> So my question is (finally!):
>
> - if you have sensititive equipment like pumped magnets operating at 2 K, deep temperature devices etc.
> that will not just stop, but get seriously damaged upon a longer power outage
>
> - what kind of backup do you have? UPS, generators, ...? For how long can they take over?
> who is operating them (you? your institute / department? the university / company?)
Thanks for all who answered! The optimal solution seems to be a UPS (for short-term interrupts) combined with a (gas or diesel
powered) generator for the unlikely case of a longer interruption. Clearly pumped magnets will survive "a few hours" without
pumping; how long exactly might depend on the make, vintage and of course filed strength of the magnet.
For us a new solution has been found: in addition to a quite large UPS (which should last 3-4 hrs. when limited to magnet pumps
and deep freezers), the powers that be have finally decided that we will also get a connection to the campus emergency diesel
station that will automatically take over in case of longer blackouts - whew!
Thanks again,
gg
The answers in detail:
> we have a large UPS on the instrument console, but a separate UPS dedicated to the magnet pumps. In addition,
> we installed a small, dedicated backup power generator (Natural Gas powered) with Auto-Start and an automatic transfer switch.
> Therefore, in the event of a power outage the UPS only needs to last until the generator starts and the transfer-switch transfers
> to the generator. The UPS then also serves as a power/line conditioner when the generator is running.
> This has some negative sides, as we have to perform all routine maintenance and weekly testing of the generator because it is not
> considered part of the general campus equipment (specific to our lab); adds significantly to the overall workload
> In our new (3 years old) Health and Bioscience building there are 2 generators, one life safety required by the building code and
> the other an emergency generator for key science experiments, the animal care facility, (required by law),low temperature freezers,
> nor ups, fume hoods etc.
> Large magnets take hours to rise high enough in temperature to quench. Temperatures will start to rise immediately, but should
> take quite a long time. For our pumped 800 we had a gas generator as an emergency backup to the the pumps in an emergency.
> It only ran the pump, not the console or anything else.
> at TSRI we've got two NMR buildings dedicated for Biomolecular NMR research. Each building has it's own diesel emergency generator and a UPS.
> One building has a pumped Bruker 750 MHz system and four lower field magnets. The other building has a pumped Bruker 900 MHz magnet and two
> pumped Bruker 800 MHz magnets and two lower field magnets. Over the years we did experience a few power outages that lasted longer than 4 hours.
> As far as I recall the pumped systems should be OK for at least 16 hours without pumping.
--
PD Dr. Gerd Gemmecker
Bayerisches NMR-Zentrum
Dept. Chemie, TU München
Lichtenbergstr. 4
D-85747 Garching
Germany
Raum/Room 32 109
Tel. +49 (89) 289-13308
Fax +49 (89) 289-13869
e-mail: Gerd.Gemmecker_at_ch.tum.de
Internet: http://www.gemmecker.de
Received on Tue Dec 01 2015 - 06:17:51 MST