Ups's...what's The Best Bang For My Baht

[jaideeguy]

with all the rains and power outages and having to replace 2 power supplies for tv's and pc's and receivers, I am going shopping for 3or 4 UPS's to save myself from future problems. Any suggestions for sizes, brands, to protect a circut with tv, sat. receiver and home stereo???

and will also upsize my pc ups which is only on for 5 minutes before shutdown.

[Meerkat]

Was in exactly the same situation as you and bought 3 UPSs last week. After recommendations from various threads here on TV and elsewhere, I went with APC. The CS500 500vA (300W) model was 2,650 in Data iT (think there are branches everywhere - got mine in Zeer Rangsit).

One of these units keeps my (single Core Duo) iMac, Wifi router and Linux-based sat box happily going for 15mins according to the UPS monitor software - drawing about 150W. They also had a 1000vA/600W model for around 7,500 IIRC. If you're using a more powerful PC you might be better off getting the bigger model (you don't state what size your current UPS is).

They also had some local and Chinese brands for sale (don't remember the cost), but for the sake of a few thousand baht I thought I'd go with APC as they seem to have a good reputation (and a 2 year warranty).

On top of the UPS, I also bought some tap-change automatic voltage regulators (AVR) to feed the UPS with cleaner and more stable voltage. This will help stop the UPS tripping too often from brownouts etc. I also use the AVRs to feed other components that I don't need to keep on going in a power-cut, but might suffer from bad voltage/surges, like the TVs. The 2k vA Powermatic models were 1,800 each.

A good discussion about AVR/UPS by people a lot more technically-minded than me is here.

[Naam]

with all the rains and power outages and having to replace 2 power supplies for tv's and pc's and receivers, I am going shopping for 3or 4 UPS's to save myself from future problems. Any suggestions for sizes, brands, to protect a circut with tv, sat. receiver and home stereo???

and will also upsize my pc ups which is only on for 5 minutes before shutdown.

what do you mean by "protect"?

[jaideeguy]

"what do you mean by "protect"?"

to protect the unprotected power supplies that I keep having to replace. And to not have to shut down the pc and unplug tvs and other expensive equipment everytime i hear thunder.

and to not have to reset my sat receiver every time there is a milisecond power drop.

That's what they are intended for, right? They do stabalize, right??

[Naam]

"what do you mean by "protect"?"

to protect the unprotected power supplies that I keep having to replace. And to not have to shut down the pc and unplug tvs and other expensive equipment everytime i hear thunder.

and to not have to reset my sat receiver every time there is a milisecond power drop.

That's what they are intended for, right? They do stabalize, right??

a UPS will not protect your equipment when there is a power surge whether that surge originates from the electricity company or is caused by lightning. there's a fuse which goes "off" but it won't stop a surge. for keeping your sat-receiver running when there is a drop in voltage a UPS is fine.

1½ years ago i had a motherboard and a DSL-modem fried when lightning hit inspite of the fact that both were connected via a UPS.

Edited June 6, 2008 by Naam

[Tywais]

a UPS will not protect your equipment when there is a power surge whether that surge originates from the electricity company or is caused by lightning.

Not entirely right. Some UPSes have surge protection built in, so depends on the model and features. Of course a significant surge such as lightening could cause the surge protection to fail. Most use MOVs for the surge protections and I have seen these burn up (flames) from surges. But yes, the ones that come with UPSes are not substantial.

How Stuff Works

11 Myths of Surge Protection

[jaideeguy]

Now, after researching more, I'm really confused by all these TLR's [three letter anacronyms]...what do I want/need...a UPS or AVR, [or LSD, ATV, USB, BLA BLA BLA] ??

seriously...I am suffering from informationoverload and am going shopping tomorrow and what do I shop for?????

Can't really determine if I have low voltage or high, just know that I've had to replace several power supplies because of [what the thai-tecs] say/imply is 'bad power' and I just invested in a new sat receiver box that I don't want to see fried.

What I do know is that we get many short power outages that will turn off the kids pc and same with my sat dish receivers [so that I have to reset them].

Then the Occasional blackout for a couple of hours [or more]....but I think that what does the dammage is the short power outages that kill the kids pc, but not mine that is protected by a UPS.

Sorry for being a tech dummy, but I was born too early [for new tech]!!!

[jaideeguy]

Just read the 'how stuff works' link and it de mystified and simplified it a lot and leads me to believe that simple UPS's is what I need....to start with, but i can see that it can be a never ending process of adding 'protection equipment' to offset the costs of replacing power supplies. Where does it end??

Having said that, how many watts/VA [for UPS] should I shop for to protect a 29" crt tv, sat receiver and dvd player??

[wpcoe]

Along with jaideeguy, I'm confused with the concept of UPSes.

As I understand it, a UPS only kicks in when the power source via the mains either cuts off or drops below a certain level. Am I okay, so far?

But, there apparently is some other type of device that accepts power from the mains but actually actively supplies the power to the computer/monitor/etc, i.e. It does not wait for a break/drop in the power to supply electricity, it does it full time and has reserve batteries to act as a UPS when the power from the mains does break/drop. I think their main function is to condition the power, fliter out noise etc, and secondarily act as a UPS. What are *these* things called?

I only remember that latter type of device in reading an article in the context that some times a UPS was too slow to "kick in" and the computer lost power, and that the latter type of device avoided that problem.

You know, it's hard to ask a question when you know nothing about the topic. How am I doing?

[Meerkat]

For a good explanation of the different types of UPS, start here.

The model I bought above is of the first type, an "offline UPS", the least expensive. The biggest drawback to the offline type is that there will be a split-second delay from when the UPS determines your mains power has gone off (or below/above the correct voltage), until it can switch its circuitry to provide power from the batteries. I've had my units a week or so, and they've "tripped" to battery four times. I was at the PC for three of those times, and noticed absolutely no interruption of power to the PC or router, ie they tripped to battery so quickly that the PC didn't even know it was now being powered by battery rather than by the mains supply and just kept on working normally.

[Tywais]

But, there apparently is some other type of device that accepts power from the mains but actually actively supplies the power to the computer/monitor/etc,

That is called an on-line UPS as opposed to a standby UPS and is generally more expensive.

"An Online UPS system differs from the less expensive line interactive UPS system in that the online system provides the highest quality power protection. This is done via a double power conversion technique. The Online UPS takes incoming power, converts it to DC, conditions it, and converts it back to AC. This means the UPS is Online since there is no delay to switch to battery. Use an online UPS for your critical applications, high availability servers, etc. The output of these online UPS systems are TRUE sine wave, better than power from the electric company." Source: Power Systems

on-line ups

and Wiki UPS

As I have mentioned in previous topics on UPSes I manage well over one hundred computers and networking hardware where I work, all on APC UPSes (except for a few UPSes that slipped by me in purchasing). None have pre-conditioning (stabilizers, surge arrestors), and the university power is not that stable. I can recall only one instance where a power surge was so high that it took out the UPS, then the mainboard and all the PCI cards. This is over a 15 year period, so I would say a UPS is in all but exceptional cases sufficient. BTW, the UPS will have an upper and lower voltage range where it will switch over to battery power, so it is not just voltage drops.

I do have a 3 phase CVT (constant voltage transformer/stabilizer) that weighs in around a half tonne, but it is used to stabilize power to a linear accelerator that was removed from a hospital and used here for research purposes.

A document explaining the differences: UPS Topologies and Standards.pdf

Synopsis: A lot of information in this topic, but the bottom line (in my personal opinion) is in the majority of PC protection schemes an UPS (specifically APC) is normally sufficient.

[Meerkat]

I do have a 3 phase CVT (constant voltage transformer/stabilizer) that weighs in around a half tonne, but it is used to stabilize power to a linear accelerator that was removed from a hospital and used here for research purposes.

Absolutely no idea what it does, but I want one!

[Tywais]

I do have a 3 phase CVT (constant voltage transformer/stabilizer) that weighs in around a half tonne, but it is used to stabilize power to a linear accelerator that was removed from a hospital and used here for research purposes.

Absolutely no idea what it does, but I want one!

It uses ferro-resonant technologies (quite an old technology actually) to keep a very constant AC voltage output over a wide range of input AC and could handle a house since it is rated at around 20kVA.

[wpcoe]

But, there apparently is some other type of device that accepts power from the mains but actually actively supplies the power to the computer/monitor/etc,

That is called an on-line UPS as opposed to a standby UPS and is generally more expensive.

Thanks SO much for that explanation. It makes perfect sense, and I think I understand it now.

[Naam]

Just read the 'how stuff works' link and it de mystified and simplified it a lot and leads me to believe that simple UPS's is what I need....to start with, but i can see that it can be a never ending process of adding 'protection equipment' to offset the costs of replacing power supplies. Where does it end??

Having said that, how many watts/VA [for UPS] should I shop for to protect a 29" crt tv, sat receiver and dvd player??

how many watts/VA do your TV, Sat-receiver and DVD draw?

[jaideeguy]

My internet was down this morning, so sorry for late reply.....

but in the meantime, I made the rounds and detemined that most of my watt needs were well under 300 [the low end UPS] and went for 2 elcheapo 1500 baht units that should at least provide power stabalization. will report on my results after installing the units.

I finally realized that the VA value refers to the capacity of the battery installed.....duuh. and watts refers to the actual power needs and stayed below that by 30%.

thanks for the support.....

Jai dummy guy

[jaideeguy]

another interesting dummy site explaining electricity usage is http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/howmuch.html

[pop3]

I would be interested to know if the UPS that you buy smell once connected ? some peoples do some don't

Mines so bad Ive got it down the bottom of the garden

[ballbreaker]

Something else to think about.

Do you live in an area where the voltage will sag below the normal 230 volts. In my area during heavy usage the voltage drops to 165 volts so you need a UPS that will accept a low input voltage and still give you 230 out.

[Gary A]

A little off topic, but a friend of mine was quite worried about lightening and his computer. He had a high priced surge protector and a good quality UPS. Well it happened. Lightning hit his "phone" line and totally fried his computer. The UPS had a jack for his phone line but he wasn't using it. Whether it would have done any good is another question.

[Tywais]

A little off topic, but a friend of mine was quite worried about lightening and his computer. He had a high priced surge protector and a good quality UPS. Well it happened. Lightning hit his "phone" line and totally fried his computer. The UPS had a jack for his phone line but he wasn't using it. Whether it would have done any good is another question.

If lightning directly hit the line there is not much one can do to protect it. Phone lines have a spark gap (arrestor) at the terminal box at the house for helping kill high voltage spikes like that but it would be several hundred volts for it to fire and a spike can still get in. The surge arrestors for phone lines that are on modems are good for a few hundred volts, but the surge current from a direct strike will fry the suppressors and pass it on through.

[Meerkat]

Something else to think about.

Do you live in an area where the voltage will sag below the normal 230 volts. In my area during heavy usage the voltage drops to 165 volts so you need a UPS that will accept a low input voltage and still give you 230 out.

That's an advantage of teaming up an AVS with the UPS if you're in an area with common low voltage sags.

A little off topic, but a friend of mine was quite worried about lightening and his computer. He had a high priced surge protector and a good quality UPS. Well it happened. Lightning hit his "phone" line and totally fried his computer. The UPS had a jack for his phone line but he wasn't using it. Whether it would have done any good is another question.

If your house gets hit by lightning, you're basically stuffed, regardless of surge protectors, lightning strips and the like. AFAIK the only device that comes close to full protection is a "lightning arrestor". I guess the only true way of protecting your gear in an electrical storm is a full unplug of everything.