On 2024-04-11 23:44, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
If we have another ice storm and 8 day power outage like we had in January, I would like to power that O.N.T. and a 5 port gigabit switch (2 more watts) for a week or more.
We bought a shoebox-sized "portable power station" a couple years ago that is stuffed with ~300Wh of Li-ion batteries and has a built-in inverter. Ours is good for 1-2 nights of CPAP or a few days of internet. There are larger ones, and even ones that take expansion batteries. They usually have 12V and 5V USB outputs as well. Keep an eye out for the ones that have USB-PD outputs. Ours does, and it turns out our T-Mobile Internet gateway could run directly off that.
I very highly recommend having one on hand.
BTW, the neighborhood "hub" for the Ziply fiber is a "wavelength division multiplexer" - a glass marvel that splits a single bidirectional multiband fiber into separate bands for customers. The WDM uses no electrical power.
These days, all I recall from Solid State Physics is "crystals are both simpler and more complicated than you think" and "materials science is actual magic" so I just genuflect in the direction of Corning NY while thinking fondly of lasers.
