I hate my electric power company - anyone recommend a UPS?

[Frankie G]

I started a VCD-MPEG encode of The West Wing before I
went to bed knowing it would go about 12 hours.
Got up went to work expected to burn a VCD when I
came home... uh oh the answering machine light is blinking
(not the message light the power light), turned on the
monitor and found the Windows NT login screen.
My one analog electric clock was about two minutes slow.
Are any UPS's better than others? Now that I'm cooking
these MPGs for long periods of time it seems justified
to buy one...

[Pertti]

No complaints about APC:s

I can watch TV for an hour with the 500VA one , and even the smaller 300VA one is quite enough for "normal" breaks on my Loaded Marvel system.

[DentyCracker]

I also recommend putting a TrippLite or other line conditioner between the surge suppressor and the UPS.

[CarterTG]

I must've spent a good 20 minutes at the store last summer trying to figure out which UPS suited me best. The feature lists on the boxes were many and confusing. In the end, I think I figured out how to filter what I did and didn't want:

PC Poling. Status reporting seemed helpful and would enable the system to shut down by itself if left unattended. USB instead of Serial connectors would've been a plus.

Long runtime for a limited budget.

Replaceable battery. This was a feature I DIDN'T want. Articles on surge protectors indicated that the components would degrade over time. I figured by the time the recharge lifespan of a UPS ended, the rest of it's parts would be fried anyway. No point in installing a fresh battery. I'd just figure on buying an inexpensive model and replacing the whole thing every 4-5 years.

In the end, I found one on the shelves from CyberPower with 650VA for about $150 that had status reporting, 6 well-spaced outlets (3 unprotected), and protection for 2 RJ-11 jacks. Competing brands with that rating were listed for much more.

It's nice having the system backed up. A thunderstorm hit a few months afterwards — the TV went out, the lights, etc... but the computer and monitor didn't even flinch. I think the first thing I did was yell out "YESSSS!!!"



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Carter
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[EditRig] Tyan Tiger100 rev.F, Dual P3 650MHz, 256mb PC100, [C:] 10.2g Seagate, [D:] 10.1g IBM, FastTrack66 RAID, [E:] Dual 30.7g Maxtors, [F:] Plextor 12x10x32x CDRW, Dual 17" Monitors, Matrox G400 32mb AGP, SBLive, Canopus DV Raptor, FourPoint2000, FastEthernet, USB IntelliEye, Windows2000, MSP 6.0, Canon XL-1/GL-1/L2

[Brian Ellis]

There are two basic principles behind UPSs. It may be useful to know what they are.

1) Floating battery. This often uses a lead-acid battery and is often more expensive because the battery is constantly solicited. The conversion electronics is working all the time, the battery is charging/discharging all the time. In other words, all the power for your system comes from the 12 V (or whatever) DC power line plus the DC/AC converter to 220 or 110 V or whatever it is. Because it is constantly on, most manufacturers strive to obtain as near a perfect sinusoidal output as possible. The power frequency is either conserved by synching with quartz crystal control when there is no power or it is permanently quartz-crystal controlled. Advantages: reliability, perfect power continuity, absolutely no spikes or brown-outs, no filtering required, good frequency/voltage regulation, good waveform. Disadvantages: cost, weight.

2. "Kick-in" type. This one has a smaller, lighter battery, sometimes NiCd, which is constantly trickle-charged (which is not ideal for NiCD). During normal operation, the power goes straight through, so the emergency part is not solicited. In the event of a missing or very low half-cycle which is detected, the emergency system kicks in and starts generating AC from the battery. This does take time, so there will still be variations in the voltage lasting at least 1/120 or 1/100 sec (for 60 or 50 Hz resp.) and often a spike on the cheaper models with poorer filtering. As a rule, this is not sufficient to upset a computer, but there can be no guarantee that it may not. Advantages: price, size, weight. Disadvantages: slightly less reliable, imperfect filtering and, on cheaper models, poor waveform, frequency and voltage regulation, NiCd batteries, if fitted, operating under poor conditions (recommended to discharge the batteries once per week to maintain capacity).

I have used both types in the past. In one case, it was for an instrument monitoring a test which lasted up to 90 days and we could not afford the slightest hitch because if there was a glitch on the 89th day, the test would have to be restarted. We used a massive floating system in a 19" rack 8U unit for that and we tested it hard and fast and never had the slightest problem for up to c. 45 minute breaks, when the battery discharged. The "kick-in" type would not have been deemed sufficiently reliable for this. That having been said, I have only seen a couple of times when a computer glitched because of power problems with this type, out of a guestimated several hundred major input power cuts, brown-outs, spikes and all the other difficulties that power lines are prone to, over about 50 computer-years, which is not a bad track record.

So, it's really horses for courses.

For your info, I do not have a UPS at my present location. Since I moved here, three years ago, we have had two unforeseen power outages (transformer blowing up because of lightning strikes kind), one lasting 45 minutes and the other 6 hours. We have also had about 5 foreseen power cuts, where we were warned beforehand (high voltage line maintenance). I have not had any computer glitches ascribable to power, other than the above: I have learnt to switch off and disconnect during violent thunderstorms, anyway, having blown up three modems that way. I have rendered video overnight without problem. Strangely, it is more reliable on this little island than it was when I was living in Switzerland .

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Brian (the terrible)

[Frankie G]

Thanks for all the technical info, Brian.
Yes, here in the Midwest USA we get some great thunderstorms,
and in the summer if I hear anything on the weather report
about thunderstorms, I go and unplug the moedm from the
phone line and often the computer system (pull the plug
on the surge protector everything is plugged into).
At work we have APC Back-UPS 600 units on our servers
(HP 9000, Micron, Dell) and they have weathered storms OK.
But Com Ed likes to occasionally "pull the plug" for a few
minutes which I would like to be able to ride out.