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Looking for a uninterruptible power supply

digitalfrost

digitalfrost

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Just had multiple power outages in a single day. I've been wanting to get a UPS for a long time now. I think I will finally commit to this.

The thing is. I will be in the same room with the UPS, so I'm looking for a device that is:

- Quiet
- Can handle high room temperatures (in summer - 35°C/95°F)
- Online UPS (Voltage/Frequency independent)

I am looking to run my NAS that contains all the music, my workstation plus the amps off of it. I think, worst case if power goes while I'm gaming, I might be pulling 500W. For sure less than 1000W.

I don't care about running time at all, main thing is to be isolated from power issues. If I have to shut everything down within a couple of minutes when power goes out, that's fine with me. Just trying to protect my equipment.

I'm located in europe so that factors in, but I think you can buy most UPS globally regardless. Can anyone recommend something?
 
Look on Amazon.
The price tends to vary with capacity.
I used to have an APC unit that worked well and did the exact job you're talking about. It was an earlier version of this:
The thing is you can get some Lithium battery ones now, but lead-acid is cheap and works fine. The usage case for Lithium is not good for the batteries though, and they are not cheap.
I would stick to known brands to be sure you can easily change the battery (some are proprietary & $$$) or get support for. I know I replaced the battery on my old one, but I'm not sure about the newer APCs being user-replaceable..... You'll have to dig around a bit!


 
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I have cheap Cyber Power units that do fine. Mine also have USB hookups to shut down connected servers. It's one of those things where if you're buying a real brand and not the absolute lowest end, you don't need to worry too much.

Size your UPS at least 125% of what you think you need. If you're really going to be discharging the batteries when it's 95F ambient your battery life will be reduced too, batteries don't like heat.

I would suspect shipping batteries internationally is a hassle (weight, chemical restrictions.)

I don't know how rural you are. If your grid is going away because of curtailment issues (i.e. the grid doesn't have enough power) or just upstream switching, your equipment isn't really at risk. If this is storm related / your voltage is all over the place, sure, a UPS will help. If I was in Germany I'd be looking to get a backup generator, but that's beyond the scope of your ask.
 
Both at home and at my local Radio Station, I use APC UPSs, sized according to the load they're supporting. I've tried several other cheaper units, and they have all failed when required to take over when power fails. The APC ones have been very reliable, and all have replaceable batteries, even the small ones that don't have a battery door, and you have to dismantle the case! The bigger ones, 1500VA and 2500VA have hot-swappable battery packs.

S.
 
Is there any additional benefit and without degrading the sound quality in using online double conversion uninterrupted power supply ?
And also how does isolation transformer affect the sound quality and what is the actual benefit of using the ups with built in isolation transformer ?
 
ZzZzZ said:
Is there any additional benefit and without degrading the sound quality in using online double conversion uninterrupted power supply ?
And also how does isolation transformer affect the sound quality and what is the actual benefit of using the ups with built in isolation transformer ?
Click to expand...
I don't see any benefit to anything other than a standard UPS. Bear in mind that ALL the power for the audio electronics comes from the equipment DC power supply, all that the UPS has to is to provide the raw AC. Standard UPSs don't output pure sine waves, they have significant amounts of distortion, but so what? Rectifying and smoothing that is what the equipment power supplies do, and generally they do it very well indeed. Just get a suitably sized UPS, and you'll be fine if the mains fails, or you get brown-outs and surges.

S
 
And also how does isolation transformer affect the sound quality and what is the actual benefit of using the ups with built in isolation transformer ?
Click to expand...
The power supply built-into your audio equipment provides isolation. (Except there is some old tube stuff that wasn't isolated... That's illegal to now.)

Did you see this review?

Sometimes DC on the power line can cause a buzz or vibration from the transformer built into your amplifier (or other equipment). Transformers can't pass DC so an isolation transformer will cure that. But someone said the buzz "moved" to the isolation transformer and it was worse, so it might not help unless the transformer is in a different location.
 
I purchased a CyberPower CP1500EPFCLCD-UK recently, this is running my main PC and comms equipment (fibre modem, router, SIP gateway, etc.). This unit replaced a Salicru SPS ONE 1100 which is now protecting a NAS, ESXi server, switch and wireless AP in my garage, I also have an older APC Back-UPS ES - BE700G in the loft (attic) which looks after another NAS and switch.

I think something like the Cyberpower would be good for your use case, although I would be interested to hear from the EE's on here if the 'pure sinewave' output of the Cyperpower has any real benefit in a domestic environment. It's quite a bit more expensive that my other UPS with 'simulated sine wave' output.

I should add that the Cyberpower is silent in normal operation. It has a fan which kicks in when running off battery, but this turns off within a couple of minutes of the power being restored.
 
ZzZzZ said:
Is there any additional benefit and without degrading the sound quality in using online double conversion uninterrupted power supply ?
And also how does isolation transformer affect the sound quality and what is the actual benefit of using the ups with built in isolation transformer ?
Click to expand...

I used to run my desktop audio stack through the UPS under my desk. I don't anymore because I want to maximise the runtime of my UPS in an actual power outage (we had an 8 hour one in the South of England due to a recent storm*). I don't notice any difference at all by not running off the UPS (desktop system in sig.)

*I was able to run my fibre modem and router off the UPS for around 2 hours (in 30 minute bursts spread across the 8 hour power outage), which was pretty useful when everything else had stopped working!
 
For most equipment, you don't need a pure sine wave UPS. I run my DVR, PC, cable modem, WiFi router and even a TV off of square wave-based (i.e. simulated sine wave) UPSs and have no issues. Everything powered by a switching power supply is running off of a square wave to begin with. Ironically, when my power fails and I need to run a generator, it's the UPSs that complain the most about the quality of the power coming from the generator (also square wave) and they refuse to recharge the batteries.
 
DonR said:
For most equipment, you don't need a pure sine wave UPS. I run my DVR, PC, cable modem, WiFi router and even a TV off of square wave-based (i.e. simulated sine wave) UPSs and have no issues. Everything powered by a switching power supply is running off of a square wave to begin with. Ironically, when my power fails and I need to run a generator, it's the UPSs that complain the most about the quality of the power coming from the generator (also square wave) and they refuse to recharge the batteries.
Click to expand...

Thanks, 'simulated sinewave' had a slight whiff of 'UPS snakeoil', at least in a domestic setting (I populate data centres with compute and storage in my day job, so I have some familiarity with commercial units as a business consumer). I'd originally purchased the VP1600 which is cheaper and has simulated sinewave output, but it had a fault and I could not find a replacement at a reasonable cost (hence the 'upgrade' to the more expensive unit).
 
DonR said:
when my power fails and I need to run a generator
Click to expand...
I have had ~0.75 power outages/year over the recent 7 years that I remember. Is your power cutting out more than that? When I lived in the country/in the mountains the power would go out 3-4 times/year and we always had batteries, coal oil lanterns w/ naptha pump lanterns too at the ready.
 
Berwhale said:
Thanks, 'simulated sinewave' had a slight whiff of 'UPS snakeoil', at least in a domestic setting (I populate data centres with compute and storage in my day job, so I have some familiarity with commercial units as a business consumer). I'd originally purchased the VP1600 which is cheaper and has simulated sinewave output, but it had a fault and I could not find a replacement at a reasonable cost (hence the 'upgrade' to the more expensive unit).
Click to expand...
"Simulated sine wave" can be anything from a single-step square wave to a multi-step wave fairly closely approximating a sine wave. There is no standard. Most electronics should have no issue.
 
Doodski said:
I have had ~0.75 power outages/year over the recent 7 years that I remember. Is your power cutting out more than that? When I lived in the country/in the mountains the power would go out 3-4 times/year and we always had batteries, coal oil lanterns w/ naptha pump lanterns too at the ready.
Click to expand...
I live in a rural area subject to loads of winter wind storms and with lots of tall trees towering over the power lines. I usually get 1 or 2 failures a year ranging from 3 or 4 hours to a day or 2. Had a 5 day outage 4 years ago because of snow.
 
DonR said:
I live in a rural area subject to loads of winter wind storms and with lots of tall trees towering over the power lines. I usually get 1 or 2 failures a year ranging from 3 or 4 hours to a day or 2. Had a 5 day outage 4 years ago because of snow.
Click to expand...
Wowow... for a Vancouver'ish local that's dreadful. Vancouver and area snow can be pretty much like frozen water falling in the form of silver dollar sized flakes and is deadly to manage for driving and building stuff too so I understand that. I moved from snow country and was a bit of a snow-snob-driver in that I figured I could drive in any weather. I soon learned the treachery of Vancouver snow and ice. When I lived in small town mountain living Rossland, it was the worst for power failures. Every 2-3 months we had one on average I conservatively estimate. A poster linked us to this UPS . In your opinion for a 1000W desktop power supply at full tilt output with a notebook PC running and a 16" pedestal fan running off the same power bar would the 1500VA UPS like this one be sufficient? I read good things about APC and I guess that's a decent brand to get.
 
Doodski said:
Wowow... for a Vancouver'ish local that's dreadful. Vancouver and area snow can be pretty much like frozen water falling in the form of silver dollar sized flakes and is deadly to manage for driving and building stuff too so I understand that. I moved from snow country and was a bit of a snow-snob-driver in that I figured I could drive in any weather. I soon learned the treachery of Vancouver snow and ice. When I lived in small town mountain living Rossland, it was the worst for power failures. Every 2-3 months we had one on average I conservatively estimate. A poster linked us to this UPS . In your opinion for a 1000W desktop power supply at full tilt output with a notebook PC running and a 16" pedestal fan running off the same power bar would the 1500VA UPS like this one be sufficient? I read good things about APC and I guess that's a decent brand to get.
Click to expand...
A disclaimer, all I did for research was google “wirecutter ups”. The battery will last only a couple of minutes with a gaming PC. But you can configure it to shutdown after 2-3mins on battery. That might save enough battery for more essential devices. I use my UPS just for modem, router, Wi-Fi and NUC server and it says it can last up to 3 hours. Never needed more than a couple of minutes so far though.
 
mrbungle said:
A disclaimer, all I did for research was google “wirecutter ups”. The battery will last only a couple of minutes with a gaming PC. But you can configure it to shutdown after 2-3mins on battery. That might save enough battery for more essential devices. I use my UPS just for modem, router, Wi-Fi and NUC server and it says it can last up to 3 hours. Never needed more than a couple of minutes so far though.
Click to expand...
That's what I'm curious about the run time when UPS mode is engaged. Realistically the gaming PC only draws a minimal amount of power when quiescent. It downclocks to 800MHz at low power state. So would I really need a 1500VA rated unit for general operation. I would mostly be purchasing this for protection rather than the UPS power up operating time.
 
That UPS is only rated to 900W. You should verify as well that the 1000W PSU is actually drawing 1000W under full load. Use a Kill-a-watt meter or similar to see. It's probably only drawing 600-700W under full load. The fan is probably 40W at full tilt and the laptop a dozen or so watts. I live on the Island in a wind-prone area a couple of hundred meters above sea level so we often get snow in winter.
 
DonR said:
Use a Kill-a-watt meter or similar to see.
Click to expand...
I think I'll buy a multimeter, measure amps and then calc the apparent power. The multimeter has so many other functions that I can use from time to time.
 
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