Simple UPS recommendation?

[beelzerob]

I'm tired of fearing for my wretched DLP TV and it's $300+ bulb whenever the lights flicker, so I'm finally going to get a simple UPS so I'll have time to turn it off and let it cool if the power goes out.

I measured it with a killawatt at about I think 110 watts while running. I would only need something to keep it alive like 5 minutes.

I also want to protect my WHS machine, since it is doing such a good job of protecting everything else! It also uses right around 110 watts, and whatever UPS I use for it I would of course want it to be able to tell the PC to shutdown.

Any suggestions?

 

[batwater]

Partial to APC UPSs. Check out their website, they have a wattage calculator. Also, since your hooking up your WHS you will want to make sure to connect to the UPS for auto shutdown. The ups can also be used to filter antenna, cable, DSL or both to protect from lightning.

-Ben

 

[beelzerob]

Hey, that's handy, thanks! Certainly APC is a trusted name...or at least a familiar name for me.

I've only owned one UPS ever and I think it was an APC, and I forget when the battery went dead on it, and I just kept using it as the biggest/heaviest power strip ever. Then I finally tired of it and cut off the power cord (salvage!) and threw it away.

The calculator is cool, but doesn't help me for figuring the TV....I guess it'd count as a mid-tower??

Edit: Doh! Found the "miscellaneous" calculator. Cool!

 

[beelzerob]

Recommends the same one for both TV and WHS server. I think when I get home I'm going to test with the killawatt again to make sure my nums are correct. But having 2 of the same kind is probably a good thing, that way when 1 battery goes bad I can use the remaining UPS on what matters most.

 

[batwater]

Glad that worked out for you. When you do need to replace batteries, as long as the UPS electronics are good you can go to a local battery store like Batteries Plus and replace without having to pay through the nose for shipping. I have heard that some people have gotten UPSs off of e-bay, told the seller to keep the battery and just gone out to the local battery shop to get the battery you need.

-Ben

 

[Steve]

These days I like CyberPower. They have a selector tool. Usually Provantage has some of the better prices on CyberPower.

 

[WayneW]

Or just put the WHS behind the TV and buy one UPS for both?

 

[beelzerob]

No, can't co-locate them. one is in a rack in the basement, and the other is prominently displayed in the great room. It's worth an extra $60 bucks to not have the fan screaming WHS machine up there!

 

[JeffCharger]

I've used the smallest APC unit for about 5 years - still haven't had a battery problem. I think the model # is 300 something. I have a whole bunch of stuff connected to it, so it doesn't last long in an actual power failure... but the beauty is that it gets me through the brownouts and "flickers" that we endure in a remote location.

You can get them for about $35 if you catch a sale.

 

[beelzerob]

I'm leaning towards the lowest cyberpower....425 VA. I can get the 2 I need for about the cost of 1 of the lowest APC units. I could wait around for a sale, but I've been waiting too long for this, and it's definitely one of those "I *KNEW* I should have gotten that" kind of things.

 

[beelzerob]

Hmm....after a little further investigation, from what the specs are telling me (granted, it's on buy.com, but still....) the cyberpower 425 doesn't have a user-replaceable or hot-swappable battery. The APC, however, does. Since it seems a given that the battery will die at some point, it seems it might be smarter to get one that I can buy just a replacement battery for.

I thought I was looking at the smallest APC (550), but I found the 350, and it's in the same price range as the 425 cyber. Its not much, but I don't *need* much, so 350 VA will probably take care of me.

 

[KentDub]

Hmm....after a little further investigation, from what the specs are telling me (granted, it's on buy.com, but still....) the cyberpower 425 doesn't have a user-replaceable or hot-swappable battery. The APC, however, does. Since it seems a given that the battery will die at some point, it seems it might be smarter to get one that I can buy just a replacement battery for.

I thought I was looking at the smallest APC (550), but I found the 350, and it's in the same price range as the 425 cyber. Its not much, but I don't *need* much, so 350 VA will probably take care of me.

Don't max out the UPS. 550 sounds like it would be fine for you but 350 seems a bit low. The UPS does double-conversion (AC->DC->AC), so if you run it at a high level all of the time if/when it discharges it will have trouble charging back up.

 

[batwater]

Hmm....after a little further investigation, from what the specs are telling me (granted, it's on buy.com, but still....) the cyberpower 425 doesn't have a user-replaceable or hot-swappable battery. The APC, however, does. Since it seems a given that the battery will die at some point, it seems it might be smarter to get one that I can buy just a replacement battery for.

I thought I was looking at the smallest APC (550), but I found the 350, and it's in the same price range as the 425 cyber. Its not much, but I don't *need* much, so 350 VA will probably take care of me.

Don't max out the UPS. 550 sounds like it would be fine for you but 350 seems a bit low. The UPS does double-conversion (AC->DC->AC), so if you run it at a high level all of the time if/when it discharges it will have trouble charging back up.

What KentDub said! Leave a little bit of spare power, your unit will run more efficiently, as he said, you are always running on battery whether main AC is on or not. I usually get larger units and plug everything into it. I have one in my bedroom that I have our TV, AV/reciever, Blu-Ray, HD200, ethernet switch, cable STB, harmony one, powered sub-woofer, etc all plugged in. For my WHS I have quite a bit of up time, the reason being is that I would rather not shut down the server at all, avoiding spinning down 8 hard drives and then worrying about whether they will spin back up when I turn it back on. You know, 24x7xyears of running...

Most of the smaller units are going to be throw away and not have replaceable batteries. However, you might do the math on the difference between getting a unit that the battery can be replaced, the cost of a replacement battery and a smaller contained unit that you just "throw away" when it dies. Of course the 1st option is greener from a battery perspective
-Ben

 

[beelzerob]

Noooooooooooo!!

*cry*

It always goes this way....I'm just about to make a good, affordable decision for my house...and then I throw it all away and go crazy on something almost twice as expensive 'cause it's BETTER.



Hehe...all that to say, thanks for the inputs. I'm not sure I'd be maxing out the 350 even...I think it has something like 200 watts max. But the most I've measured from the WHS machine is 130 watts (peak!..usually around 100), and 20 for the external HD I back stuff up to. So those both together I'm only going to be maxing out at 150 watts. And the TV is even less than that. In the calculator, I put in having the UPS only give power for 5 minutes...more than enough time to go turn off the TV or have WHS shut itself down.

That *is* a good point about the cost of batteries vs. the cost of just a new UPS. I went online to batteries .com and it looked like a replacement battery was about half the cost of a new UPS, and I'm not sure UPS's will get cheaper as times goes on, not like memory or CPU prices. *shrug*

I might go the 350 for the TV and a 550 for the WHS machine, since, of all devices, it *is* more likely to grow over time. However, I really have no plans to put anything else on a UPS. I've put this off long enough as it is, I just know I've been skirting disaster. Pretty much everything I own is on a surge protector, and that's been good enough for me.

 

[batwater]

Noooooooooooo!!

*cry*

It always goes this way....I'm just about to make a good, affordable decision for my house...and then I throw it all away and go crazy on something almost twice as expensive 'cause it's BETTER.

That is what makes my wife crazy, I do the same thing, but Honey... as her eyes roll back in her head... "It's better because, blah blah blah" All she hears is $$ $$ $$$$ $ $$$$ :axe:

I know what you are saying, I had surge for many years and I avoided disaster for many years (very early years) and then I had a Mac SE30 (carbon dating myself) our area was prone to brown outs, kept telling my wife that we really should get a UPS, didn't win that discussion, so crossed my fingers... then one particularly nasty summer we had the brown out of all brown outs and it roached the hard drive on the Mac. The AC compressor made funny noises, etc, miracle that didn't croak too. After that I never had an issue getting UPSs
-Ben