To shed or not to shed...ready for the next round?

With load shedding in and out of our lives, how used to it we have become. True we get irritated and complain, or perhaps say a few nasty things in reply to the multitude of confusing and contradicting Eskom tweets, what can we do?

The bigger picture option would be to go off the grid, and if you own a free standing house you can do that - and you need the money. If like everybody else, you live in a complex, even if it's free standing installing that shiny new generator will have its road blocks. A generator is noisy, it needs maintenance and like everything else leave it standing long enough and the "something mechanical" will go wrong and it wont start up. For it to be effective, you would also need to get an electrician in and integrate it with you DB board and hopefully the next time the tweet 5 minutes before the event takes places comes through the hum in your garage will be accompanied by the lights staying on - provided there is petrol . . .

If you are the neighbour across the way, disappointed cause the power tripped just as the kettle was switch on, is there a game plan?

If you look at your essential needs during what is normally a 4 hour stint, they are the following

• Wifi : Keeping your fibre line up
• Cell HotSpot (true sometimes the towers die)
• Power to the Laptop or devices

You will notice that there is no mention of the fridge or the kettle. Unfortunately, obtaining an inverter that will power those can be costly, and subject to anther article.

Your fibre line, IE the box on your wall can be maintained by a UPS or a Battery Backup. This would include your router, which in turn gives you the WIFI you need. A 650 VA ups or a 850 VA UPS will do the trick, you just need a few sparky skills to take an existing kettle plug and modify it connect to a three plug position adaptor. This does involve cutting and joining wires, along with re insulating them so I would not advise proceeding unless you know what to do, or you have some one to help.

If you have a new battery in the UPS, you should get roughly 3 - 4 hours out of it, which is enough and you can manage that depending on how much work you want to do.

Battery backups have also become quite popular, and they are readily available from most popular online stores. The down side with this route is that it only gives you a 12V or battery equivalent output. They are also expensive in comparison to a UPS. If you do work for a company closing its offices, you may actually be able to score that small type discussed above as part of your work from home kit and if you can, take it.

Pros and Cons - while the UPS has that annoying beep during load shedding, it would allow you to connect different AC powered devices to it. The battery back would restrict you to DC powered devices, but if you want a more compact and dedicated power source for your router, then the battery backup would be first prise.

So what if the lights went out at night and the LCD glow of the screen is not enough to see the keyboard? Well that's where Lumens comes in. Its a dedicated system intended for just these problems. The unit enables you to have up to two LED lights connected and you can adjust the brightness.

Lumens is ultimately a DIY solution, which can be put into operation by the least skilled so it's ideal for those wanting to save money and deploy a LED lighting system at home for the expected but unexpected Load Shedding, load reduction or outage events that we continue to face.

If you would like to know more, see here and then contact us.

HavenTecnik is an electronics design consultancy specialising in developing workable and low cost solutions. HavenTechnik