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DIY Forum >> Electrical Questions >> Add 600m LED panels from generator
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Message started by oobayly on Jan 18th, 2018, 11:45am

Title: Add 600m LED panels from generator
Post by oobayly on Jan 18th, 2018, 11:45am

We have a 6kVA generator that we use to keep our office running during power cuts. All computers are On-Line UPS protected, but with no ATS, so when the power goes down we manually plug all the UPSs into the generator (the generator is completely isolated from mains). This works perfectly (we've kept our office running for 10 hours this way, plus the coffee machine was running!)

However, we have no lighting during an outage. My thought was that we can get a ring of 600x600 LED panels wired on a circuit that is completely separate from our mains supply. We could then plug them into the generator when needed to provide sufficient lighting.

Is there any reason that this wouldn't be permissible from an electrician's standpoint?

Capacity isn't an issue, the panels are about 40W (pf > 0.95), so 10 of them should amount to about 420VA, which is far less than our spare capacity.

I tried to post links to the lights, but I'm not allowed as this is my first post.

TIA

Edit: It goes without saying that we'll be getting our electricians to do any work.

Title: Re: Add 600m LED panels from generator
Post by Lectrician on Jan 18th, 2018, 3:35pm

Why not price installing a manual changeover switch?  Not as pricey as you may think.  It would make things so much quicker to transfer.

If loading is the issue, you can install a second CU for your "essential" circuits, submained from your main CU, via the changeover switch.

If you really wanted a half way solution, you could introduce a plug/socket arrangement near the CU for the lighting circuit.  Tatty though  :-[

What is your existing setup?

Title: Re: Add 600m LED panels from generator
Post by oobayly on Jan 19th, 2018, 9:51am

Thanks Lectrician.

We got a quote for a 16kVA generator with an ATS, but to be honest we looked at what we'd effectively lost from power cuts, and the RoI was going to be about 15 years!

Transfer time isn't an issue, our UPSs give servers, phones &  desks about 60-70 minutes of up time, and seeing as most of our power cuts last less than a few minutes we tend to wait about 20 minutes before even thinking about getting the generator started.

Loading would be an issue, so getting another CU for the critical systems would be the ultimate choice - especially as we have a a few spare RCBOs in the 1st stage CU. It would however mean trying to wedge in a transfer switch and another CU and rewire the existing 2nd stage CU.

The plug-socket arrangement is - as you say - a bit of a bodge, but seeing seeing as we've used the generator "in anger" for a total of 12 hours (the rest was running in) in 2 years, so while far from ideal, the "half-way" solution does give us the benefit of not spending a large amount for something that is barely used.

My main concern was that somebody was going to say "hell no, we can't install ceiling lights that are going to be used of a plug", though I can't see a reason why that'd be the case.

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