Text 14138, 136 rader
Skriven 2006-11-19 14:58:04 av mike (1:379/45)
  Kommentar till text 14136 av RobertB. (1:379/45)
Ärende: Re: UPS weirdness
=========================
From: mike <mike@barkto.com>

On Sun, 19 Nov 2006 13:48:41 -0500, "RobertB." <rb28@nyu.edu> wrote:

[trimmed]

>In article <li6vl2pscnabaqeokgpjsaijg6v7n26lm9@4ax.com>,
> mike <mike@barkto.com> wrote:
>

>> Normal component tolerances will account for that level of difference.
>> That's not a critical set-point, so they're not going to use high-spec
>> components.
>
>Hmm. I thought these SmartUPS were high-tech devices?

High-tech does not necessarily mean that high-spec (i.e., high-precision)
components are used in every part of the device.



>>
>> When I wrote my prior message,m I checked and the voltage in my house
>> was 115 volts.  Now it is 116 volts.  When I fire up the clothes dryer
>> in 20 minutes or so, it will drop, probably to 112 or so...
>
>I thought it was supposed to remain constant within a volt or two? So,
>there's no load balancing?


It varies.   Within my house there is no load balancing.


>> OK, they may have had a situation where the existing circuitry could not
>> deliver enough power to the offices.  The new wiring provides more
>> power, so the voltage won't sag as much.  In other words, the new wiring
>> may be delivering a higher voltage to your office.
>
>Well, it's a residential building and god knows what they did with those
>cables or if they even hooked them all up. They banged holes in the
>walls in the hallway and ran the cable into something, but my electrical
>power was never shut off. Nor was the building power, so I have no idea
>what they did. It's possible they just dropped them in the wall planning
>to connect them later to the individual breaker boxes in the apartments.

Or maybe they connected others' devices to new wiring, reducing the load on the
circuits you are on.  I don't know.  I'm just guessing at what might have been
done.  Without being there my guess is pretty random.

>
>Could this damage the UPS?

It shouldn't.

> I may have an old anlaog voltage meter here
>somewhere. Maybe I can test the voltage. This is odd. I read the voltage
>on some of the wall outlets. If I'm reading this thing correctly, it's
>about 112 volts. The outlet giving the high-voltage indication also
>reads 112 volts (it's a double outlet and I plugged into the unused
>outlet). That doesn't appear to me to be an overvoltage at all.

"Old analog voltmeter"  was that meter ever calibrated?   Have you
checked it against a calibrated meter?

Or maybe the meter is working fine, and the APC UPS is flaking out.


>
>> Tripp-Lite is good.  APC is a marketing-oriented company, better UPS's
>
>They spend a lot of money on marketing, yes. I agree. You hardly here
>from the other companies. They also have a very aggressive upgrade
>policy. They'll give you credit for trading in any Tripp-Lite or other
>equipment you might have. They discounted one of my units when I
>upgraded, for example.

Aggressive upgrade policy (though I would be reluctant to call it an
upgrade...) comes from marketing dollars.

>
>
>> through better marketing.  Technology-wise, they are so-so.  One of my
>
>But maybe good enough for home or SoHo use?

I wouldn't use an APC UPS for any piece of equipment I care about. Obviously,
many others differ from that opinion.  What can I say?


>> favorites from APC was a line in their marketing brochure that went
>> along the lines of, ~there is no such thing as an uninterruptible power
>> supply because the AC line current goes to zero 60 times each second.~
>> Never mind that 60Hz power goes to zero 120 times each second, but they
>> missed the whole concept of uninterruptible power supplies.  The APC
>> marketing people were trying to say that their 5 to 10mS break time in
>> clean power was OK.  At the time APC didn't have a real non-break online
>> UPS, so they tried to convince you that no one did.  I engaged their
>> marketing department in a snail mail conversation once.  I should have
>> kept the letters, the cluelessness was astounding....
>
>The SmartUPS are supposed to deliver clean power (sine wave output).
>Now, I don't want to start that argument again, and I'm not an EE
>anyway, so maybe that's good, maybe it's not. A friend of mine, who is
>an EE, says it doesn't matter much anyway given the tolerances of modern
>power supplies in computers. However, I *have* suddenly had the power
>cut off to my apartment and I was glad I had these units in place. Gave
>me time to shut down.
>
>
>>
>> My preference at this point is Powerware (formerly Best Power
>
>I remember them. They're expensive as I recall.

Not that expensive.  They work well.  I buy 'em through www.provantage.com

>
>> technology). http://www.powerware.com/  Currently I have a Powerware
>> 5125-1500 with one Extended Battery Module on my home network.  I use
>> NUT (http://www.networkupstools.org/) to control the UPS and shut down
>> the servers should the power go down.  I get about 7 hours runtime on
>> battery (NUT shuts down the media server after two minutes on battery to
>> conserve the batteries for the firewall, switches, access point, webcam,
>> etc.)
>
>One thing I discovered was that Tripp-Lite and other companies simply
>used a rebranded version of APC's PowerChute software on their hardware.
>I figured I might as well go with the people that wrote or developed it.
>And if Powerware doesn't have OS X software, it won't help me much.

I use NUT software.   It's agnostic to brands.

 /m

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