Buying a UPS

CPTBoy said:
What brand UPS is that? Does it charge all 8 batteries?

What is the +- total cost for a setup like this?
Click to expand...

The brand is called Prostar.

The UPS has an 'Intelligent charger' built in . 15A charge current. It charges all 8 just fine. For my uncles setup, the supplier told me I must not connect 12 and just 8, but I want to see if I can get away with 12 because the house is still fitted with Halogen lights that draws a lot of power. So I will monitor the batteries once a week and see if they getting sufficient charge, and if not I will drop to 8 like my setup.

The cost, no wait, MY COST of the UPS was R6999 and each 12v100ah DC Gel battery R2400.00
 
Messugga said:
This is simply not true. You get some monsters that are designed to run buildings for several hours on end, in the event of generator failure. There is also the added benefit of the UPS cleaning up potentially very dirty generator power.
Click to expand...

If you walk into a store and ask them for a UPS chances are they will sell you something in the 10-20 minute range. I've yet to see something much larger in a bog standard computer store (and I've been looking).

A few online computer stores (not specialist power places) sell UPS' in the region of the 60 minute range, which is a lot more than what we used to get when I bought my first UPS. Still not long enough to last through load shedding though.
 
Depends on what you're doing at the time. For office work you can easily underspec it. A gaming pc idles at like sub 150.

Problem is that you need to spec for max draw. Ie if you underspec it like that and power trips while under full load (500+) then it doesn't just die proportionally sooner... It goes up in smoke (maybe) or just kills power to the pc (more likely)
 
zolly said:
If you walk into a store and ask them for a UPS chances are they will sell you something in the 10-20 minute range. I've yet to see something much larger in a bog standard computer store (and I've been looking).

A few online computer stores (not specialist power places) sell UPS' in the region of the 60 minute range, which is a lot more than what we used to get when I bought my first UPS. Still not long enough to last through load shedding though.
Click to expand...
Who ever said you had to buy a UPS from a computer store?
That's a bit like saying gaming computers don't really exist because if you go to Game they only have pre-built Dell boxes with integrated graphics.

Besides, I'd never trust a computer store to support a higher end UPS. You speak to electricians about those not computer techies.
 
Last edited:
Battery discharge below 50% ?????

A question that has not been raised with me before, but may be an issue now is batteries being discharged to low levels continouisly.

The General wizard and advice on various forums is not to discharge a bettery lower than 50%. Going below 50% consistently reduces battery life.

Back in the day when a UPS kicked in once every six months or there abouts this was not an issue.

With Loadshedding, UPS's are kicking in every day, with batteries being discharged quite frequently, if the loadshed period is long, and/or the UPS has not been specced correctly.

Some UPS suppliers I have asked say that the batteries will go to 80% discharge before shutdown, and that this is a fixed setting.

Does anyone know of any UPS Brand in the medium to low price range (for Spec) where a battery discharge % before shutdown initiation, can be set.

I would imagine brands like APC and EATON will have a setting like this but I am going to check.

I see issues in a couple of months time with dead batteries in UPS and Inverter systems where the systems have consistently been discharged, before shutdown due to regular loadshedding
 
Toby said:
A question that has not been raised with me before, but may be an issue now is batteries being discharged to low levels continouisly.
Click to expand...

I am having the same problem... have dead batteries in a few cheap units already
 
Biggest mistake I made was bought a affordable PSU and bamn that things batteries die faster than a black guy in a horror movie.


So I am saving now to buy a proper APC
 
A year or so ago I bought an APC Back-UPS 650 from Wootware.

My original needs were simple to give me time to perform an orderly shut-down of 1 x PC

While it has served it's purpose, I am already considering a more powerful unit to enable my PC + Monitor + ADSL Router to last for around 30 mins of uninterrupted power
 
The more I read the more confused I become. Seems that most models only allow one device to auto shutdown - I need to shut down my Pc and Microserver.
 
undesign said:
The more I read the more confused I become. Seems that most models only allow one device to auto shutdown - I need to shut down my Pc and Microserver.
Click to expand...

Why not just script it (Bash, Powershell, etc)?
Have the machine which is going to shut down create a trigger for the other systems to also shut down.
This could be anything from creating a file via FTP/SMB which is monitored by a script on each system to something a bit more elaborate like a small server app which send out a "shutdown" instruction via a network broadcast which is captured by client apps running on the other devices.
 
Ok - I decided to go for it myself and see how long these UPS's work at running JUST a modem/router.

I bought a Messner 1000VA UPS for R1100 from Dion Wired on the weekend, charged it up on Sunday and it's running right now.

The box says it has 2 x 12V 9Ah batteries -- so by my reckoning thats 216VAh - say 200Wh. I couldn't find any technical info on it, and I know there's a big internal load, but no idea how big! The box says it has a backup for 20-30 minutes; but that's crazy at 1000VA -- would need 500Wh batteries then -- or 5 batteries, not 2 as it says?!

My little router uses 1-5W so that's 50 hours backup :) (I couldn't get an accurate reading on an effergy, but I think it might be eff-ed anyway -- keeps saying 415V?!) Obviously with this setup, I'm not going to run a PC or printer anything like that. But maybe I'll think about a little LED light after a while, if it's dark.

Will need to chuck a Homebug and a proper meter on it to be sure when/if it's going on and off... Will try to do that tonight/tomorrow!
 
richjdavies said:
My little router uses 1-5W so that's 50 hours backup :) (I couldn't get an accurate reading on an effergy, but I think it might be eff-ed anyway -- keeps saying 415V?!) Obviously with this setup, I'm not going to run a PC or printer anything like that. But maybe I'll think about a little LED light after a while, if it's dark.
Click to expand...

I also got myself a cheapish UPS. Connected my WIFI router and an LED light, works quite well. The LED is only 6 watts but gives out quite a bit of light. Still want to see how long it will last , maybe even add another LED if it can go for over 2 hours.
 
A test on these types of stuff would be awesome.

Wonder where I can borrow/beg/steal one. Lol
 
The_Traveller said:
The brand is called Prostar.

The UPS has an 'Intelligent charger' built in . 15A charge current. It charges all 8 just fine. For my uncles setup, the supplier told me I must not connect 12 and just 8, but I want to see if I can get away with 12 because the house is still fitted with Halogen lights that draws a lot of power. So I will monitor the batteries once a week and see if they getting sufficient charge, and if not I will drop to 8 like my setup.

The cost, no wait, MY COST of the UPS was R6999 and each 12v100ah DC Gel battery R2400.00
Click to expand...

Is it wired into the DB of the house so he can keep using existing lights, plugs etc?
 
Dan C said:
I also got myself a cheapish UPS. Connected my WIFI router and an LED light, works quite well. The LED is only 6 watts but gives out quite a bit of light. Still want to see how long it will last , maybe even add another LED if it can go for over 2 hours.
Click to expand...

I have an old 1000VA ups with 2 X 9AH batteries. It used to power a LED for 3.5hrs, then 2hrs, and it's now down to 1hr. It's obviously draining these batteries too much and destroying them. It would probably be wiser to spec an inverter and battery that will not discharge enough to reduce the battery lifecycle.
 
Joeboy69 said:
Is it wired into the DB of the house so he can keep using existing lights, plugs etc?
Click to expand...

Yes, 30m+30m of a 10mm Sq cable had to be used. The db is in the family room and sufficient space for the ups and batteries in the basement.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X