A couple of recent bad-weather days have convinced me that I need a small Uninterruptible Power Supply for a couple of my electronic devices. Last Sunday we had two very brief power outages (less than 1-2 seconds each), but that was enough to reset my cable modem, wi-fi mesh hub, and main cable TV box. This isn’t a big deal, but each of these takes several minutes to reset. When I’m watching the radar and listening to the local weatherman tell us about a possible tornado in the area, I don’t need these interruptions.
At a minimum, I need four battery-protected outlets. A couple of surge-protected outlets would be a plus. I’ve looked on Amazon, but I have no idea if one is better than another.
Anybody have any experience and could recommend?
I’ve looked at Amazon and there are several available, but
I have been happy w the Amazon-branded UPSes. I have two, one ~700VA and one ~1500VA.
The big thing w a UPS is to get a large enough one that the battery can sustain your load for a meaningful number of minutes. I figure 20 is enough to overkill any power glitches, easily handle the ordinary failures, and permit an orderly unhurried shutdown after a hurricane kills our power for the next 2 weeks.
I use APC as well. I’ve owned 2, maybe 3 in the past 18 years I’ve lived here. I’ve replaced the batteries a couple of times. After replacing the battery once, the second time it needs replacing everything seems kind of gross and corroded in there so I get a new unit.
I connect my PC, monitor, router and modem. Gives me plenty of time to save my work and shut down gracefully if there’s a power outage.
I once bought a Cyberpower, It turned out that it was constantly charging the battery. Killed the battery in no time. You want a model that turns off the charging and only turns in back on when the battery level drops somewhat.
It turns out that we had a power glitch yesterday. One of my UPSes (the least important one) didn’t work, dead battery. I think I’ll just get a new battery if the economics are good.
A consumer UPS is a battery backup system and a bunch of outlets in a chunky box. Some outlets are only surge protected; the others are surge protected and backed up by the battery. That’s the definition of a “UPS” at least for consumer and small office installations. What a data center calls a “UPS” is a rather more elaborate collection of gizmos.
UPS’s, at least consumer ones, definitely have life-limited batteries. I don’t mean the duration they can support the load. I mean the number of months / years they can be installed before the battery “wears out” and refuses to hold a charge.
I have one right now that probably needs a new battery; it seems to support the lightish load attached to it for about 15 seconds, not 15+ minutes like it should. Oh bother.
I like APC. At my previous job every single desktop computer in the software development area had one. The one attached to my current desktop PC is this 1500 VA model which has since been superceded by newer ones. My other computers have smaller ones.
I’ve had that 1500 model for probably 15 years or more. The battery has been replaced twice just due to normal aging, and it’s been really reliable.
Maybe my wording was unclear. I’ll preface by saying that when I think of UPSs I think of backup systems to warship command and control and weapons and sensor systems. So I am trying to mentally apply or convert this to home use and determine how easy this is to use and how seamlessly.
I was initially thinking of something fairly large (like a couple of car batteries in size) for which specific procedures have to be conducted. The illustrated Amazon example, however, looks to me like a fat power bar.
So is that basically how it functions - acting like a power bar while also storing backup power, without me having to do anything special or complex?
Yeah, all I’m going to plug into the UPS is my cable modem, Orbi mesh wi-fi hub, cable TV box, and perhaps a desktop computer. FWIW, I’m not terribly concerned about the amount of time that power will be supplied…a couple of minutes is sufficient. As I stated in my first post, I’m tired of the above devices rebooting after every small blink in the power to my house.
Both the Amazon Basic and APC devices will probably fit my needs just fine.
Gotcha. Yeah, very different context leads to very different assumptions and parsing of ideas.
The one that supports my cable modem, wifi transmitter, USB charger/adaptor and laptop docking station is about 4x5x8 inches and operates exactly like a multi-outlet power bar that you leave turned on at all times. Except that if the utility supply fails, it beeps and keeps the stuff supplied with electricity for a few minutes.
I have a larger one about 4x6x10" that supplies the TV, the set-top box, the DVD player, and sound bar. Same idea.
In my case they’re mostly for extra-good surge protection, and the ability to avoid a vexing and slow series of reboots of the whole network stack if the power flickers. This residence is new to me so I have no direct experience of our power reliability here. I’m hoping it’s excellent being all underground supply. But at my prior place when I got the UPSes, flickers or 2-second outages were weekly occurrences, and lowing power for a few minutes occurred every couple of months. Post-hurricane the power would be out for a week, but we had substantially zero outages between 10 minutes and 5 days. So aiming for 10-15 minutes of load support was adequate.
I have a UPS from work at home for my desktop and router. Umm… FYI these things can be quite heavy.
My wife and I both have a small not quite shoebox size jump starters in out cars. Won’t work on a totally dead battery, but it works if it needs just a boost.
It will also charge laptops and cellphones slowly. You are not going to run a desktop or TV off of it though. So that could get you through a rough patch.
And I also recommend this to everyone - Buy some nice oil lamps. They are decorative and also very functional and cheap. Some of my best memories are playing chess by oil lamp.
Sorry for the hi-jack. No real recommendations for a good UPS. The APC UPS I have at home will allow me to shut things down gently. That’s really all they are for IMHO.
