need help making a 3000VA UPS work.

Whats it look like? the specs say 120v in, so Id assume it can use a regular (but heavy duty) 3 prong plug, has someone changed it?
 
It uses this plug.

conn_L5-30P_sm.gif


It looks like a washing machine kind of plug. But I have no idea what kind of plug this is called, or what I need to be able to get this working in the office. Obviously I would need an electrician or something to come out and wire a new plug.

Anyone have any experience with that on costs and such?
 
That's a NEMA L5-30P plug. It is 120 volts, but it's rated to 30 amps instead of the 15 standard outlets are, hence the reason for the different twist-lock plug. You'll need an electrician to come out and install an outlet with a 30 amp breaker in the breaker box, the costs will depend heavily on how far away the outlet will be from the breaker box, and how hard it'll be for him to run the wire.
 
tdg said:
That's a NEMA L5-30P plug. It is 120 volts, but it's rated to 30 amps instead of the 15 standard outlets are, hence the reason for the different twist-lock plug. You'll need an electrician to come out and install an outlet with a 30 amp breaker in the breaker box, the costs will depend heavily on how far away the outlet will be from the breaker box, and how hard it'll be for him to run the wire.
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Gah! I was about to post that....

Like he said, you will have to have a special wire run made, but I think it will be worth it.
 
Like the previous posters pointed out...you don't want to screw with this. You can't "rig" this without serious consequences. So unless you're planning on dishing out some cash to have a certified electrician do the work...I'd slap this thing on Ebay and make some cash off of it.

Of course...if I were in your shoes...I'd get the electrician out ASAP! :D
 
Wolf-R1 said:
Like the previous posters pointed out...you don't want to screw with this. You can't "rig" this without serious consequences. So unless you're planning on dishing out some cash to have a certified electrician do the work...I'd slap this thing on Ebay and make some cash off of it.

Of course...if I were in your shoes...I'd get the electrician out ASAP! :D
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3000VA? Id just mount the thing near the breaker box and wire up the whole dang room on the UPS's output. Should be far cheaper to have an electriction get 30A to that thing, considering I have a 200A main breaker on my box. Though I suppose hooking up a UPS to an entire rooms outlet must violate some kind of law, somewhere.
 
bob said:
3000VA? Id just mount the thing near the breaker box and wire up the whole dang room on the UPS's output. Should be far cheaper to have an electriction get 30A to that thing, considering I have a 200A main breaker on my box. Though I suppose hooking up a UPS to an entire rooms outlet must violate some kind of law, somewhere.
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LOL :D

Fact remains that he's still got to muck with high amperage systems (ie - the breaker box) and that's dangerous. I'm sure most of us have got spare room left in our breaker boxes that would allow us to do such a thing. Still doesn't make it right to work with this kind of juice on our own unless we REALLY know what we're doing. Last thing you want to do is burn down your own joint becase you screwed up something. :(
 
WARNING I DO NOT TAKE RESPONSIBLILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS BEYOND THIS POINT


Figured I should get that out of the way first. Anyway, the do make products for adapting NEMA 5-15P to NEMA L5-30R

http://www.stayonline.com/detail.aspx?ID=3103


I wouldn't do it though or really recommend you try....but push come to shove it can be accomplished.
 
Even if you change the plug the unit is designed to run on a 30 amp circut. If it is a fairly new house then there is a good possibility that your wiring will support 30 amps no problem and no extra wire will be necessary and an electrician will need to change the breaker that feeds that one room; however, the electrician may also show up and tell you that you need to run a wire to power this unit. There are alot of variables involved. I would have an electrician come out and take a look at the situation. Some don't even charge for a quote. Just my .02 worth.
 
Axeldoomeyer said:
Even if you change the plug the unit is designed to run on a 30 amp circut. If it is a fairly new house then there is a good possibility that your wiring will support 30 amps no problem............
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Bad advice.......

Depending on the area, most home outlets are run with 14 Gauge wire which only rated for 15 Amps. Next step up is 12 Gauge which only rated for 20 Amps.

30 Amp loads require 10 Gauge wire. Think Appliances outlets.

Unless the home was built by special request, you simply are not going to be able to plug that UPS into just any outlet.
 
Axeldoomeyer said:
If it is a fairly new house then there is a good possibility that your wiring will support 30 amps no problem and no extra wire will be necessary and an electrician will need to change the breaker that feeds that one room
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This is BAD advice. No most homes do not have the house wired to support 30amp circuits.

You not only need a 30amp breaker but you need the correct gauge wire to handle the current as the above poster stated. There is no reason a contractor would use larger gauge wire than what is needed for the circuit. And if you think you can safely run 30 amps over 14 gauge wire for extended periods that is crazy, that wire will get hot and can easily cause a fire.
 
I don't claim to be an electrican; however, I did recommend that he have an electrician to look at the wiring. It is always better safe than sorry in this case. More than anything if anything can be brought from my ignorance when it comes to electricity is TO GET A LICENSED, INSURED, AND BONDED ELECTRICIAN.

Good luck to you.
 
Axeldoomeyer said:
I don't claim to be an electrican; however, I did recommend that he have an electrician to look at the wiring. It is always better safe than sorry in this case. More than anything if anything can be brought from my ignorance when it comes to electricity is TO GET A LICENSED, INSURED, AND BONDED ELECTRICIAN.

Good luck to you.
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QFT. Not only that, but if you do the work yourself, and not have it insepcted/installed up to code if the event of a fire, caused by that wiring, you can void your home owner's insurance.
 
Axeldoomeyer said:
Even if you change the plug the unit is designed to run on a 30 amp circut. If it is a fairly new house then there is a good possibility that your wiring will support 30 amps no problem and no extra wire will be necessary and an electrician will need to change the breaker that feeds that one room;
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Woah there fellah...

New home, or 70 year old home, shouldnt matter at all.

Axeldoomeyer said:
I would have an electrician come out and take a look at the situation. Some don't even charge for a quote. Just my .02 worth.
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Now your talking :p
 
tdg said:
That's a NEMA L5-30P plug. It is 120 volts, but it's rated to 30 amps instead of the 15 standard outlets are, hence the reason for the different twist-lock plug. You'll need an electrician to come out and install an outlet with a 30 amp breaker in the breaker box, the costs will depend heavily on how far away the outlet will be from the breaker box, and how hard it'll be for him to run the wire.
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What he said.
 
IMHO, while not hte best option, that convertor would probably work just fine. If you're going to only be running a couple machines off it, you won't be pulling a 30amp load.

that UPS is enough to run a half rack of equipment :D lol

I have 2 of those laying around right now. I know one has bad batteries, and the other.. not sure.
Just installed a fresh one at one site. There is only 1 machine, a 1u server, 2 routers, and 3 switches currently plugged into it (that I know of). It doesn't even show 1 bar of load.
 
Ezekial said:
IMHO, while not hte best option, that convertor would probably work just fine. If you're going to only be running a couple machines off it, you won't be pulling a 30amp load.
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NO

simple reason is you have no way of knowing HOW much current you are currently drawing. Also if the battery is dead how much is the UPS pulling to charge the battery plus the current load of your machines connected.

Sure the 15amp breaker on the circuit will trip when the load increase beyond 15amps, however remember breakers do not trip right away they have a delay, and are meant as a last ditch effort to save your house. They do fail so I would not rely on them.
 
Spectre said:
Yeah there is a reason why it says:

WARNING I DO NOT TAKE RESPONSIBLILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS BEYOND THIS POINT

;)
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Yep, my simple answer of NO is the short form of your warning.

Also that part you listed is not UL certified. ;)
 
m1abram said:
NO

simple reason is you have no way of knowing HOW much current you are currently drawing. Also if the battery is dead how much is the UPS pulling to charge the battery plus the current load of your machines connected.

Sure the 15amp breaker on the circuit will trip when the load increase beyond 15amps, however remember breakers do not trip right away they have a delay, and are meant as a last ditch effort to save your house. They do fail so I would not rely on them.
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well, considering that it probably uses a 24v power pack, I doubt it would draw more than 15 amps because then it would be putting 75 amps into the batteries, at which point they would probably be on fire...

I say just put a regular plug on it, and be careful about your current draw... get a Kill-O-Watt meter or a clamp meter and make sure you are not drawing more than 15A...

15A is a lot of computers...
 
FLECOM said:
well, considering that it probably uses a 24v power pack, I doubt it would draw more than 15 amps because then it would be putting 75 amps into the batteries, at which point they would probably be on fire...

I say just put a regular plug on it, and be careful about your current draw... get a Kill-O-Watt meter or a clamp meter and make sure you are not drawing more than 15A...

15A is a lot of computers...
Click to expand...

15A can be exceed by 3 high-end SLI gaming machines under load. WITHOUT CRT monitors.
 
m1abram said:
15A can be exceed by 3 high-end SLI gaming machines under load. WITHOUT CRT monitors.
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well, 15A at 120v is about 1800w....

so lets assume the UPS itself should use at the very most 50w... thats 1750w left over... so unless your whipping out 1000w power supplies, i think you should be ok... considering that even if you do have a 1000w power supply, that dosent mean you are ever going to draw that much power...

so even 3 high end sli gaming machines should be fine... since i doubt they will ever draw more than 600W each anyway
 
FLECOM said:
well, 15A at 120v is about 1800w....

so lets assume the UPS itself should use at the very most 50w... thats 1750w left over... so unless your whipping out 1000w power supplies, i think you should be ok... considering that even if you do have a 1000w power supply, that dosent mean you are ever going to draw that much power...

so even 3 high end sli gaming machines should be fine... since i doubt they will ever draw more than 600W anyway
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2 7900GTX i believe draw on the order of 300watts, FX-62 CPU draws ~110W, just those two parts are 400-500 watts in one machine. 3 of them gets you 1500 watts and that does not account for the ineffiency of the PSU (~80% effienct on good ones) in the machine, other hardware (motherboard, harddrive, dvd drive) and the ineffiency of the invertor on the UPS which is probably on the order of 70%.
 
m1abram said:
2 7900GTX i believe draw on the order of 300watts, FX-62 CPU draws ~110W, just those two parts are 400-500 watts in one machine. 3 of them gets you 1500 watts and that does not account for the ineffiency of the PSU (~80% effienct on good ones) in the machine, other hardware (motherboard, harddrive, dvd drive) and the ineffiency of the invertor on the UPS which is probably on the order of 70%.
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I HIGHLY doubt this guy has 3 sli computers with $3000 in video cards.
One is probably a good machine and the others will be old machines that have been put together.

I totally agree with Flecom on this. More than likely the thread maker has 1-3 machines going on this UPS, 1 switch, and 1 home/business router... oh and some type of modem.
The load is not going to even come close to tripping that breaker. The UPS probably won't even have 1 bar of load (roughly 20%). I have lived in 2 badly wired houses and I have no problems running 2 machines off a much smaller UPS, along with shit loads of crap in house. It will be fine... even if it's not the optimum solution.
 
My point is people are giving advice (BAD ADVICE) on facts we do not know. We do not know what he plans to hook up to it. My example shows how quickly you can exceed standard wall circuit abilities. In fact I would bet 2 SLI machines that I state would push a 15A circuit.

Also each outlet in a house does NOT have a dedicated line to the breaker box they are shared. So that outlet may not have a full 15A at its disposal.

Any advice that breaks fire safety rules is BAD advice.
 
I just reread the OPs post and have to ask the OP is this for an OFFICE or HOME?

Either way you'll need an electrician to install an outlet *and* circuit sufficient for that load. Costs vary so get estimates from at least 3 electricians.
 
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