UPSes again

1. Jaimie Vandenbergh - 25 April 2007

   Having been primed by the chat out these just recently, we had a power outage tonight.

   So there I was, being slowly driven mad by the plaintive cheeping of the (mains) smoke detector system for two bloody hours while the local electricity monkeys tried to fix the local substation multiple times, not to mention protectively switching _off_ the house mains loops while they bounced the power up and down... and the grilfiend charges downstairs about 40 minutes in saying "If you don't disconnect this bloody alarm so I can get to sleep I'll rip it off the ceiling and throw it out the window". At this point I decided I needed a nice sturdy UPS for a computer or two, routers, network kit and the damnable alarm system.

   Since I hang around in uk.comp.sys.homebuilt with the sort of folks who build racks, I had an old saved message from a trustworthy poster recommending a few sellers on eBay. Off I toddle, to find that one of them - "ups-trader" - had a 1400VA 2U APS lump available for £84 all in (£65+p&p). Extra cheap due to missing fascia.
   http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=SU1400R2IBX120

   So I've bought two, since a battery set would cost at least £45+p&p. Sod those nPower muppets, I shall be fully mains independent for at least half an hour!

   Now I just need somewhere to put them... 30 kilos each. Nice.

   Cheers - Jaimie

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2. Andy Hewitt - 25 April 2007

   Aye, I looked at those too, but I had nowhere to put a rack mount box. Had the standard boxes been USB I'd have had one of those.

   So I've bought two, since a battery set would cost at least £45+p&p. Sod those nPower muppets, I shall be fully mains independent for at least half an hour!

   Now I just need somewhere to put them... 30 kilos each. Nice.

   Yeah, bleeding heavy ain't they?

   Andy Hewitt
   <http://web.mac.com/andrewhewitt1/>

3. Jaimie Vandenbergh - 25 April 2007

   I'm not overly fussed about automated shutdown. Not much is alive unless it's in use - the network switches+routers are, which are very low power. So since I'll be there, I can shut any computers down cleanly myself after the UPSen drain to 50%. Good old VNC.

   Slightly lighter than my scuba twinset. Yes, bleeding heavy!

   Cheers - J

   Squawk! Pieces of Nine! Squawk! Pieces of Nine!
   SYSTEM HALTED - PARROTTY ERROR.

4. Andy Hewitt - 25 April 2007

   I wasn't sure myself, but there are times in the day where I may go out, and the Mac will be left running, and I can't get to shut it down myself.

   Having handled many lead-acid batteries myself, I'm quite amazed at it really, these are *much* heavier than a similar sized car battery for example.

   Andy Hewitt
   <http://web.mac.com/andrewhewitt1/>

5. Jaimie Vandenbergh - 25 April 2007

   This is true, but power outages are uncommon enough here for the combined risk to be low. And in fact I've never lost anything (not even a filesystem) to mains power outs, so really the whole project is more for convenience than anything else.

   Having handled many lead-acid batteries myself, I'm quite amazed at it really, these are *much* heavier than a similar sized car battery for example.

   They do look small to weigh 6kilos each, I must say. The one we had at work used nine large marine batteries (5kVA), but I never dared to try lifting one up. High risk of either electrocution or snapped spine.

   Cheers - J

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6. Andy Hewitt - 25 April 2007

   I'm pretty sure the power outage last week caused some corruptions, so I'm not taking any chances with that anymore. We do suffer with a lot of brown-outs too. Quite a lot of the houses down my way are overhead feed.

   Indeed. I guess the extra bits must weight a bit too - all the power control bits, and DC-AC converters etc. especially when they get into the KVA regions.

   Andy Hewitt
   <http://web.mac.com/andrewhewitt1/>

7. Jaimie Vandenbergh - 25 April 2007

   Ew. We're on underground cables, and either on or off. If we had brown-outs, I'd have got around to buying the UPSen long ago.

   One big box with 8 batteries in, maybe a meter deep/tall and half that wide. Then another box the same size with the final battery and the rest of the electrics. The windings+core for the transformer was about a foot cube lump of iron and copper! Wheeled, and it needed two of us burly blokes to move each one from the old computer room to the new one.

   Wish I'd whipped it when the office closed, but it would have broken my car...

   Cheers - Jaimie

   b3ta: the only place where you can be second creating an image of a stick figure ninja and a 100-foot banana with a cowboy hat and platform shoes being chased by an escaped box of cornflakes (www.b3ta.com/board/3390965)

8. Andy Hewitt - 25 April 2007

   I had considered one a while ago myself, but to date nothing disasterous had happened - although it could explain many instances of minor problems.

   Not to mention whoever tried to get it into the car!

   Andy Hewitt
   <http://web.mac.com/andrewhewitt1/>