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Need a UPS, not sure where to ask
- Thread starter binki
- Start date
I am in the market too, but primarily because the ones I have seem to have given up the ghost. When I first bought my printer, I got two Ultra UPSs - one Ultra ULT33046 Backup UPS 2000VA/1200W for the printer and one Ultra ULT33045 Backup UPS 1500VA/900W for the PCs and peripherals. I got them back in 2005 or 2006. They both worked fine and I did test them out with the printer and the larger one did allow the printer to keep printing for a few minutes w/o power. However, we just had a few power outages and they both seem to not be working right anymore. One fails to turn on at all now and the other seems to act only as a surge suppressor...and not even sure it's doing that any more cuz one computer is now acting funny. So, not sure if this is the normal lifespan of these or not, but I guess they served their purpose. We no longer have the printer, so I'm just using them as hi-end surge suppressors, but I still have a couple small servers and several PCs to protect, so that's why I'm in the market again. I am currently looking into CyberPower, APC and Tripp-Lite. APC has a nice feature on their website to help you determine how large of a UPS you need.
jiarby
New Member
I bet you just need new batteries. They are rechargable and eventually they die out like all batteries and do not take a charge anymore. You have to replace the batteries in them every couple years.
Lotsa Folks sell them:
http://www.americanbatterycompany.com/
http://www.batterywholesale.com/apc-replacement-batteries/
Even APC, if you can ignore their push for you to upgrade to a new model...
http://www.apc.com/tools/upgrade_selector/index.cfm
I use mine strictly to protect from surges and top provide graceful shutdown so we can save open work. NOT to keep running in the dark. MAYBE save a short print run... we run the main printer power on the UPS, but the platen heaters on the regular electricity. If we go dark we lose platen heaters and can only go another few feet.
Lotsa Folks sell them:
http://www.americanbatterycompany.com/
http://www.batterywholesale.com/apc-replacement-batteries/
Even APC, if you can ignore their push for you to upgrade to a new model...
http://www.apc.com/tools/upgrade_selector/index.cfm
I use mine strictly to protect from surges and top provide graceful shutdown so we can save open work. NOT to keep running in the dark. MAYBE save a short print run... we run the main printer power on the UPS, but the platen heaters on the regular electricity. If we go dark we lose platen heaters and can only go another few feet.
signage
New Member
When purchasing UPS's you need to know what the draw is if the devices you want to protect and control shut down.
Chris as far as yours failing jiaraby is mostlikely correct, the batteres are bad. Now depending in the size of the UPS it may be cheaper to just purchase a new one rather than just the batteries. If you do replace the batteries you neeto see what size they are along with what their amp hour rating is, and replace with the exact same size and rating.
Chris as far as yours failing jiaraby is mostlikely correct, the batteres are bad. Now depending in the size of the UPS it may be cheaper to just purchase a new one rather than just the batteries. If you do replace the batteries you neeto see what size they are along with what their amp hour rating is, and replace with the exact same size and rating.
choucove
New Member
The size and type of battery backup you need depends upon what you will be running off of it. I almost always recommend that you have a separate battery backup for each computer, as if one for some reason trips off you don't want two or three people all losing their computer at the same time!
UPS systems are one area where I really believe that brand can make a difference in quality and therefore a difference in longevity and reliability. I use CyberPower and APC brands as many other brands I have tried to use (such as Tripplite) have failed quickly. CyberPower UPS systems are usually lower cost than the APC systems.
One common misconception when purchasing a UPS is that many are branded or have their model name based on the Volt Amps, not the supported total Wattage which is normally a little less than 2/3rds of the Volt Amps. Try and look in the specifications for the Watts as this you can also compare more easily with the computer you are going to be running on it.
What I mean is this: If you have a designer with a 24" monitor and printer and a design workstation with a 500 Watt power supply in the computer, and you put in a UPS that only has a max of 400 Watts, it will not supply enough power to run everything in the event that the system must switch over to battery. In that case, you won't just be having a short time on battery but most likely the entire system will just shut off even though the battery is technically fully charged. Try to do a little estimation and calculation before you spend a lot of money on something that won't even work in the end for you! I usually try to figure at least 100 Watts more than what I actually need for the available power through a UPS as you just never know if you need to expand, add more to it, or if it may slowly lose some power output with age.
UPS systems are one area where I really believe that brand can make a difference in quality and therefore a difference in longevity and reliability. I use CyberPower and APC brands as many other brands I have tried to use (such as Tripplite) have failed quickly. CyberPower UPS systems are usually lower cost than the APC systems.
One common misconception when purchasing a UPS is that many are branded or have their model name based on the Volt Amps, not the supported total Wattage which is normally a little less than 2/3rds of the Volt Amps. Try and look in the specifications for the Watts as this you can also compare more easily with the computer you are going to be running on it.
What I mean is this: If you have a designer with a 24" monitor and printer and a design workstation with a 500 Watt power supply in the computer, and you put in a UPS that only has a max of 400 Watts, it will not supply enough power to run everything in the event that the system must switch over to battery. In that case, you won't just be having a short time on battery but most likely the entire system will just shut off even though the battery is technically fully charged. Try to do a little estimation and calculation before you spend a lot of money on something that won't even work in the end for you! I usually try to figure at least 100 Watts more than what I actually need for the available power through a UPS as you just never know if you need to expand, add more to it, or if it may slowly lose some power output with age.
True to oversize a bit, but understand that most electronic equipment is not usually drawing the max Watts as typically rated by the power supply. Although that percent of the whole can vary quite a bit, I'd hazard to say that during typical use, a PC is likely drawing 1/3 to 1/2 of what the power supply is rated at.
choucove
New Member
You are right, the Watt rating on the power supply of a computer is usually an over estimate of what you need, but it also depends greatly on your computer. Prebuilt computer systems are generally going to have much smaller power supplies closer to the exact wattage that they require to run.
We recently purchased and prepared several new Dell Precision T1500 for a business in town. These computers are probably very similar to design workstations that others would be using for sign work when it comes to hardware performance and capabilities. These Dell computers utilized a Core i7 processor, 4 DIMMS of DDR3 memory, a dedicated graphics card, a hard drive, and a single DVD-burner drive. At peak load the system should probably draw about 300 Watts of power, and the computer only had a 380 Watt power supply. (Needless to say I was not pleased with Dell about that fact.)
Either way, it's apparent that you just have to do a little calculating and research to find out what you need for power requirements!
I'd suggest plugging your configuration into a power supply calculator such as http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp to get an idea of how much you may be needing.
signage
New Member
The watt rating on the power supply in a computer is what it supplies to the peripherals (mother board and all other internal computer devices {ie: HD, CD, etc.}), and if you are looking at its rated input that is calculated at full load. The most accurate way to figure needed watts is to check the loads of each piece of equipment with an amp meter and calculating the total wattage (watts= amps x voltage) it is highly recommended to then multiply this number by 1.10 minimum!