Backup battery: Difference between revisions
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=== Performance Race Car Industry === |
=== Performance Race Car Industry === |
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====Drag Race Cars ==== |
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Drag cars need massive loads of electricity at the starting line to power the spark plugs. This takes far more electricity than a normal battery and a regular alternator can provide. To upgrade the alternator results in tearing away precious horsepower. Recently the elite in the industry have switched to 16 volt batteries to compensate for this battery current and voltage requirement. |
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====Performance Circuit Racing==== |
====Performance Circuit Racing==== |
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Revision as of 00:12, 30 January 2009
 | This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. (October 2008) |
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Backup battery is the name given to a secondary power supply, usually a direct current battery, to provide power in the absence of the main power supply.
An electronic device which utilizes a backup battery will normally get its power directly from a sustainable alternating current (AC) source or solar cells (DC). The backup battery will power the circuit only in the event of failure. The battery is otherwise charging from that same primary circuit.
Examples
Aircraft Emergency Batteries
Backup batteries in aircraft keep all essentials running in the event of an engine power failure. Each aircraft has enough power in the backup batteries to facilitate a safe landing. The batteries keeping navigation, ELUs (emergency lighting units), emergency pressure or oxygen systems running at altitude, & radio equipment operational. Larger aircraft have control surfaces that run on these backups as well. Aircraft batteries are either Ni-Cad or AGM sealed Lead Acid. The battery keeps all necessary items running for times between 30 minutes and 3 hours.
Burglar Alarms
Backup batteries are almost always used in burglar alarms. The backup battery prevents the burglar from disabling the alarm by turning off power to the building. Additionally these batteries power the remote cellular phone systems that thwart phone line snipping as well.
Computers
Every motherboard that runs a computer has a backup battery to run the circuit while turned off. This battery runs the real-time clock (RTC) and is referred to as the CMOS battery. By keeping the clock active and running even when the computer is switched off, power up/down cycles can be logged and before the internet, your computer could keep dates accurately. It also serves to maintain the system configuration settings in BIOS memory based on RAM or FLASH RAM.
Computers, workstations and servers often have the power fed to them backed up with an uninterruptable power supply (UPS). This protects hard drives, motherboards, CPUs and RAM by providing clean power.
Hospitals
Power failure in a hospital would result in life threatening conditions for patients. Patients under going surgery or on life support are reliant on a consistent power supply. Back up generators or batteries supply power to critical equitment until mains power can be restored.
Performance Race Car Industry
Performance Circuit Racing
NASCAR racers always have a pair of Rock Racing Batteries (over 80% usage). These are light little batteries providing enough power to run the car but 1/2 the size and weight of the conventional flooded battery. In the event of a collision, wall rub, or other impact affecting the battery, the driver simply switches the electrical system to the other battery. All switching is performed while under way. There is always ample battery power available to finish the race.
Baja, Off Road, and Dirt Racing
BAJA racers, due to the sheer damage their vehicles must sustain, always have backed up battery systems.