage drop and goes back to battery. The generator voltage will stabilize but since the load is gone it will drop the RPM. The UPS will then again switch off the battery to the generator and it repeats.

Pretty much a lot of UPS and generators just fight with each other. This does not happen with larger sign wave generators.

The way it will likely work is the UPS will see good power from this battery generator and switch to it until it is gone and then switch to it internal batteries.

Many of the cyberpower UPS will tell you how many watts of power you are drawing. Since the generators you linked put their numbers out in watt hours it is a simple matter of dividing that number by the number of watts you are using to get the time.

If it doesn't have a indicator you can get what is called a killowatt meter, a common brand is kill-a-watt. You can also use it to measure how much power the fridge takes both when it is running the compressor and when it is not.

Note the UPS will attempt to charge it batteries from your "generator" which is not going to be real efficient. So you will get the load from the pc plus the load from the battery charging. You want to have the UPS at full charge when it is running on the generator.

Awesome, good info. Probably just better to plug the PC, monitor and sound system into the Jackery outlets then eh? I think under load I'm running about 400 to 450w on AC valhalla for example.

I also just came across this, but I don't think Linus is using a UPS, looks like direct connect:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1hZ9zJAd2s

 

[bill001g]

Linus tends to do things for entertainment value so they tend to not be real technical but it is fine for what it is.

A UPS serves a different purpose. If you can tolerate having a outage while you plug it into the generator it will work fine. They recommend you do not try to draw power from the battery pack at the same time you recharge it.
That would be similar to a online UPS which has very expensive parts so it can run 24x7. A online ups converts the power to dc and then back to AC this means the inverter is constantly under load and needs to be designed for it.

It is a bit cheaper now that solar systems need inverters that can run 24x7 but this stuff is still nowhere what I call cheap.

 

[yaggaz]

"They recommend you do not try to draw power from the battery pack at the same time you recharge it. " What does this mean exactly? If the power is out you can't recharge it anyway, correct?

 

[bill001g]

What it means is if you have power coming into the box you should not plug devices in at the same time. It must either be recharging with nothing plugged in or it must only be providing power to end devices.

A UPS you can leave plugged into the wall all the time and also have your devices connected.

 

[yaggaz]

Ah okay I see, thanks