Battery Backup or Surge Protector?

[stevech]

Square D makes whole house surge protectors for their panels that use two blank slots on the main panel. Has a single connection to neutral (which at the panel is bonded to the ground ). Takes less than 15 minuted for a DYI if you have the minimum skills to replace a circuit breaker.

For fire insurance reasons, I don't thing an unlicensed person should work inside the breaker box and sub-panels.
Insurance companies are always looking for an out.

Plus, my sole opinion is that these surge suppressors are not beneficial.

 

[stevech]

I thought I had seen a UPS that used an ION battery and I wondered whether it was replaceable. It was small but would work for 1 workstation.

I just saw Fry's has an APC 1500VA UPS for $129 with rebates. I guess Black Friday.

I have a Cyberpower brand 1500VA UPS. Running for several years now, in the garage, connected through-wall to office where main PC, NAS, router, cable modem, phone modem, etc. are. That UPS has a self test that says the old battery is still OK. The self-test switches the load to the battery for a short time. And it has worked fine in recent power outages.

The APC at that price is a good deal.

In prior years of Black Friday sales at Fry's, it's a madhouse and inventories are low and no rain checks. One year, the it took a half hour to get into the parking lot to even begin searching for a parking place.
If you can order on line, I go for it.

 

[coxhaus]

In prior years of Black Friday sales at Fry's, it's a madhouse and inventories are low and no rain checks. One year, the it took a half hour to get into the parking lot to even begin searching for a parking place.
If you can order on line, I go for it.

Order online, pickup at the store after the rush in a day or 2.

 

[System Error Message]

All UPS the batteries can be changed but for most it involves opening it up unlike some which are made to be easily changed. It is important that you know what type of battery is used by your UPS so when you change it that you change it with the same type because output amp capacity, output voltage and charge voltage are all different for different types of batteries. Lithium batteries have a consistent profile unlike deep cycle lead acid batteries. you can also modify and make your UPS ugly and bulkier by adding more batteries of the same type (the battery capacity must be the same as existing if you add more) to get more hours out of it but this can increase the recharge time

 

[westom]

Square D makes whole house surge protectors for their panels that use two blank slots on the main panel.

Siemens makes a similar model. Other companies of integrity include General Electric, Leviton, ABB, Syscom, Intermatic, Polyphaser (an industry benchmark) and Ditek. A Cutler-Hammer sells in both Lowes and Home Depot since even informed homeowners can install one.

One is often available (rented) from the electric company.

Properly earthed 'whole house' is the only solution always found in every facility that cannot have damage. Why does your telco have no damage from about 100 surges with each storm? They use a proven 'whole house' solution; do not use plug-in protectors.

 

[System Error Message]

properly earthed whole house isnt the only solution, what about the fuses, resistors, MOVs, active factor corrections, capacitors, filtering, smoothing, etc.

 

[sfx2000]

As a side note - having a UPS is pretty handy...

Out here in Eastern San Diego County, we had a power outage last week - truck carrying an oversize load took down some powerlines...

Having the cable modem, primary router/AP, and the NAS box on the UPS kept connectivity up - power was out for about 4 hours, the NAS shutdown cleanly, and the CM/Router was able to stay up the entire period...

Depends on the UPS, but many have additional outlets for surge suppression as well, and my UPS actually has two USB power ports to charge devices (it also has a USB type B to plug into the NAS type A for power monitoring).

 

[sfx2000]

For fire insurance reasons, I don't thing an unlicensed person should work inside the breaker box and sub-panels.

I guess you've never been to the third world eh?

 

[sfx2000]

In prior years of Black Friday sales at Fry's, it's a madhouse and inventories are low and no rain checks. One year, the it took a half hour to get into the parking lot to even begin searching for a parking place.

I went over tp Fry's on Sunday (the Stonecrest location off Aero Drive), and it was pretty much business normal - same deals in place as Black Friday, but it was reasonable...BestBuy in Santee on the other hand, was a mad-house Friday morning (had to stop by the credit union to drop off a check) - talked to the security guy, and folks started camping out there from Tuesday morning, lol...

 

[stevech]

Best Buy.
I go there when my wife is shopping in an adjacent nick-knack store.

More power to Best Buy - they are the last of the breed, I supposed.

Why do I feel the need to take a shower after going there?

 

[sfx2000]

Why do I feel the need to take a shower after going there?

Think it has to do from the initial walk-in experience - would you like to apply for BestBuy credit card, blah, blah, blah... but there are times where I find better deals there than Fry's or online...

BestBuy - They've gotten better in the last few months... outside of black friday, that store has some decent deals on the manager's specials, but Fletcher Pkwy store in La Mesa has better ones...

FWIW - awesome openbox oppty's at both stores after Christmas with returns...

 

[sfx2000]

BTW - a lot of good info here - some of it is dated, but since surge suppressor technology is fairly mature, it's still relevant...

http://www.nist.gov/pml/div684/spd.cfm

 

[sfx2000]

Just a quick follow up...

Had a power outage the other day - UPS shutdown the NAS after power being out two minutes (setting in the NAS box for a clean shutdown) - UPS kept up the Cable Modem (which the ISP has battery backups) and my Router - logging in with the laptop, I was able to check in and see with our Power Company where the fault was, and got email notification that the NAS was shutting out...

FWIW - my Router and Cable Modem pull down about 13 watts - which for my UPS, is better than 12 hours, all good... Cable ISP stayed up the whole time, and it was a interesting moment to see most of the community WiFi offline (e.g. gone....) - talk about clear channels

The Surge Protector might have helped perhaps when SDG&E got the power back on... but I'm not expecting that to be truth there, other that my high value machines are plugged into one...

 

[westom]

That ISP deserves recommendation for providing reliable service during a blackout. Some are not so responsible.

 

[sfx2000]

That ISP deserves recommendation for providing reliable service during a blackout. Some are not so responsible.

The provider also offers dial tone (POTS telephone service) as part of their available packages, and with us being in fire/earthquake country... I'll have to double check, but it may be an E911 requirement...

They've got battery boxes at major nodes within the subdivision...

 

[TonyH]

Thanks for the input, I really don't want to spend a whole lot of money maybe about $100-$150 or so. Do you have any suggestions? I was thinkging about picking this one up on amazon, its only 600 watts which should be plenty for my small load and has the pure sine wave protection. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00429N192/?tag=snbforums-20

UPS, good dependable ones cost some $$$. Cheap ones don't last long and can't trust it much. Surge protector; also there is ones you can use to protect whole house which is installed at the electric cable entry point(also quite expensive) I was transferred to this city in 1970. When I retired, decided not to go back to the East. During all this time total power outage is maybe 3 hours? I never lost any stuff from power surge or lightning. Some of My HAM equipments cost puch $$$. I did not have an occasion to claim any damage caused by electricity on my insurance. Now I am knocking the wood, LOL!

 

[TonyH]

So are you saying that we shouldn't use surge protectors or battery backup? It seems like from what I can take out of all your posts is that the internal components are built to withstand it and that it doesn't matter what type of power it is getting?


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Good SMART ups takes care of both surge protection and power backup. For something good, sky is the limit for price. Worst case scenario, if you buy budget priced cheap stuff, when disaster strikes you may end up losing both the protecting equipment and ones it supposed to protect. I saw it happen in my working days.

 

[stevech]

Surge protection marketing gives the impression that it will protect from a short "glitch", where a "surge" is likely visible in the lights in your house, as a fraction of a section outage, like 1/10 of a second or so. Well a surge protector attempts to attenuate a high voltage, not a short interruption (lower voltage). A nearby lightening strike might induce high voltage for a short time.

Opinion: Surge Protectors are high-tech snake oil. A good UPS is it. But they can fail to squelch a glitch from lightening because the UPS has not yet failed over to the inverter on battery when that glitch happens.

I have a Cyberpower UPS in the garage (1500VA, $125). Passes cord through wall to office where my NAS, router, switch, main PC are all plugged in. Cable modem and switch in garage on same UPS. APC is a good brand too. Those might be the only two good brands for consumers.

I don't scrimp on UPSes, disk drives and RAM modules.

 

[sfx2000]

[humor]

Doing some semi-remote debug on a platform, and all of a sudden it seemed to lock up hard, no network, nothing - I'm like, wth?

Come to find that I lost primary power, and the box I was debugging was not on the battery side, however, the Router, Modem, and NAS are... and of course, my laptop is running on battery... (and of course, the alarm is disabled on the UPS, so no beeps to be heard...)

Took me a minute to understand, as I was over in the dining room, whereas everything else is in the "office"...

[/humor]

 

[System Error Message]

Why didnt any of you think of solar? If its during the day it is a good source of power.