DIY Kraken - Aquarium UPS 12/24v powered by PowerQueen 12V100Ah Premium LiFePO4 Battery

UPS Power for the gear! ditch those power bricks and add some battery backup goodness Awesome Support the channel by picking up your parts via our affiliate links:
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[@jeffreybednarek9074]

That’s not a Kraken, that’s a DIY Ecotech Battery Backup. Kraken is so much more than just a 12V battery backup. Kraken is primarily a smart DC distribution center with smart output control, with power monitoring, and built in controller. The battery backup of a kraken is only a tiny part of that device.

[@ReefDudes]

Good to know! I thought half the point of it was to get rid of power bricks and provide battery backup? Can you control pumps with it or do you still need a wave engine?

[@jeffreybednarek9074]

@@ReefDudes Depends. The wave engine is a 3-phase 24V DC pump driver, so it completely replaces specific pump controllers. The Kraken does not have 3-phase driver functionality, but it can power pump controllers that run off 12/24V using Drive/Force ports. Or you can use a 12-24V to 36V boost converter and run 36VDC pumps like the Varios 6/8. And like Telegraham said below, the kraken does not boost battery power for Force Outputs (24V). For direct battery backup applications, you have to use a device that natively supports both 12V and 24V power. There are a handful of pumps that do support this, just run at 50% of the flow (varios 2/4 pumps, maxspect gyres, icecap gyres, reef octo pulse 2/4 power heads, maxspect jump return pumps, ecotech MP10s, and a few others). If you have a device that can't run off 12V battery, I have some DIY tutorials for adding a 12/24 to either 24V or 36V boosters on the Hydros forum. These can be used on the force port for pumps like Jebao and Varios 6/8.

[@telegraham]

Great price for those Queens! Three points: 1. Always charging is always cycling. You're always charging. That's not ideal. 2. Using a $100 US Noco as a power supply doesn't make sense to me when you can use a $21US Mroinge charger and a $12US 12VDC 5A power supply. Adding something like the ReefBoxx (or the very inexpensive DIY equivalent) takes care of the switching between power sources. 3. The Kraken does not natively supply 24V when running off of battery. 12V only unless you add a boost converter to the Kraken's output. Yours is providing native device voltage. And Jeff is right...this is an Ecotech battery alternative.

[@ReefDudes]

1. Wouldn’t the built in BMS cut off charging.. so it’s not always charging? I assume it would but I could very well be wrong 2. It was rated for lifepo4. Main reason but agreed (I think i mentioned it in the the vid) but may add a relay “auto transfer” for. V3. Likely better for the battery long term. Plus I like the idea od the quick connect to top off my random backups every few months. Makes it easy and versatile from that perspective 3. Good to know!! So this one is more versatile from a power perspective :). Yep native voltages to pumps was the goal Whole point of this was to be able to run both 12/24 to power all the pumps of diff brands and voltages as many don’t have native battery back up solutions.

[@telegraham]

​@@ReefDudes It's not that the charger will damage the battery. The BMS will take care of that. It's that you’re using a $100 battery charger to power a tank. Configured this way, you’ve created a ghost battery for the Noco to charge. That ghost is the tank. And you mentioned the heat. No wonder! Use a power supply to power the tank. A computer power supply would work very well, or maybe even the fancy power supply that ships with the Kraken. Use a charger to keep the battery ready. Use a simple ATS to switch between the two. And in a very interesting way, you’re misleading those who watch. The Kraken doesn’t work like you’ve depicted. It has a legitimate power supply AND a separate charger. That’s the right way.

[@ReefDudes]

The Nico has a 12v power supply mode :) So it does check the box of getting rid of power supplies :)

[@jeffreybednarek9074]

@@ReefDudes While the Noco does have a 12V power supply mode (constant current/constant voltage mode), its an either or mode. Meaning it can either run as a LIFOPo4 charger (constant voltage, variable current) OR as a supply (constant voltage/constant current). Each mode is for a specific purpose. You really shouldn't mix the 2. Putting a load off the battery while it charges could shorten the life of the device, since its supposed to drop to a very low current after charging to just maintain the battery. Having any load off that charger will likely screw with the smarts that these chargers use to maintain the batteries. Yes there is a BSM in the battery, but still I wouldn't put all my faith into just that. It's also possible over time having the load on there, could accidently force the charger into a failure mode and cause it to completely cut off all voltage. And on the flip side, you do not want to run power supply mode if connected to the battery, if you did lose power and drain the battery.. it likely wouldn't charge the battery much (if any) since it runs at a lower voltage than the charging mode. Overall, I would not recommend using a charger to drive loads like this. Size of the load also would play into the severity of possible issues.

[@ReefDudes]

@@jeffreybednarek9074all good points. It’s hard to say how the charger will handle it long term(time will tell). Short term over the past week or two it’s been working flawlessly. Rev3 I will likely add in a relay to act as an auto transfer switch to further improve on the design. I didn’t want to overwhelm any non diy /technical folks in the audience by making it too complicated too quick. On the BMS note I did contact powequeen directly and ran my idea by them prior to building it and they thought it was a cleaver idea to use as a UPs and didn’t see any issue with it so I’m not to worried on that front. On the noco side - as long as you’re not overloading the charger by drawing too many amps it should be good. As always best to size loads to 80% or less of the rating. I do agree that best case (rev3) will be using a relay based “auto transfer switch” to fully seperate it out.

[@djmikefury1]

Yea, this isn’t a Hydros Kraken by any means. The system backup feature is just one aspect of it as it’s using industrial meanwell power supply to get rid of those bricks, but it’s a power monitoring system as well as a full fledged controller. I look at your kit as more of another version of an Ecotech battery backup like for my MP40s.

[@ReefDudes]

Vortech drives have built in battery backup ports. This is aimed at devices without that feature. And to provide that battery backup capability to all the non vortechs out there (and let you ditch some power supplies.

[@lovermansmith9082]

Very Cool . I think depending where you live , between rolling black outs , Earth quakes , fires , storms , tornados, grid attacks ( a diffinite reality for Ukrainian reefers ) a great long lasting back up system . Gives you plenty of time to break out the generator if need be . Or charge with your car .Thanks reef Dude ! 😊 vital information , well explained & kept simple

[@billydanzz]

Cool vid as always. Have you ever thought about doing a video series about basic electrical? I love watching the DIY videos, but aspects such as the installation of fuses on power leads are just things that would be cool to learn/understand to have the confidence to attempt these projects. And the association with reefing would make it fun to learn.

[@ReefDudes]

If enough people are intrested absolutely. I try to do beginner tips without going too deep. I have also been toying with a more techie channel for all things not directly reefing

[@richardgaston1066]

I have purchased the items needed to prepare this for my tank. I’m not sure of the leads to your equipment. I have a 24v dc return pump. Do I hook it to the THLY input 12v output 24v converter and any 12v equipment to the Drok input 9-36b output 12v

[@richardgaston1066]

What amp fuses are you using for protection?

[@J_ellis709]

thank you for sharing your knowledge. Very cool!

[@ReefDudes]

My pleasure!

[@EugeneRu777]

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@sanpietroprogettista9887]

Thank you, this is a great idea. I’m gonna build it.

[@ReefDudes]

Awesome!