Hey. Sorry in advance for a quick dump to ask for recommendations, but I don't have time to do the full research that I would normally do for a project like this. Long story short, my father has lung cancer and recently was prescribed an oxygen concentrator to keep his blood oxygen levels up. They live in a rural area where winter power outages are not unheard of. They have an extensive network of neighbors and friends that can help and support, but mom would feel much less anxiety if she had a simple switch on a battery backup to turn on in the middle of the night if power were to go out in the middle of a storm.
As such, I am doing a fast search on whether or not it would be feasible to put together a reliable batt backup for them by Christmas (we live out of state, but will be travelling back for Christmas.) I'm a mechanical engineer that works at a company that makes high current electrical components, harnesses & EV chargers for the truck & car market, so building out one of these setups is not the concern. I'm really just looking for advice on component selection due to the short timeframe I'm working with.
His oxygen concentrator runs at a pretty consistent 400W load. As such I was thinking about running a pair of 12V 300Ah batts in parallel to a 1,500 to 2,200 watt inverter. This should provide a minimum solid 12 hours of runtime. I guess my main question is how to go about providing for charging of the batts with mains power? Are there mains powered batt chargers that can safely monitor/charge a LiFePO4 battery? I see the Giandel 2,200W inverter recommended in the build list has a PWM input for connecting solar panels. Solar panels would impractical for this application, but can a simple DC power supply be fed into the PWM input of the inverter, and will the inverter control charging to the batteries? Or would it be better to wire in a completely separate battery charger for charging, and if so would there be any recommendations for one that can automatically monitor battery charge level? It would not need to be a high rate charger, as this system would be viewed as purely a backup for them to stay in the house during a power outage overnight, and not used often (hopefully at all.) The main consideration is that it is very simple to operate (such that a guy could remind his mother how to run it over the phone.)
Thanks in advance.
Dan
As such, I am doing a fast search on whether or not it would be feasible to put together a reliable batt backup for them by Christmas (we live out of state, but will be travelling back for Christmas.) I'm a mechanical engineer that works at a company that makes high current electrical components, harnesses & EV chargers for the truck & car market, so building out one of these setups is not the concern. I'm really just looking for advice on component selection due to the short timeframe I'm working with.
His oxygen concentrator runs at a pretty consistent 400W load. As such I was thinking about running a pair of 12V 300Ah batts in parallel to a 1,500 to 2,200 watt inverter. This should provide a minimum solid 12 hours of runtime. I guess my main question is how to go about providing for charging of the batts with mains power? Are there mains powered batt chargers that can safely monitor/charge a LiFePO4 battery? I see the Giandel 2,200W inverter recommended in the build list has a PWM input for connecting solar panels. Solar panels would impractical for this application, but can a simple DC power supply be fed into the PWM input of the inverter, and will the inverter control charging to the batteries? Or would it be better to wire in a completely separate battery charger for charging, and if so would there be any recommendations for one that can automatically monitor battery charge level? It would not need to be a high rate charger, as this system would be viewed as purely a backup for them to stay in the house during a power outage overnight, and not used often (hopefully at all.) The main consideration is that it is very simple to operate (such that a guy could remind his mother how to run it over the phone.)
Thanks in advance.
Dan
