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surge protection/battery backup

W

wadec22

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Jul 26, 2005
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hey guys,

i'm about to buy a new surge protector or battery backup. i don't really think i need a backup but if price is reasonable, i don't see why not. i have heard that you should make sure it has auto voltage regulation, is that true? what does it do?

i saw this in a buy.com "deals" email, is this good? too much? too little? is this price good?
http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10372172&adid=17654&dcaid=17654

i just want to protect my components properly. my current protector is OLD, not showing any signs of defeat or anything, but i figured it's probably time to invest in protecting my $ in my pc.

thanks for any info.
 
Unless your old one has the means to indicate it has a failure then you have no idea if it's doing anything to protect your equipment. Buy a new that at least has failure indication.

There is not necessarily any reason to have AVR but it is a nice feature. Keeps your equipment operating more or less in the middle of their operating range. I don't use any Belkin UPS so I can't say much either about them.
 
mtrupi said:
There is not necessarily any reason to have AVR but it is a nice feature. Keeps your equipment operating more or less in the middle of their operating range. I don't use any Belkin UPS so I can't say much either about them.
Click to expand...

I completely disagree with you. Line Interactive UPS's don't switch over to battery until there is a complete drop out of input power. So if you get brown outs, your PC gets brown outs REGARDLESS of whether or not you're hooked up to a UPS and/or surge protector.

An AVR is a lot more than just "keeping your equipment operating in the middle of their operating range." You'll find that AVR most often doesn't even kick in until voltages are 10% off. It's thos big 90V dips that brown outs can cause that the AVR is really good for.

I'm going to say DO NOT get a UPS (unless you're buying an expensive on-line unit, of course) that does not have AVR.

That unit is only 550VA. Even if you have active power factor correction and less than 550W load, just don't expect the battery to last more than three or four minutes. Otherwise, it's a decent unit.
 
avr units are definitely good. not as good as a smart ups but that is definitely in another budget realm ;)
 
matrix563 said:
avr units are definitely good. not as good as a smart ups but that is definitely in another budget realm ;)
Click to expand...

Actually, a Smart UPS is a product line from APC, not a type or UPS. APC Smart UPS typically have AVR. AVR is not a type of UPS. A decent UPS would have additional AVR in addition to the battery backup function.

The Smart UPS RT is an online design, as opposed to line interactive, and therefore doesn't have an additional AVR because DC voltage regulation is the nature of the way it works.

Good read here: http://www.apcmedia.com/salestools/JSII-5YQSBR_R0_EN.pdf
 
JonGerow said:
Actually, a Smart UPS is a product line from APC, not a type or UPS. APC Smart UPS typically have AVR. AVR is not a type of UPS. A decent UPS would have additional AVR in addition to the battery backup function.

The Smart UPS RT is an online design, as opposed to line interactive, and therefore doesn't have an additional AVR because DC voltage regulation is the nature of the way it works.

Good read here: http://www.apcmedia.com/salestools/JSII-5YQSBR_R0_EN.pdf
Click to expand...

I had to go look at this because I thought my Smart UPS was not an on-line design. Looks to be quite a range of Smart UPS designs and not all are on-line topologies. Everything you said here is good stuff, but may cost more than is really necessary. For a single user PC a standby UPS is often more than adequate. If it is it will generally save you some bucks.
 
I disagree. Standby UPS's are only good for desk lamps and VCR's.

You do realize that between standby UPS's and online UPS's that there are line interactive UPS's, right?

A standby UPS has a longer delay going between mains and battery because you have two different circuits going to the load and a relay that detects the power outage doing the switching between the two. Furthermore, these typically provide no voltage regulation. At least none of the units I've seen have.

A line interactive UPS uses the same circuit to both deliver power to the load and charge the battery. When power loss is detected, the current simply changes direction and the same inverter that was converting AC to DC to charge the battery is now converting DC from the batter to AC for the load. In most cases, this inverter is also the AVR, which is why AVR is so common in line interactive UPS's. The switch time is much quicker and way faster than any decent power supply would ever notice.

But yes, online UPS's really are overkill for a personal computer user. I suggest a line interactive with AVR, and so far that's what's been suggested in this thread (the Rosewill and the Belkin). I used to be a telecom installer in Florida, of all places, the lightning capital of the world, installing digital PBX's and PC based voice mail servers. Trust me when I say that I do not suggest a standby UPS and I do not suugest getting something without AVR. ;)
 
JonGerow said:
I disagree. Standby UPS's are only good for desk lamps and VCR's.

You do realize that between standby UPS's and online UPS's that there are line interactive UPS's, right?

A standby UPS has a longer delay going between mains and battery because you have two different circuits going to the load and a relay that detects the power outage doing the switching between the two. Furthermore, these typically provide no voltage regulation. At least none of the units I've seen have.

A line interactive UPS uses the same circuit to both deliver power to the load and charge the battery. When power loss is detected, the current simply changes direction and the same inverter that was converting AC to DC to charge the battery is now converting DC from the batter to AC for the load. In most cases, this inverter is also the AVR, which is why AVR is so common in line interactive UPS's. The switch time is much quicker and way faster than any decent power supply would ever notice.

But yes, online UPS's really are overkill for a personal computer user. I suggest a line interactive with AVR, and so far that's what's been suggested in this thread (the Rosewill and the Belkin). I used to be a telecom installer in Florida, of all places, the lightning capital of the world, installing digital PBX's and PC based voice mail servers. Trust me when I say that I do not suggest a standby UPS and I do not suugest getting something without AVR. ;)
Click to expand...

Well you seem pretty set in your thoughts on this. I thought there was a hint on being cost conscience so I offered that there are alternatives. Not choosing a standby UPS won't bother me in the least.
 
I have a 375VA Belkin standby supply that has such lousy surge protection that if I plug a laser printer into one of its surge-only outlets (no battery backup power ever goes to them) or any wall outlet on the same circuit and the laser turns on just before printing, the computer crashes. This doesn't happen with my ancient 300VA 2-outlet APC or any of the APC/Conext standby supplies because, unlike the Belkin, they each have a choke-capacitor filter in addition to the MOVs for surge supression.
 
mtrupi said:
I thought there was a hint on being cost conscience so I offered that there are alternatives.
Click to expand...

IMHO, there's some places one shouldn't shave off a couple bucks. Anything that has to do with the power going into my computer is not one of those.
 
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