What my computer REALLY needs...

[ahhaa]

a built-in UPS that would bridge those annoying power flickers we get on our rural power.

(just had a instant shutdown due to one, aggravated by the fact that the machine actually is on a UPS, but a couple days ago the low battery light came on; they die awful fast.)

I now own 3 UPSs, two for the computers, and one for the DVD recorder. Replacement batteries cost almost as much as the unit itself (at sale prices).

Mebbe I should just get a house-sized unit?

[Abbadon]

Get a power inverter plus two 6 volts deep cicle batteries, everytime there is a power cut, the inverter will supply energy, sometimes you won't even notice there is a power problem. Keep the UPS to avoid hard disk damage during the switch phase.

Make sure an electrician does the wiring, so that only the main lights and the computer are the Power Inverter circuit.

Buena suerte.

[JerryB]

a built-in UPS that would bridge those annoying power flickers we get on our rural power.

(just had a instant shutdown due to one, aggravated by the fact that the machine actually is on a UPS, but a couple days ago the low battery light came on; they die awful fast.)

I now own 3 UPSs, two for the computers, and one for the DVD recorder. Replacement batteries cost almost as much as the unit itself (at sale prices).

Mebbe I should just get a house-sized unit?

Hi,
There a wide range of quality on UPS!!.... many are very basic and giving only about 5-10 minutes woth of power...... and nothing else and these are fairly cheap... then there others that they offer more than a few minutes of power plus a lot of other design features.... my self I went with a high en balkin UPS ..... besides giving me about 40-50 minute computer time... if eveything is on.... it also filters out any noise riding on the voltage signal.... it seemless when there is a power loss or a brown out! or any other kind of fluxuastions!!!!..... and we get a lot in my area!!!
I have had this one for about 4 or 5 years now... never had any problems with it... computer never had a hint/flicker that there a power loss... smile...

Bottom line... if you get another ups..... look carefully on how it works, what designed features it has.. the ones that do , they will cost more than those one that are 30-50 bucks!! but it a lot more protection..

Now I mentioned balkin.... that what i have and it works for me very well but there others...

[rallynavvie]

You need to spend some money to get long battery operation and a long lifetime. The sub-$200 units are mostly good for brownouts or very short outages, thus the short battery on-time. They're also meant for simple desktop systems. If you spend some more on a UPS meant for more powerful workstations they'll give your regular desktop a lot more uptime on the battery. You may even be able to run two simple desktop systems on some of those UPS.

I have a few UPSs on my home systems. One is an old APC 1400VA unit that had once been used to run one of our store's servers for several years. The batteries for them were under a service contract so I had it replaced before I removed it and it'll last another 3-4 years at least. That one runs my main workstation since it isn't a rackmount. I also have another APC unit that's a 3000VA unit that's 2U form that drives my data center's slave encoding workstation and my file server. My old workstation UPS was a CyberPower 1500VA unit that I put in the cabinet since it's a 1U. It hosted my main workstation for 2 years and the battery is still going strong. Now it powers the redundant supply on the slave workstation and the routers, switches, and modem in the cabinet.

Of these the CyberPower unit was the best value. I think I got it for $300-400 a few years ago and was able to keep my current main workstation and its monitor on for almost an hour (actually around 45-50 minutes) with it encoding (using both processors).

[ahhaa]

Thanks!
Any of you guys know how finely tuned these are to the battery that's in'em?
This one's a Tripplite BC 450, and I might tinker with it regarding a substitute battery, as I think the circuitry is still good; thinking a sealed motorcycle battery would fit the case.
Then I could put my dang always resetting answering machine on one.

[overloaded_ide]

"Mebbe I should just get a house-sized unit? "

I skipped the other replies, in a hurry right now, maybe this has been mentioned.

Go to E-bay and get a LARGE SERVER UPS, Rack mount 2200 APC or such would be nice, 1750watt sine wave inverter in there. Forget the tiny crap batteries for the UPSs, get large deepcycle batteries and wire them in.
You now got perfect power for hours or days depending on your loads and the size batteries you use.

I do this! My crappy power co-op is the worst I think. Several times a day the power flickers and the small UPSs for other stuff beep several times a day almost every day due to power gliches. I only use them now because I already had them.

Be wise and safe about it, put the LARGE UPS's where you can run heavy wires outside for a battery box and put batteries outdoors, in a shed, or whatever. They give off gases (hydrogen) so you don't want them in the house. Most of these things are 24V so you need 2 12V wired in series for the battery bank. You could get good used golf cart batteries cheap perhaps and use 4 of those 6V each.

Without batteries those large UPSs sell cheap often, but they are very heavy and shipping costs ALOT so find one close and pick it up yourself or take a vacation to go get it if far away.

I have UPSs from 1,000 watt- 3,750watts all sinewave, and another good thing about doing this is all of mine will coldstart just fine. That means when the grid power is down I can still start up the UPS and work with the computers just fine untill the batteries run out. That's a long time with my LARGE battery banks.
I just wired up a circuit for computers and such seperate through the house and plug it into the UPS. Not hard to do if your handy that way and depending type of house. Or if close enough just run a heavy duty extension cord and a power strip, make sure everything is rated for alote more than you will plug into it.

Those little cheapy UPS systems are junk in my opion, ones about 300watts or less. But any UPS can be ran on external battereries, just connect the correct volts. Forget those crapy ones the UPS comes with, when time to replace them use a LARGE battery and run heavy wire to the UPS.

[Nelson37]

If I read your problem correctly it is short-term power blinks, not long-term outages, correct?

No need to break the bank. APC of 450 watts or more will prevent reboots and keep you running 5 to 15 minutes, approx $59.95. Important Note - These units are GUARANTEED against damage, even in the event of a direct lightning strike. I work in southwest Florida, the lightning strike capital of the world. Other units so-called guarantee have disclaimer against large surge or lightning strike, NOT the APC units. In 15 years, less than 5 damaged PCs, ZERO failures to pay on the guarantee. Two of those were direct hits, one was where power company ran 220 through the 110 lines. Dozens of damage incidents through other units. Cyberpower and Tripplite are crap, IMO. Panamax and Minuteman only other units with similar no-disclaimer guarantee.

The internal batteries are indeed motorcycle batteries, note that using a non-standard battery will completely void both the warranty and the guarantee.