UPS?

[RJH]

Neatness aside, wouldn't a car battery be a better bet? IME they last at least

10 years without any buckling, and I've thought their environment was far more hostile . . .

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

It very much depends on what voltage stuff uses I suppose. Not all routers are 12v. Brian

[Adrian Brentnall]

Not really... 'Normal' car batteries are designed to give a big starting current for a short period of time, rather than a lower current for longer. Lead-acid 'leisure' batteries work better - but both of them tend to give off (flammable) hydrogen when under constant charge - which you don't really want indoors..

[Paul]

They make weird choices for power, when the box has "analog" functions inside.

Devices with pure digital functions, the powering (for best economy) should be easier to predict.

If a box has a lot of trouble with noise on analog (your ADSL keeps dropping sync), then they might go to extra expense dreaming up a power chain for it.

Paul

[newshound]

Interesting. Given that my application is "convenience" rather than "business critical" I think I am more inclined to go for a £50 or so Li-Ion "powerbank" type rather than a "serious" lead acid UPS. And maybe not until the winter, as it turns out the problems yesterday come from an identified local fault, rather than being "random" events.

My "business" work is all done on laptops for security reasons, although I sometimes access the laptop drive from a desktop so that I have a big screen and proper keyboard.

I'll check the power drain and wall-wart capacity of my Plusnet router carefully before looking at "inline" (i.e. 12v to 12v) boxes.

[RJH]

OK, thanks! I'd have thought that a car battery does live on relatively low rates of constant charge for a fair amount of time (several years over the life of the battery), and modern batteries don't give off that much gas when charging. But hey, been wrong before.

JOOI, how do the lead acid batteries in UPSs manage without producing more gas than say, a sealed/maintenance free car battery?

[Andy Burns]

Same really, they're VRLA (valve regulated lead acid) which don't release gas under normal charge conditions, but do have a pressure relief valve.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

With modern switch-mode power supplies it makes very little difference to draw whether you use 240V->12V or 12V native. In a domestic setting the added complexity of managing various power values is far more faff than just running mains voltage.

Cheers - Jaimie

[AnthonyL]

I've got one ready for collection. The original brand batteries are quite expensive and I the current (dead) one is a CBS.

Originally the UPS was for a Novell file server, they didn't like the rug taken from their feet, but then it went home and connected to the PVR which also didn't like sudden interruptions which were frequent in our village.

Eventually the battery died. Whether any equipment that was connected to it suffered I don't know, I suppose I'd have to repeat history without it connected to know!

Have since moved and power in this property is fairly solid (apart from an 11hr failure last year!!).

[Dave Liquorice]

The Elmdene is £45 before you add a suitable power supply, that'll be another £15 to £20.

No need to go for an all singing all dancing jobbie there are some basic models out there for a similar number of beer tokens. The other aspect to look at is the runtime on batteries. That Elmdene quotes just about an hour for a 10 W load from it's 4.4 AHr battery. A WiFi router will have a power consumption of that order.

A mains UPS with SLAs is quite like to have a runtime at 10 W considerably longer than an hour.

[newshound]

Thanks. I was mainly concerned to keep the internet/wifi up for short outages. I had been assuming that my local FTTC cabinet is *not* on the same supply as the house, but perhaps that assumption is not valid. One merit of having a "mains" system is that my router runs off the same socket as my XT-2 front door camera and a Fingbox and it would be handy to keep them all "up".

[jrwalliker]

The FTTC cabinet near here has a 48V stack of SLA batteries inside, so it should stay up for an hour or two.

John

[newshound]

Thanks.

Just walked past mine and it must have been kicking a kilowatt of warm air out of the vents.

[tony sayer]

In article [e-mail], T i m [e-mail]> scribeth thus

The more recent APC's are better then the old ones they don't "cook" the batteries like they used to!..

[Dave Liquorice]

The cabinets have batteries that'll keep them up for few hours.

[spuorgelgoog]

Well they might if the batteries are fairly new.

After a few years?

Owain

[Dave Liquorice]

inside, so

One would assume that they are (or should be) on a routine replacement program. Openreach go around checking poles for rot, just done "ours" next inspection due in 6 years. Same with the poles carrying power, they are regulary inspected.

Remember there is an obligation on Openreach to provide emergency comms, morally if not legally, when the power goes off. You certainly can't rely on mobiles working. At least two of the mobile networks disappear the moment the power goes at the local cell site. There large areas that only have coverage from that cell, no visible neighbour cells.

[tony sayer]

I've found the original fit CSB ones quite good value and last well.

Not had such good experiences with Yuasa.

Usually get them from here..

[Bob Eager]

+1 for MDS Battery and CSB. My go-to place, and I have four UPS units!

(APC ones, so batteries don't last as long as they should. Although one is showing minor signs of age and it's lasted six years this time).

[Andy Burns]

Twice the price of the Tayna/Powerline ones I've just replaced, I doubt CSB/Yuasa would last much longer than 5 years.

Ordered after hours on thursday evening, delivered Saturday lunchtime