Hi There,
Does anyone out there own one of these cheap UPS's like:
I was thinking of getting one to protect my PC's from the occasional "brown-out" we get in very windy weather.
A second application would be use with a lead lamp when doing electrical wiring at the fuseboard with all power off, in the half-light and with a torch in your mouth!
David
Seems OK from the blurb, but, of course, I can't comment on the
quality/service/support etc.
It does lack any way of notifying the PC that the battery is about to die,
so you can't shut down cleanly, but that's no worse than you have at the
moment...
K
Most of the cost in UPSs is in the batteries. This one gives a power output level, but not battery capacity, i.e. doesn't say how long it will run.
Entry level UPSs are intended to give enough running time to (ideally automatically) shut down the operating system or Windows rather than running for any length of time.
You need to decide how long you want. If it's more than a few minutes then you need a bigger UPS.
I have a better solution than that, and less expensive.
I put a maintained fluorescent emergency lighting fitting
The light is charged from the mains and will operate as a conventional light - in my case when the door is opened.
If the power fails for whatever reason, the light comes on and will run for three hours.
This is very useful for working on the CU for whatever reason, as well as generally useful for finding things at the back of the cupboard.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
If this is an important usage for you, make sure the UPS has (both in the advertising blurn *and* in practice - says the once-bitten twice-shy buyer here!) the "cold start" facility - i.e. that you can make the thing produce the magic 240VAC when you hit the "on" switch without having it plugged in to a live 240V supply. You may find the one you're looking at is happy to take over when a load is being drawn and the supply fails - the standard usage for a UPS - but that it won't start up all on its lonesome...
Where Andy H has a fixed "emergency light" by his fusebox, I have a lead-acid rechargeable flourescent torch fed by a wallwart charger, which comes on when the wallwart is unplugged or if its supply fails. I got it about 10 years ago from an electrical trade counter, and they still seem to be sold at such places and by the on-line equivalants (TLC and the like).
Stefek
I have a chemical lightstick there as well!
In message , Bob Eager writes
I did have, until my nephew came to stay ...
I don't own one, but things to consider are - It may not be possible to replace the battery on that model when it eventually fails (according to the manual it is non-user serviceable). It has a two year warranty - does that include the battery? It may be noisy (manual says less than 40dB) There is a running time calculator on the Trust website - runs about 18mins for an average PC with LCD screen see
Dave
It does look cheap, but I'm sure you can get a "branded" one for not much more.
If you want cheaper:
Personally I don't buy anything from Dabs though - they don't have a phone number to call them on if something goes wrong - you have to use email, and in my last case, it was time-critical and they took 24 hours to answer each email.
Make sure it comes on with no power applied. Some of them don't!
Gordon
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