This is a free speech zone where you can discuss and debate everything Cambodia related whether you're a dyed in the wool leftist, a liberal or somewhere to right of Attila the Hun. This is also where you get to read the news the local media suppresses.
A charger/inverter unit - charge the battery when mains power is available, use the battery during a powercut.
Charging the battery
Inverter cost $38 (Khmer price) from the aquarium and fish shops on St63 just south of Soriya mall. T.O Computers also have these listed as stock on their website, but at $48.
The packaging looks like this... ...and apparently it's important to get the brand "Hanshin".
I'm using a 3 year old 4x4 battery recently taken out of my car and it can easily run a 21" crt TV, a large pedestal fan, a 24" striplight** and half a dozen incandescent light bulbs at the same time. Similar new battery costs around $70.
Still figuring out limitations and how long the charge lasts - it won't power a large fridge or a laser printer, but will power a pedestal fan, a TV and a light or two for hours.
**Edit For use with incandescent light bulbs, fans and TVs - check your TV specs. For striplights/fluorescents, the power surge at startup can damage the inverter.
Sorted.
No more searching for candles courtesy of Evenings must be Dark in Cambodia
Last edited by Chuangt2u on Sun Apr 29, 2012 6:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
I was looking at one of those inverters for my boat, but I wasn't sure if the quality was good or not. Decided to put it off for a bit. Let us know how it goes.
Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it... well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you men.
There are several types of inverters. One puts out a sine wave shaped power and is suitable for all AC devices, these are generally more expensive. The cheaper type put out either square wave our something in between square and sine. The square wave type is not suitable for driving electronic devices such as flouro lights, laser printers, computers. They are ok with AC motors like in the fan. Things might work ok for a while but the extra stress put on electronics will reduce their life span.
I think its better to buy a computer UPS and jumper a big battery to it instead of the built in unit. Some even have the leads already. A 600VA UPS will cost about $45.
Most inverters output a stepped square wave(red line), its easier to design a circuit to output this thus they are cheaper and more commonly used, a pure sine wave(black line) is what is provided by the power company. PSUs are not designed to take this signal in so you get some buzzing and depending on the quality of the PSU and the filtering in it it could shorten the lifespan of the PSU, however the components in the system itself will be fine as the PSU shields them.
I know this from personal experience. My 850-watt 750vamps online simulated sine wave UPS blew out the backlight of my LCD monitor, causing damage to the screen as well. I replaced that UPS with one that is a 500-watt 750vamps line interactive (often called AVR) with pure sine wave output. The new UPS was about $90 more expensive than the old one at $320, but it has served me well. Incidentally, replacing the monitor cost me around $110. I should have simply spent a little more buying a UPS with a true sine output in the first place.
I used a 900VA computer UPS to protect the computer, monitor, bar lighting and neon sign in 136 for a while. I think the neon sign was a bit much as the UPS died after a while, but even with the small battery it was enough to get out the candles and keep the music going.
Here's a YouTube video on how to plug an external battery into an old UPS.
I got me a 40" LCD TV, if i was to buy the whole kit and caboodle would it be enough to power the TV? could anything get fried or blow up in my stupid face?
No idea. Plug "your TV make model number" + "square wave inverter" into Google and see?
My TV's an old CRT Phony and hasn't had a problem with this so far.
Got some 12v DC fluorescents and switched to a smaller fan and have extended the battery life/charge a little. Other than that, all's well with it to date.
Easier solution - move next door to somebody in the CPP, job done - I know a vast number of folks reckon Toul Kork is out near Siem Reap somewhere, but it isn't really, power cuts you say?! Pff!
The Lord Playboy Power Outage Workaround Technique: 1. EDC Screws up and the power goes out (again) 2. Stand up from desk 3. Walk out of office to car park 4. Drive to local bar, restaurant or pub 5. Wait out the power-cut with an ice cold beer in ones hand
