Having been primed by the chat out these just recently, we had a power outage tonight.
So there I was, being slowly driven mad by the plaintive cheeping of the (mains) smoke detector system for two bloody hours while the local electricity monkeys tried to fix the local substation multiple times, not to mention protectively switching off the house mains loops while they bounced the power up and down... and the grilfiend charges downstairs about 40 minutes in saying "If you don't disconnect this bloody alarm so I can get to sleep I'll rip it off the ceiling and throw it out the window". At this point I decided I needed a nice sturdy UPS for a computer or two, routers, network kit and the damnable alarm system.
Since I hang around in uk.comp.sys.homebuilt with the sort of folks who build racks, I had an old saved message from a trustworthy poster recommending a few sellers on eBay. Off I toddle, to find that one of them - "ups-trader" - had a 1400VA 2U APS lump available for £84 all in (£65+p&p). Extra cheap due to missing fascia. http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=SU1400R2IBX120
So I've bought two, since a battery set would cost at least £45+p&p. Sod those nPower muppets, I shall be fully mains independent for at least half an hour!
Now I just need somewhere to put them... 30 kilos each. Nice.
Cheers - Jaimie
Jaimie Vandenbergh jaimie@redacted.invalid wrote:
Having been primed by the chat out these just recently, we had a power outage tonight.
So there I was, being slowly driven mad by the plaintive cheeping of the (mains) smoke detector system for two bloody hours while the local electricity monkeys tried to fix the local substation multiple times, not to mention protectively switching off the house mains loops while they bounced the power up and down... and the grilfiend charges downstairs about 40 minutes in saying "If you don't disconnect this bloody alarm so I can get to sleep I'll rip it off the ceiling and throw it out the window". At this point I decided I needed a nice sturdy UPS for a computer or two, routers, network kit and the damnable alarm system.
Since I hang around in uk.comp.sys.homebuilt with the sort of folks who build racks, I had an old saved message from a trustworthy poster recommending a few sellers on eBay. Off I toddle, to find that one of them - "ups-trader" - had a 1400VA 2U APS lump available for £84 all in (£65+p&p). Extra cheap due to missing fascia. http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=SU1400R2IBX120
Aye, I looked at those too, but I had nowhere to put a rack mount box. Had the standard boxes been USB I'd have had one of those.
So I've bought two, since a battery set would cost at least £45+p&p. Sod those nPower muppets, I shall be fully mains independent for at least half an hour!
Now I just need somewhere to put them... 30 kilos each. Nice.
Yeah, bleeding heavy ain't they?
On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 23:57:47 +0100, wildrover.andy@redacted.invalid (Andy Hewitt) wrote:
Jaimie Vandenbergh jaimie@redacted.invalid wrote:
recommending a few sellers on eBay. Off I toddle, to find that one of them - "ups-trader" - had a 1400VA 2U APS lump available for £84 all in (£65+p&p). Extra cheap due to missing fascia. http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=SU1400R2IBX120
Aye, I looked at those too, but I had nowhere to put a rack mount box.
You don't need to rack them, as such. I'm going to be stacking them on a bunch of Ikea Sten shelving in the cellar which already has my patch panel, network gear and various Sun and PC boxen on.
The best thing about rackmount is that it seems to depreciate harder, probably because there's much less of a second-user market for the stuff. The neat little minitower type APCs are about 700VA for a similar same price.
Had the standard boxes been USB I'd have had one of those.
I'm not overly fussed about automated shutdown. Not much is alive unless it's in use - the network switches+routers are, which are very low power. So since I'll be there, I can shut any computers down cleanly myself after the UPSen drain to 50%. Good old VNC.
So I've bought two, since a battery set would cost at least £45+p&p. Sod those nPower muppets, I shall be fully mains independent for at least half an hour!
Now I just need somewhere to put them... 30 kilos each. Nice.
Yeah, bleeding heavy ain't they?
Slightly lighter than my scuba twinset. Yes, bleeding heavy!
Cheers - J
Jaimie Vandenbergh jaimie@redacted.invalid wrote:
On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 23:57:47 +0100, wildrover.andy@redacted.invalid (Andy Hewitt) wrote:
Jaimie Vandenbergh jaimie@redacted.invalid wrote:
recommending a few sellers on eBay. Off I toddle, to find that one of them - "ups-trader" - had a 1400VA 2U APS lump available for £84 all in (£65+p&p). Extra cheap due to missing fascia.
Aye, I looked at those too, but I had nowhere to put a rack mount box.
You don't need to rack them, as such. I'm going to be stacking them on a bunch of Ikea Sten shelving in the cellar which already has my patch panel, network gear and various Sun and PC boxen on.
Yes, I have nowhere to stand it in my computer room!
The best thing about rackmount is that it seems to depreciate harder, probably because there's much less of a second-user market for the stuff. The neat little minitower type APCs are about 700VA for a similar same price.
I noticed that too.
Had the standard boxes been USB I'd have had one of those.
I'm not overly fussed about automated shutdown. Not much is alive unless it's in use - the network switches+routers are, which are very low power. So since I'll be there, I can shut any computers down cleanly myself after the UPSen drain to 50%. Good old VNC.
I wasn't sure myself, but there are times in the day where I may go out, and the Mac will be left running, and I can't get to shut it down myself.
So I've bought two, since a battery set would cost at least £45+p&p. Sod those nPower muppets, I shall be fully mains independent for at least half an hour!
Now I just need somewhere to put them... 30 kilos each. Nice.
Yeah, bleeding heavy ain't they?
Slightly lighter than my scuba twinset. Yes, bleeding heavy!
Having handled many lead-acid batteries myself, I'm quite amazed at it really, these are much heavier than a similar sized car battery for example.
On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 00:14:07 +0100, wildrover.andy@redacted.invalid (Andy Hewitt) wrote:
Jaimie Vandenbergh jaimie@redacted.invalid wrote:
On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 23:57:47 +0100, wildrover.andy@redacted.invalid (Andy Hewitt) wrote:
Jaimie Vandenbergh jaimie@redacted.invalid wrote:
recommending a few sellers on eBay. Off I toddle, to find that one of them - "ups-trader" - had a 1400VA 2U APS lump available for £84 all in (£65+p&p). Extra cheap due to missing fascia.
Aye, I looked at those too, but I had nowhere to put a rack mount box.
You don't need to rack them, as such. I'm going to be stacking them on a bunch of Ikea Sten shelving in the cellar which already has my patch panel, network gear and various Sun and PC boxen on.
Yes, I have nowhere to stand it in my computer room!
I [heart] my cellar. Bloody brilliant thing, dry and cool too. And if I start running out of space, there's a rubble-filled bricked off chamber I can expand into (providing the house doesn't fall into it... surveyor said it's safe, anyway!).
I wasn't sure myself, but there are times in the day where I may go out, and the Mac will be left running, and I can't get to shut it down myself.
This is true, but power outages are uncommon enough here for the combined risk to be low. And in fact I've never lost anything (not even a filesystem) to mains power outs, so really the whole project is more for convenience than anything else.
Having handled many lead-acid batteries myself, I'm quite amazed at it really, these are much heavier than a similar sized car battery for example.
They do look small to weigh 6kilos each, I must say. The one we had at work used nine large marine batteries (5kVA), but I never dared to try lifting one up. High risk of either electrocution or snapped spine.
Cheers - J
Jaimie Vandenbergh jaimie@redacted.invalid wrote:
You don't need to rack them, as such. I'm going to be stacking them on a bunch of Ikea Sten shelving in the cellar which already has my patch panel, network gear and various Sun and PC boxen on.
Yes, I have nowhere to stand it in my computer room!
I [heart] my cellar. Bloody brilliant thing, dry and cool too. And if I start running out of space, there's a rubble-filled bricked off chamber I can expand into (providing the house doesn't fall into it... surveyor said it's safe, anyway!).
I may be able to reconsider when we finally move house.
I wasn't sure myself, but there are times in the day where I may go out, and the Mac will be left running, and I can't get to shut it down myself.
This is true, but power outages are uncommon enough here for the combined risk to be low. And in fact I've never lost anything (not even a filesystem) to mains power outs, so really the whole project is more for convenience than anything else.
I'm pretty sure the power outage last week caused some corruptions, so I'm not taking any chances with that anymore. We do suffer with a lot of brown-outs too. Quite a lot of the houses down my way are overhead feed.
Having handled many lead-acid batteries myself, I'm quite amazed at it really, these are much heavier than a similar sized car battery for example.
They do look small to weigh 6kilos each, I must say. The one we had at work used nine large marine batteries (5kVA), but I never dared to try lifting one up. High risk of either electrocution or snapped spine.
Indeed. I guess the extra bits must weight a bit too - all the power control bits, and DC-AC converters etc. especially when they get into the KVA regions.
On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 00:38:55 +0100, wildrover.andy@redacted.invalid (Andy Hewitt) wrote:
Jaimie Vandenbergh jaimie@redacted.invalid wrote:
I [heart] my cellar. Bloody brilliant thing, dry and cool too.
I may be able to reconsider when we finally move house.
By which time the price for a couple of kVA's worth of UPS will feel negligably cheap!
I'm pretty sure the power outage last week caused some corruptions, so I'm not taking any chances with that anymore. We do suffer with a lot of brown-outs too. Quite a lot of the houses down my way are overhead feed.
Ew. We're on underground cables, and either on or off. If we had brown-outs, I'd have got around to buying the UPSen long ago.
They do look small to weigh 6kilos each, I must say. The one we had at work used nine large marine batteries (5kVA), but I never dared to try lifting one up. High risk of either electrocution or snapped spine.
Indeed. I guess the extra bits must weight a bit too - all the power control bits, and DC-AC converters etc. especially when they get into the KVA regions.
One big box with 8 batteries in, maybe a meter deep/tall and half that wide. Then another box the same size with the final battery and the rest of the electrics. The windings+core for the transformer was about a foot cube lump of iron and copper! Wheeled, and it needed two of us burly blokes to move each one from the old computer room to the new one.
Wish I'd whipped it when the office closed, but it would have broken my car...
Cheers - Jaimie
Jaimie Vandenbergh jaimie@redacted.invalid wrote:
On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 00:38:55 +0100, wildrover.andy@redacted.invalid (Andy Hewitt) wrote:
Jaimie Vandenbergh jaimie@redacted.invalid wrote:
I [heart] my cellar. Bloody brilliant thing, dry and cool too.
I may be able to reconsider when we finally move house.
By which time the price for a couple of kVA's worth of UPS will feel negligably cheap!
Hmmm, or maybe not :-)
I'm pretty sure the power outage last week caused some corruptions, so I'm not taking any chances with that anymore. We do suffer with a lot of brown-outs too. Quite a lot of the houses down my way are overhead feed.
Ew. We're on underground cables, and either on or off. If we had brown-outs, I'd have got around to buying the UPSen long ago.
I had considered one a while ago myself, but to date nothing disasterous had happened - although it could explain many instances of minor problems.
They do look small to weigh 6kilos each, I must say. The one we had at work used nine large marine batteries (5kVA), but I never dared to try lifting one up. High risk of either electrocution or snapped spine.
Indeed. I guess the extra bits must weight a bit too - all the power control bits, and DC-AC converters etc. especially when they get into the KVA regions.
One big box with 8 batteries in, maybe a meter deep/tall and half that wide. Then another box the same size with the final battery and the rest of the electrics. The windings+core for the transformer was about a foot cube lump of iron and copper! Wheeled, and it needed two of us burly blokes to move each one from the old computer room to the new one.
Wish I'd whipped it when the office closed, but it would have broken my car...
Not to mention whoever tried to get it into the car!