Re: Question about UPS.

[dsavage@peaknet.net]

On Wednesday August 4, 2004 at 3:15 p.m. "Jack Browning"
<spaminacan@charter.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Aug 2004, Ken Keefe wrote:
>
>> Does anyone have a suggestion for a good UPS that I can get for under
>> 100 bucks? Its for an Athlon 2000XP box, so it needs to support a pretty
>> substantial amount of wattage. I'd like something that could give me
>> 5-10 minutes of uptime, if possible.
>
> I've been using an APC BackUPS 500 ES on my Athlon box for a while now. I
> think I got it for under $50 (after rebate). I use apcupsd to monitor it,
> and everything seems to work just fine. With the computer and a 15" CRT
> plugged into the UPS I get 7.4 minutes of uptime, which is plenty for a
> transient power failure. apcupsd automatically shuts down the computer
> when battery time goes below 3 minutes.

Everybody should take note that Jack includes the CRT monitor as part of
the expected load on an UPS. If apcupsd doesn't work and you are forced to
shut down your system manually sans video, you may as well just yank out
the power cord. (Been there. Done that. Wasn't pretty.)

If commercial power in your area is so flakey that your UPS is called upon
"often", in the long run it'll be cheaper for you to buy a bigger, beefier
unit. Unlike other battery types, the sealed lead-acid gel cells used in
an UPS do not tolerate deep cycling very well. As a rule of thumb UPS
batteries last about five years, less 10% for each time they're deep
cycled.

And when they won't hold a charge any longer, think of your UPS as a big
flashlight. It's cheaper to open it up and replace the batteries than to
buy a whole new unit. (Last year I spent $300 to renew a 1500VA Powerware
unit with 15 cells.) Then kindly take the old cells to a licensed recycler
(like Bell City Battery Manufacturing Co. in Belleville).

--Doc
Robert G. (Doc) Savage, BSE(EE), CISSP, RHCE | Fairview Heights, IL
Fedora Core 1 kernel 2.4.22-1.2188.nptl on P-III/M IBM Thinkpad A22p
"Perfection is the enemy of good enough."
                          -- Admiral of the Fleet Sergei G. Gorshkov

-
To unsubscribe, send email to majordomo@silug.org with
"unsubscribe silug-discuss" in the body.