Need a UPS, what do I get?
April 24, 2020 6:53 PM Subscribe
Life in the country during quarantine has been awesome except for the power outages. I know I need a UPS but I have no idea what to get - this is well outside my areas of expertise. Can the tech savvy portion of the hive mind throw me some suggestions? More detailed info inside.
So, the laundry list of what I would like is as follows;
- quiet
- can support two or three devices (phone, mobile chargers, laptop) for a few hours (maybe 4 hours?)
- extra USB ports would be nice, particularly if they're accessible (like, at the front of the UPS instead of hidden away in some improbable corner
- up to $400 approx?
That's really it. I don't care about size, colour, design etc. We tend to only get blackouts rather than brownouts, it's going into a house rather than an office etc.
What should I be looking for? Or even better, does anyone have any recommendations?
So, the laundry list of what I would like is as follows;
- quiet
- can support two or three devices (phone, mobile chargers, laptop) for a few hours (maybe 4 hours?)
- extra USB ports would be nice, particularly if they're accessible (like, at the front of the UPS instead of hidden away in some improbable corner
- up to $400 approx?
That's really it. I don't care about size, colour, design etc. We tend to only get blackouts rather than brownouts, it's going into a house rather than an office etc.
What should I be looking for? Or even better, does anyone have any recommendations?
The last time I needed a UPS (frequent brownouts), I used APC. It worked fine, but note that I only needed it for a few minutes at a time to span the brownout. They have a mildly-useful selector online.
...if you pick your specific connected devices, it'll recommend a suitable UPS. However, do you actually require a UPS, rather than just a large battery (I mean, is your laptop unable to run for four hours on battery? If so, perhaps a new laptop is better?) While APC lets you select things "by device" it's actually better if you know your individual loads as well (like, it doesn't have the cable modem I'm using, and tends to lean toward massive enterprise-scale systems when you want to specify a "networking device", so doing "select by device", adding the various computers, and then making "custom devices" for your phones, modem, etc is probably easiest/best).
posted by aramaic at 7:30 PM on April 24, 2020
...if you pick your specific connected devices, it'll recommend a suitable UPS. However, do you actually require a UPS, rather than just a large battery (I mean, is your laptop unable to run for four hours on battery? If so, perhaps a new laptop is better?) While APC lets you select things "by device" it's actually better if you know your individual loads as well (like, it doesn't have the cable modem I'm using, and tends to lean toward massive enterprise-scale systems when you want to specify a "networking device", so doing "select by device", adding the various computers, and then making "custom devices" for your phones, modem, etc is probably easiest/best).
posted by aramaic at 7:30 PM on April 24, 2020
Rather than a UPS, you might be interested in a large battery pack, which doesn't offer the instant cutover of UPS (mostly) but provides power when traditional sources cannot. Almost all of them now can be recharged by 12v (car), solar, or 110v household. Very popular brands are: Jackery, Rockpals, Aeiusny. These are super popular for camping, especially for people who use a CPAP at night, and the prices are constantly dropping.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:08 PM on April 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Lyn Never at 8:08 PM on April 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
I haven't used one of these yet, but since it sounds like everything here has a battery, I'd look for an AC power bank to hook up to for your fail over power - what Lyn Never posted about while I was composing my rant.
I've got several UPSes, and they kinda suck - they use lead acid batteries, which are heavy as hell, and relatively low power density (not a huge amount of electricity even in a big box). The purpose is basically to be able to power 500 or 1000w of equipment for 5 or ten minutes until the power comes back, a generator starts, or you can save your work and shut it down cleanly. I've tried, and they're kinda crap for keeping 50W of equipment running for hours on end. A big one might do that, but it's expensive, a pain in the butt, or both.
posted by wotsac at 8:48 PM on April 24, 2020
I've got several UPSes, and they kinda suck - they use lead acid batteries, which are heavy as hell, and relatively low power density (not a huge amount of electricity even in a big box). The purpose is basically to be able to power 500 or 1000w of equipment for 5 or ten minutes until the power comes back, a generator starts, or you can save your work and shut it down cleanly. I've tried, and they're kinda crap for keeping 50W of equipment running for hours on end. A big one might do that, but it's expensive, a pain in the butt, or both.
posted by wotsac at 8:48 PM on April 24, 2020
The cool things about a UPS is that it's also a surge / brown-out protector for the equipment you plug into it. Beats those surge protection strips that you should probably be plugging all of your delicate electronics into in the first place. Another is that often times things like your Cable/DSL/fiber are actually still working because they're all on their own UPS already. Another is mostly a desktop sort of thing, but some have a USB port and software that lets your desktop know that it's running on battery power so it can dial things down a bit and then when the batteries are almost gone... it can shut itself down safely.
For your phone/laptop sort of thing, just plug one of those power strips into one of the 120AC plugs on the back and plug your things in there. I don't know that I'd bother with trying to find one that has built-in bunch of USB ports. When the power is up that strip is just wall-power, when it's blackout, that strip still has power. Many also have protected but not battery backed up outlets. That's where you plug in your TV/sound-bar/etc so that they're protected but don't get power during the outage.
Not sure about the just-a-battery side of things, the point of UPS is that it's always plugged in and your devices are always plugged into it and not the wall.
You don't mention any sort of desktop or internet connection equipment so.... some UPSs generate a very square-wave like power that some computer Power Supply Units don't like (they think it looks like bad power and refuse to work) other UPSs generate a real sine-wave like power that is just like what comes out of the wall. Some devices care about that difference, some don't.
$WORK used APCs by the pallet-load, over a thousand of them. Every quite-a-few-years you need to replace the battery (just like in your car, but smaller).
Like others, I'm not sure if you need a UPS or just a big power-brick (with an inverter if your laptop isn't USB chargeable).
posted by zengargoyle at 8:51 PM on April 24, 2020
For your phone/laptop sort of thing, just plug one of those power strips into one of the 120AC plugs on the back and plug your things in there. I don't know that I'd bother with trying to find one that has built-in bunch of USB ports. When the power is up that strip is just wall-power, when it's blackout, that strip still has power. Many also have protected but not battery backed up outlets. That's where you plug in your TV/sound-bar/etc so that they're protected but don't get power during the outage.
Not sure about the just-a-battery side of things, the point of UPS is that it's always plugged in and your devices are always plugged into it and not the wall.
You don't mention any sort of desktop or internet connection equipment so.... some UPSs generate a very square-wave like power that some computer Power Supply Units don't like (they think it looks like bad power and refuse to work) other UPSs generate a real sine-wave like power that is just like what comes out of the wall. Some devices care about that difference, some don't.
$WORK used APCs by the pallet-load, over a thousand of them. Every quite-a-few-years you need to replace the battery (just like in your car, but smaller).
Like others, I'm not sure if you need a UPS or just a big power-brick (with an inverter if your laptop isn't USB chargeable).
posted by zengargoyle at 8:51 PM on April 24, 2020
(The battery packs use Lithium batteries which are lighter, hold more electricity, but don't like to give up all their power in 5 or 10 minutes - not great for a big, power hungry computer, but perfect for charging devices). (If you want a ups that will do what you're looking for, APC SMT1500 will come pretty close and is almost in your price range).
posted by wotsac at 8:56 PM on April 24, 2020
posted by wotsac at 8:56 PM on April 24, 2020
Response by poster: I'm living in an unfamiliar house and looking after my elderly mother. I do not want to be fiddling with with plugs and such if the power goes off - which it usually does in the middle of the night and man, it is dark out here!
Four hours spans the usual outages if they're just doing minor repairs. I may have to run a phone, or a nebuliser, or a radio or god knows what for an hour or so during that. A battery pack may indeed work but I'm trying to keep this as simple and no-touch as possible. My laptop is relatively new and I do indeed have a backup battery for my mobile but god knows, sometimes shit happens and things aren't fully charged when the compost hits the fan. This year has been a complete flustercluck of random unscheduled disasters.
And yes, for longer outages I am looking at a generator in order to keep at least one fridge (with special food and meds) functioning, but lets leave that for a possible second AskMe.
posted by ninazer0 at 8:58 PM on April 24, 2020
Four hours spans the usual outages if they're just doing minor repairs. I may have to run a phone, or a nebuliser, or a radio or god knows what for an hour or so during that. A battery pack may indeed work but I'm trying to keep this as simple and no-touch as possible. My laptop is relatively new and I do indeed have a backup battery for my mobile but god knows, sometimes shit happens and things aren't fully charged when the compost hits the fan. This year has been a complete flustercluck of random unscheduled disasters.
And yes, for longer outages I am looking at a generator in order to keep at least one fridge (with special food and meds) functioning, but lets leave that for a possible second AskMe.
posted by ninazer0 at 8:58 PM on April 24, 2020
Best answer: A nebuliser is going to be significantly more power draw than a phone and quite possibly more than a laptop. A Goal Zero Yeti 1000 is outside your price range, but it would be able to run a nebulizer for 4 hours easily. The smaller Yeti 200x is ~1/5 (187 Wh) of the storage capacity, but it would be enough to run a nebulizer for a while. A nebulizer will draw 70-110W (according to a quick Google Search), so you could probably get around 2 hours of nebulizer use from the 200X.
The thorough way to do this would be to measure the loads of what you want to power using something like a Kill A Watt and use that to figure out your battery storage needs, but living with your mother I think that's more effort than you necessarily want to go to.
The advantage of something like a Goal Zero Yeti is more power storage than most cheap UPS, and as mentioned above most UPS use Lead-Acid batteries which are heavy and hard to maintain.
The APC SMT1500 mentioned above has a capacity of 408 VAh, which is more than the Yeti 200x, but discharging a Lead-Acid battery to less than 50% regularly will significantly shorten its life.
Like wotsac said above, running smaller loads for long durations isn't really what a UPS is designed for.
posted by dttocs at 9:24 PM on April 24, 2020
The thorough way to do this would be to measure the loads of what you want to power using something like a Kill A Watt and use that to figure out your battery storage needs, but living with your mother I think that's more effort than you necessarily want to go to.
The advantage of something like a Goal Zero Yeti is more power storage than most cheap UPS, and as mentioned above most UPS use Lead-Acid batteries which are heavy and hard to maintain.
The APC SMT1500 mentioned above has a capacity of 408 VAh, which is more than the Yeti 200x, but discharging a Lead-Acid battery to less than 50% regularly will significantly shorten its life.
Like wotsac said above, running smaller loads for long durations isn't really what a UPS is designed for.
posted by dttocs at 9:24 PM on April 24, 2020
Power Battery Backup, turnkey solution:
UPS Battery Backup, 1500VA rating, brand name APC
(Tripp-Lite also OK, and usually cheaper in both senses)
That will be +/- $300 for a black box about the size of a cinderblock and even heavier.
Plugged into the wall at one end, this will provide a 'pure' and surge-protected power supply, for any delicate electronics that you plug into the back.
When the power cuts off, an optional smoke alarm like beep will sound, and those devices will start drawing on the internal battery.
How long you can run them will depend on how much load you'll be drawing. No hairdryers or toasters, please.
But 1500VA should keep your laptop and phone chargers and a light-load medical device running for four hours easy. People will say 1500VA is overkill, but your price range allows for you to have more than you might need.
Oh, I forgot, the outlets are usually in the back; but a multi-socket USB charging hub, or just a 3ft power strip with some spare chargers plugged in (and with that strip's own switch turned off when not in use) will do fine.
posted by bartleby at 9:36 PM on April 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
UPS Battery Backup, 1500VA rating, brand name APC
(Tripp-Lite also OK, and usually cheaper in both senses)
That will be +/- $300 for a black box about the size of a cinderblock and even heavier.
Plugged into the wall at one end, this will provide a 'pure' and surge-protected power supply, for any delicate electronics that you plug into the back.
When the power cuts off, an optional smoke alarm like beep will sound, and those devices will start drawing on the internal battery.
How long you can run them will depend on how much load you'll be drawing. No hairdryers or toasters, please.
But 1500VA should keep your laptop and phone chargers and a light-load medical device running for four hours easy. People will say 1500VA is overkill, but your price range allows for you to have more than you might need.
Oh, I forgot, the outlets are usually in the back; but a multi-socket USB charging hub, or just a 3ft power strip with some spare chargers plugged in (and with that strip's own switch turned off when not in use) will do fine.
posted by bartleby at 9:36 PM on April 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
But 1500VA should keep your laptop and phone chargers and a light-load medical device running for four hours easy. People will say 1500VA is overkill, but your price range allows for you to have more than you might need.
Especially since with APC and other (semi-)pro gear that 1500VA rating means it can deliver 1500VA (about 1200W) of power for 30 minutes, a bit less than proportionally longer with a lower load. I have an APC 1000VA UPS with a load of some 150W, and it currently manages 3 hours with not-really-that-fresh batteries. If you need four hours of autonomy that 1500VA UPS can do so if you just draw 150W; even 200W would be cutting it close, even more so in a year or two as the batteries have degraded a bit. So either an even bigger UPS, or one that can have an expansion battery pack hooked up. Another option might be to have a small gasoline-powered generator available, which you plug the UPS into if it nears the end of its runtime, usually signalled by more frantic beeping and flashing LEDs.
There's no need to unplug the gear you need to have always on, except maybe for reasons like awkward runs of extension cord, but I would try to route them neatly out of the way and be done with it. So maybe a multiway socket at your desk and another cord to where the nebuliser is with the UPS itself somewhere unobtrusive but accessible, say near your provider's modem. And you do want to hear its beeps (and see the warning lights) but not be driven batty by them.
posted by Stoneshop at 3:53 AM on April 25, 2020
Especially since with APC and other (semi-)pro gear that 1500VA rating means it can deliver 1500VA (about 1200W) of power for 30 minutes, a bit less than proportionally longer with a lower load. I have an APC 1000VA UPS with a load of some 150W, and it currently manages 3 hours with not-really-that-fresh batteries. If you need four hours of autonomy that 1500VA UPS can do so if you just draw 150W; even 200W would be cutting it close, even more so in a year or two as the batteries have degraded a bit. So either an even bigger UPS, or one that can have an expansion battery pack hooked up. Another option might be to have a small gasoline-powered generator available, which you plug the UPS into if it nears the end of its runtime, usually signalled by more frantic beeping and flashing LEDs.
There's no need to unplug the gear you need to have always on, except maybe for reasons like awkward runs of extension cord, but I would try to route them neatly out of the way and be done with it. So maybe a multiway socket at your desk and another cord to where the nebuliser is with the UPS itself somewhere unobtrusive but accessible, say near your provider's modem. And you do want to hear its beeps (and see the warning lights) but not be driven batty by them.
posted by Stoneshop at 3:53 AM on April 25, 2020
Best answer: Everyone's saying APC but in my experience their consumer devices are not reliable. I've had much better luck with CyberPower small UPS devices. Even their basic model line is sufficient although it's nice to buy one with an LCD display to see what's going on. Historically they haven't had USB charging built in but some of the newer models do. Buy the one with the biggest capacity (most Watts or Volt-Amps) you can afford, although the higher capacity ones can be physically larger.
As folks have said up-thread, your particular use case might be better served by something other than a UPS.
posted by Nelson at 7:27 AM on April 25, 2020
As folks have said up-thread, your particular use case might be better served by something other than a UPS.
posted by Nelson at 7:27 AM on April 25, 2020
Best answer: Purely a reference point for the future: This 2006 article about UPS systems (pdf) by the late Jerry Pournelle caused me to toss my failure-prone APC units and replace them with Falcons. They are GREAT, although, alas, they start at about quadruple your budget limit.
The Falcons don't play a game of chicken with power outages or spikes by detecting a power anomaly and quickly switching the output from line to battery power ("line-interactive"). Instead, they are regenerative—their output is always drawn "online" from the batteries, even when the line power is fine. This ensures a smooth power delivery with the batteries absorbing—buffering—line noise, variations, spikes and outages. They are also built like a tank and their battery life is much longer than that of APC and other line-interactive UPS systems.
posted by bz at 12:06 PM on April 26, 2020
The Falcons don't play a game of chicken with power outages or spikes by detecting a power anomaly and quickly switching the output from line to battery power ("line-interactive"). Instead, they are regenerative—their output is always drawn "online" from the batteries, even when the line power is fine. This ensures a smooth power delivery with the batteries absorbing—buffering—line noise, variations, spikes and outages. They are also built like a tank and their battery life is much longer than that of APC and other line-interactive UPS systems.
posted by bz at 12:06 PM on April 26, 2020
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by advicepig at 7:00 PM on April 24, 2020