Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either.)

which would you do? This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Have had no problems with
my setup so far. (touch wood.)

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

"Nate Nagel" wrote in message
...
Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

What size battery is it? 12V 7AH?

--
Bobby G.

On 02/16/2011 08:47 PM, Nate Nagel wrote:
Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost $30-40
(which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10 all day
but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either.)

which would you do? This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Have had no problems with
my setup so far. (touch wood.)

nate


decision just got more difficult. I thought all "Smart-UPS" products
were true online, but they're not. However, they ARE the ones claimed
to have a true sine wave output, not an "approximation" of a sine wave.

The real true-online deal would be $985, so that's off the table.

I do like the idea of giving my stuff cleaner power on battery, but then
again, I'm thinking, just spend the $40 for a new battery, because
nothing's blowed up so far? (well, truth be told, i've been going
through wireless routers like candy, but previously I had same UPS
running my PC, which is still fine, so I blame the routers.)

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

Nate Nagel wrote:

Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either.)

which would you do? This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Have had no problems with
my setup so far. (touch wood.)

nate


Hi Nate,

If your UPS has a line-conditioner and software "Parachute", I
would replace the batt. You can get a 7.5 Ah gel-cell for $20 at
an alarm-parts supplier.

If not, I'd go for one with a line conditioner and the
safe-shutdown software.

On Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:47:29 -0500, Nate Nagel
wrote:

Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either.)

which would you do? This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Have had no problems with
my setup so far. (touch wood.)

nate

Time for a new one, for computer and some peripherals, I use:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-430-_-Product
for $100. Replacement battery years down the road is @$25
hth

On Feb 16, 9:23*pm, G. Morgan wrote:
Nate Nagel wrote:
Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... *all it does is back
up my wireless router. *Battery is done. *new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. *Be happy for another 5 years or so. *Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. *Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either.)

which would you do? *This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? *Have had no problems with
my setup so far. *(touch wood.)

nate

Hi Nate,

If your UPS has a line-conditioner and software "Parachute", I
would replace the batt. *You can get a 7.5 Ah gel-cell for $20 at
an alarm-parts supplier.

If not, I'd go for one with a line conditioner and the
safe-shutdown software. *- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


I think the first question here is what's the overall mission
objective?
I haven't had a UPS on any of my home computers or routers. The
only problems I've had are if the power goes out, which is infrequent,
I might lose whatever work I had open. Even that isn't for sure, as
many apps do timed saves of the open documents, so you may
only lose the last 15 mins.

I've never had a disk corrupted by the power failing, or anything like
that.
Nor can I recall ever losing any document, etc that I was working on
that
amounted to anything. So, I personally wouldn't spend $40, let alone
several hundred on any UPS.

On 02/16/2011 09:30 PM, wrote:
On Feb 16, 9:23 pm, G. wrote:
Nate wrote:
Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either.)

which would you do? This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Have had no problems with
my setup so far. (touch wood.)

nate

Hi Nate,

If your UPS has a line-conditioner and software "Parachute", I
would replace the batt. You can get a 7.5 Ah gel-cell for $20 at
an alarm-parts supplier.

If not, I'd go for one with a line conditioner and the
safe-shutdown software. - Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


I think the first question here is what's the overall mission
objective?
I haven't had a UPS on any of my home computers or routers. The
only problems I've had are if the power goes out, which is infrequent,
I might lose whatever work I had open. Even that isn't for sure, as
many apps do timed saves of the open documents, so you may
only lose the last 15 mins.

I've never had a disk corrupted by the power failing, or anything like
that.
Nor can I recall ever losing any document, etc that I was working on
that
amounted to anything. So, I personally wouldn't spend $40, let alone
several hundred on any UPS.

I have had all of the above happen. In fact at one house in which I
lived, the power went out so often that it managed to corrupt a PC that
was running *LINUX*.

Thing was so obsolete it wasn't worth the time to reinstall... into the
trash it went.

I won't be without a UPS again. I have two because if the cable modem
and wireless router lose power even for a second or two it's annoying to
wait for them to reboot.

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

On 02/16/2011 09:23 PM, G. Morgan wrote:
Nate wrote:

Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either.)

which would you do? This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Have had no problems with
my setup so far. (touch wood.)

nate


Hi Nate,

If your UPS has a line-conditioner and software "Parachute", I
would replace the batt. You can get a 7.5 Ah gel-cell for $20 at
an alarm-parts supplier.

If not, I'd go for one with a line conditioner and the
safe-shutdown software.

not a concern... not running PCs. just cable modem and wireless router.
PC is on newer UPS elsewhere in house. I did have software for this
one but I lost it and the cable long ago. no big deal.

this one uses a 12AH SLA battery.

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

Nate Nagel wrote:
On 02/16/2011 09:30 PM, wrote:
On Feb 16, 9:23 pm, G. wrote:
Nate wrote:
Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old,
sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that
either.)

which would you do? This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could
conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Have had no problems with
my setup so far. (touch wood.)

nate

Hi Nate,

If your UPS has a line-conditioner and software "Parachute", I
would replace the batt. You can get a 7.5 Ah gel-cell for $20 at
an alarm-parts supplier.

If not, I'd go for one with a line conditioner and the
safe-shutdown software. - Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


I think the first question here is what's the overall mission
objective?
I haven't had a UPS on any of my home computers or routers. The
only problems I've had are if the power goes out, which is infrequent,
I might lose whatever work I had open. Even that isn't for sure, as
many apps do timed saves of the open documents, so you may
only lose the last 15 mins.

I've never had a disk corrupted by the power failing, or anything like
that.
Nor can I recall ever losing any document, etc that I was working on
that
amounted to anything. So, I personally wouldn't spend $40, let alone
several hundred on any UPS.

I have had all of the above happen. In fact at one house in which I
lived, the power went out so often that it managed to corrupt a PC that
was running *LINUX*.

Thing was so obsolete it wasn't worth the time to reinstall... into the
trash it went.

I won't be without a UPS again. I have two because if the cable modem
and wireless router lose power even for a second or two it's annoying to
wait for them to reboot.

nate

Hmmm,
I gave been living in this house for alnost 20 years since it's built.
During that time total time for power outage was ~30 minutes.
I don't think I need a UPS, just another thing to look after. We have 3
Desk top, 3 laptops scattered around in the house as well as WiFi Skype
phone.

Nate Nagel wrote in
:



I do like the idea of giving my stuff cleaner power on battery, but
then again, I'm thinking, just spend the $40 for a new battery,
because nothing's blowed up so far? (well, truth be told, i've been
going through wireless routers like candy, but previously I had same
UPS running my PC, which is still fine, so I blame the routers.)




And I like the idea of being a multi-millionaire. But I'm not, so I live
with what I've got.

APC UPS's are not "true online", and they don't make a true sine wave, but
you know what? The equipment does not seem to give a **** one way or the
other.

I've had Alphaservers and all sorts of network gear running tickety-boo for
many years on cheapo APCs. Never an issue. If you have routers failing,
it's because nobody does pre-delivery testing anymore. Testing costs more
than shipping whatever came off the line and dealing with warranty claims
when they happen. Remember when hard-drives were each individually tested,
and the results written on a sticker /by hand/?

I think you can find better things to worry about. Buy a new anything-brand
UPS and be happy. Unless you're the sort that /likes/ things held together
with duct tape and chewing gum because it came for free. In that case,
you're beyond help.


--
Tegger

On Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:47:29 -0500, Nate Nagel
wrote:

Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either.)

which would you do? This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Have had no problems with
my setup so far. (touch wood.)

nate
I definitely prefer the on-line, and I DETEST APC, but that's
personal. If you buy the batteries for $10 at work, buy one for
yourself and pay the boss.

The low-end UPS units I service for one of my customers go through a
battery about every 18 months or so - and generally outlast 6 or more
battery replacements. (have actually only had one non-APC unit and 3
APC units actually FAIL)

?
"Nate Nagel" wrote in message
...
Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost $30-40
(which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10 all day but
still.)

options:

Ask at work if you can buy one of the $10 batteries.

On 2/16/2011 8:23 PM, G. Morgan wrote:
Nate wrote:

Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either.)

which would you do? This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Have had no problems with
my setup so far. (touch wood.)

nate


Hi Nate,

If your UPS has a line-conditioner and software "Parachute", I
would replace the batt. You can get a 7.5 Ah gel-cell for $20 at
an alarm-parts supplier.

If not, I'd go for one with a line conditioner and the
safe-shutdown software.

Last one I bought was $16.00 last year at the electronic supply house.
At one time, I would go to Crown Battery Wholesale Co. and pay $7.00
each by the case for the 12volt 7ah with 1/4" fast on terminals.

TDD

On 2/16/2011 8:38 PM, Nate Nagel wrote:
On 02/16/2011 09:30 PM, wrote:
On Feb 16, 9:23 pm, G. wrote:
Nate wrote:
Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old,
sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that
either.)

which would you do? This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could
conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Have had no problems with
my setup so far. (touch wood.)

nate

Hi Nate,

If your UPS has a line-conditioner and software "Parachute", I
would replace the batt. You can get a 7.5 Ah gel-cell for $20 at
an alarm-parts supplier.

If not, I'd go for one with a line conditioner and the
safe-shutdown software. - Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


I think the first question here is what's the overall mission
objective?
I haven't had a UPS on any of my home computers or routers. The
only problems I've had are if the power goes out, which is infrequent,
I might lose whatever work I had open. Even that isn't for sure, as
many apps do timed saves of the open documents, so you may
only lose the last 15 mins.

I've never had a disk corrupted by the power failing, or anything like
that.
Nor can I recall ever losing any document, etc that I was working on
that
amounted to anything. So, I personally wouldn't spend $40, let alone
several hundred on any UPS.

I have had all of the above happen. In fact at one house in which I
lived, the power went out so often that it managed to corrupt a PC that
was running *LINUX*.

Thing was so obsolete it wasn't worth the time to reinstall... into the
trash it went.

I won't be without a UPS again. I have two because if the cable modem
and wireless router lose power even for a second or two it's annoying to
wait for them to reboot.

nate


I'm with you Nate, every piece of computer gear I have is on a UPS. I
had to reset the breaker last night when the electric heater warmed up
the breaker enough. Computer, cable modem and router never skipped a
a beat. :-)

TDD

On Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:47:29 -0500, Nate Nagel
wrote:

Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

Even at some place like Battery Warehouse?

I'd buy the battery and get 7 to 15 more years out of the UPS.




2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either.)

which would you do? This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Have had no problems with
my setup so far. (touch wood.)

nate

On 2/16/2011 9:07 PM, Tegger wrote:
Nate wrote in
:



I do like the idea of giving my stuff cleaner power on battery, but
then again, I'm thinking, just spend the $40 for a new battery,
because nothing's blowed up so far? (well, truth be told, i've been
going through wireless routers like candy, but previously I had same
UPS running my PC, which is still fine, so I blame the routers.)




And I like the idea of being a multi-millionaire. But I'm not, so I live
with what I've got.

APC UPS's are not "true online", and they don't make a true sine wave, but
you know what? The equipment does not seem to give a **** one way or the
other.

I've had Alphaservers and all sorts of network gear running tickety-boo for
many years on cheapo APCs. Never an issue. If you have routers failing,
it's because nobody does pre-delivery testing anymore. Testing costs more
than shipping whatever came off the line and dealing with warranty claims
when they happen. Remember when hard-drives were each individually tested,
and the results written on a sticker /by hand/?

I think you can find better things to worry about. Buy a new anything-brand
UPS and be happy. Unless you're the sort that /likes/ things held together
with duct tape and chewing gum because it came for free. In that case,
you're beyond help.



I had some Intertel phone systems that required true sine wave UPS
units. This was back in the early 1990's and I don't run into that
any more with newer phone systems.

TDD

On 02/16/2011 11:32 PM, mm wrote:
On Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:47:29 -0500, Nate
wrote:

Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

Even at some place like Battery Warehouse?

That's the only place I know that'll sell retail... well I think
there's a Batteries Plus around somewhere but their prices even listed
online are silly... just bought a friend some batteries for her UPS
last week actually, hers used 2x 6.2's and those were about $30 apiece.
way more expensive than BW's online price, but where else was I going
to go?

nate


--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

On 2/16/2011 11:32 PM, mm wrote:
On Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:47:29 -0500, Nate
wrote:

Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

Even at some place like Battery Warehouse?

I'd buy the battery and get 7 to 15 more years out of the UPS.

What is the additional part of the plan you didn't mention? I have never
seen a gel cell last 7 years in service and certainly not 15.






2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either.)

which would you do? This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Have had no problems with
my setup so far. (touch wood.)

nate

On Feb 16, 9:44*pm, Tony Hwang wrote:
Nate Nagel wrote:
On 02/16/2011 09:30 PM, wrote:
On Feb 16, 9:23 pm, G. wrote:
Nate wrote:
Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old,
sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that
either.)

which would you do? This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could
conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Have had no problems with
my setup so far. (touch wood.)

nate

Hi Nate,

If your UPS has a line-conditioner and software "Parachute", I
would replace the batt. You can get a 7.5 Ah gel-cell for $20 at
an alarm-parts supplier.

If not, I'd go for one with a line conditioner and the
safe-shutdown software. - Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I think the first question here is what's the overall mission
objective?
I haven't had a UPS on any of my home computers or routers. The
only problems I've had are if the power goes out, which is infrequent,
I might lose whatever work I had open. Even that isn't for sure, as
many apps do timed saves of the open documents, so you may
only lose the last 15 mins.

I've never had a disk corrupted by the power failing, or anything like
that.
Nor can I recall ever losing any document, etc that I was working on
that
amounted to anything. So, I personally wouldn't spend $40, let alone
several hundred on any UPS.

I have had all of the above happen. In fact at one house in which I
lived, the power went out so often that it managed to corrupt a PC that
was running *LINUX*.

Thing was so obsolete it wasn't worth the time to reinstall... into the
trash it went.

I won't be without a UPS again. I have two because if the cable modem
and wireless router lose power even for a second or two it's annoying to
wait for them to reboot.

nate

Hmmm,
I gave been living in this house for alnost 20 years since it's built.
During that time total time for power outage was ~30 minutes.
I don't think I need a UPS, just another thing to look after. We have 3
Desk top, 3 laptops scattered around in the house as well as WiFi Skype
phone.

You're lucky. Some places I've lived power has been pretty good. The
place I'm thinking of though, as often as not the clock on the
microwave would be flashing when I got home from work. The power
would never *stay* out for long - it'd just blip out long enough to
reset the clocks and reboot the computers. never went more than a
couple days without that happening at least once. sometimes it'd
happen several times a day.

For whatever reason, PEPCO seems to do a much better job than BG&E, so
I'm glad I don't live in MD anymore (for many reasons.)

nate

On Feb 16, 10:11*pm, wrote:
On Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:47:29 -0500, Nate Nagel
wrote:





Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... *all it does is back
up my wireless router. *Battery is done. *new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. *Be happy for another 5 years or so. *Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. *Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either.)

which would you do? *This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? *Have had no problems with
my setup so far. *(touch wood.)

nate

*I definitely prefer the on-line, and I DETEST APC, but that's
personal. If you buy the batteries for $10 at work, buy one for
yourself and pay the boss.

Hah. we're so uptight, you have no idea. Worse than ADI. We sell
only to contractors, and I ain't a contractor :/

Who do you like, if not APC? I know they're consumer grade cheez, but
that's what I can afford, and the one with the dead battery has been
serving me faithfully for years, although I know the inverter output
probably looks more like the teeth on a dog clutch than a sine wave.
Not much variety on the shelves at the Big Boxen, but I'm not averse
to ordering from newegg, etc. if I have to. Tripp-Lite? Other?

I have seen rack-mount APCs used for access control system backup, so
I just ASSumed that they weren't that bad, but I'm certainly not an IT
guy, the equipment that I specialize in has the backup built in so I
never have to worry about it...

nate

On Feb 17, 7:26*am, George wrote:
On 2/16/2011 11:32 PM, mm wrote:

On Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:47:29 -0500, Nate
wrote:

Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... *all it does is back
up my wireless router. *Battery is done. *new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. *Be happy for another 5 years or so. *Cost $40 max.

Even at some place like Battery Warehouse?

I'd buy the battery and get 7 to 15 more years out of the UPS.

What is the additional part of the plan you didn't mention? I have never
seen a gel cell last 7 years in service and certainly not 15.

Actually as best I can figure, the one that just died lasted *at
least* 7 years. Of course, I had to disassemble the case to get it
out, it was swelled in every dimension. woopsie.

I know this because I've been working at my current job for almost six
now, and I got the UPS from the trash at my *previous* job. Only time
I replaced the battery was immediately after picking it out of the
trash. I pulled a batt. off the shelf in the warehouse and fired it
up to test it, it worked, I told my boss what I did and asked him if
he really meant to put it in the trash, he told me to keep it as he'd
already ordered a replacement. Then IIRC I went to the counter sales
guy, told him I'd taken a battery for personal use, asked him for an
invoice, and he told me to not bother him with petty BS like that.
That place was a LOT more laid back than where I work now :/ (but the
pay was a lot worse...)

nate

Some in governement would say it's your "duty to the party"
to buy a new one, and help stimulate the economy.

Not being in government, my thought is that you should see
if your work will let you buy one of their ten dollar
batteries at cost. Buy two, wire them in parallel. Or, get a
marine trolling battery so you'll have more shut down time
on your UPS. Maybe you can plug a couple fluorescent lamps
into the UPS, so you can see to walk around, while the power
is off.

The older equipment (the UPS) is probably better quality.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Nate Nagel" wrote in message
...
Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it
does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect
to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at
about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so.
Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old,
sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Would
cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for
trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand
that either.)

which would you do? This is an old UPS that I scavenged
from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it
was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could
conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Have had no
problems with
my setup so far. (touch wood.)

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

"Nate Nagel" wrote in message
...

Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS...
options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Would cost $266

So the cost of happiness forecasts as
option 1 = $8/year or less
option 2 = $50/year or more
Have you not already answered your own question?

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

Nate Nagel wrote:

That's the only place I know that'll sell retail... well I think
there's a Batteries Plus around somewhere but their prices even listed
online are silly... just bought a friend some batteries for her UPS
last week actually, hers used 2x 6.2's and those were about $30
apiece. way more expensive than BW's online price, but where else
was I going to go?


Try Ebay. It has slews of 12ah SLA batteries for $15 or less.

On 2/17/2011 7:54 AM, N8N wrote:
On Feb 16, 10:11 pm, wrote:
On Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:47:29 -0500, Nate
wrote:





Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either.)

which would you do? This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Have had no problems with
my setup so far. (touch wood.)

nate

I definitely prefer the on-line, and I DETEST APC, but that's
personal. If you buy the batteries for $10 at work, buy one for
yourself and pay the boss.

Hah. we're so uptight, you have no idea. Worse than ADI. We sell
only to contractors, and I ain't a contractor :/

Who do you like, if not APC? I know they're consumer grade cheez, but
that's what I can afford, and the one with the dead battery has been

APC makes everything from big box quality junk all the way up to data
center class devices.




serving me faithfully for years, although I know the inverter output
probably looks more like the teeth on a dog clutch than a sine wave.
Not much variety on the shelves at the Big Boxen, but I'm not averse
to ordering from newegg, etc. if I have to. Tripp-Lite? Other?

I have seen rack-mount APCs used for access control system backup, so
I just ASSumed that they weren't that bad, but I'm certainly not an IT
guy, the equipment that I specialize in has the backup built in so I
never have to worry about it...

nate

On Thu, 17 Feb 2011 07:26:32 -0500, George
wrote:

On 2/16/2011 11:32 PM, mm wrote:
On Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:47:29 -0500, Nate
wrote:

Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

Even at some place like Battery Warehouse?

I'd buy the battery and get 7 to 15 more years out of the UPS.

What is the additional part of the plan you didn't mention? I have never
seen a gel cell last 7 years in service and certainly not 15.

I thought that's what he said the prior battery did.

Yeah, it's two paragraphs down.

I don't keep track, but still I think I got 7 years once. Then I
broke out the plastic ridges in the case and put in a battery that was
twice as big. The whole thing failed a few years after that, and I've
wondered if putting in a bigger battery caused that. ??

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either.)

which would you do? This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Have had no problems with
my setup so far. (touch wood.)

nate

On 2/17/2011 7:51 AM, HeyBub wrote:
Nate Nagel wrote:

That's the only place I know that'll sell retail... well I think
there's a Batteries Plus around somewhere but their prices even listed
online are silly... just bought a friend some batteries for her UPS
last week actually, hers used 2x 6.2's and those were about $30
apiece. way more expensive than BW's online price, but where else
was I going to go?


Try Ebay. It has slews of 12ah SLA batteries for $15 or less.


Shipping may cost more than the battery. :-(

TDD

Nate Nagel wrote:

Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either.)

which would you do? This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Have had no problems with
my setup so far. (touch wood.)

nate

The simple answer here is to assess the quality of the current UPS and
compare the cost of new batteries to the cost of a new UPS of comparable
quality.

I have the same situation here, where the UPS that supports my garage
server rack is an old but high quality Best Fortress 1420 (the good
version with 4 digit display). This UPS is at least 14 years old and
it's original batteries are finally failing. It uses two 17ah gel cells
and clearly the cost of those new batteries is much lower than the cost
of a comparable new UPS.

In my office I have a cheap little Tripp-Lite branded POS UPS that cost
$100 new. The status display on the thing died in the first year of
use, though the UPS function still works properly. Clearly when the
battery in that UPS goes it will make more sense to buy a complete new
unit rather than replace just the battery.

I think the first question here is what's the overall mission
objective? I haven't had a UPS on any of my home computers or
routers. The only problems I've had are if the power goes out,
which is infrequent, I might lose whatever work I had open.
Even that isn't for sure, as many apps do timed saves of the
open documents, so you may only lose the last 15 mins.
I've never had a disk corrupted by the power failing, or
anything like that. Nor can I recall ever losing any document,
etc that I was working on that amounted to anything.

Consider yourself lucky... I went many years without a UPS for my
computer. Despite my rural location, we rarely have power outages. I've
always used high quality surge supressors, and backup regularly, so I
wasn't overly concerned about power surges either.

Unfortunately, power "fluctuations" are usually more of a problem than a
total outage, and I've lost both hardware and data because of them.

The typical situation is during wind storms where a tree falls on a power
line. It doesn't knock the power out completely, but cycles it on and off
several times a second, or drops the voltage way down (brown outs).

The first time it happened I lost a power supply. My system runs 24/7/365
so it could probably be said the supply was getting weak anyway, but the
cycling and voltage surges were too much for it and it finally died.

The second time the brown outs and power cycling occurred while data was
saving to my hard drive and it corrupted the drive. I had to reformat the
drive and (thankfully) restore from a backup. No physical damage that
time, but a lot of wasted time rebuilding the system.

We had a wind storm again a couple of months ago, and this time my
computer wouldn't boot up. I installed a new power supply, but it was
still dead. I pulled all PCI cards and got it to boot. Then I slowly
added them one by one till I found the one that had failed (thankfully it
was a tuner card I was no longer using anyway). Again, not a major
expense, but a lot of wasted time trying to track down the problem.

My computer runs non-stop recording TV shows, controlling our home
lighting, we use VOIP on the network for our phone service, and more. My
home business also relies on my computer being up and running at all
times. For me, the cost of a UPS was worth a little more insurance of
keeping things running when there are power issues. Or at least have
enough time to save files I'm working on and shut down cleanly.

I chose a Cyberpower CP1500PFCLCD UPS for a little over $200:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16842102134
&Tpk=Cyberpower%20CP1500PFCLCD%20UPS

Of course, we haven't had any power problems since I hooked up the UPS,
so I don't know for sure how it will handle similar power problems in the
future. However, it has already recorded a few hundred "events", and
kicks in to even out the power when my laser printers drop the voltage
when they first kick on.

Anthony Watson
Mountain Software
www.mountain-software.com

On 2/17/2011 10:09 AM, HerHusband wrote:
I think the first question here is what's the overall mission
objective? I haven't had a UPS on any of my home computers or
routers. The only problems I've had are if the power goes out,
which is infrequent, I might lose whatever work I had open.
Even that isn't for sure, as many apps do timed saves of the
open documents, so you may only lose the last 15 mins.
I've never had a disk corrupted by the power failing, or
anything like that. Nor can I recall ever losing any document,
etc that I was working on that amounted to anything.

Consider yourself lucky... I went many years without a UPS for my
computer. Despite my rural location, we rarely have power outages. I've
always used high quality surge supressors, and backup regularly, so I
wasn't overly concerned about power surges either.

Unfortunately, power "fluctuations" are usually more of a problem than a
total outage, and I've lost both hardware and data because of them.

The typical situation is during wind storms where a tree falls on a power
line. It doesn't knock the power out completely, but cycles it on and off
several times a second, or drops the voltage way down (brown outs).

The first time it happened I lost a power supply. My system runs 24/7/365
so it could probably be said the supply was getting weak anyway, but the
cycling and voltage surges were too much for it and it finally died.

The second time the brown outs and power cycling occurred while data was
saving to my hard drive and it corrupted the drive. I had to reformat the
drive and (thankfully) restore from a backup. No physical damage that
time, but a lot of wasted time rebuilding the system.

We had a wind storm again a couple of months ago, and this time my
computer wouldn't boot up. I installed a new power supply, but it was
still dead. I pulled all PCI cards and got it to boot. Then I slowly
added them one by one till I found the one that had failed (thankfully it
was a tuner card I was no longer using anyway). Again, not a major
expense, but a lot of wasted time trying to track down the problem.

My computer runs non-stop recording TV shows, controlling our home
lighting, we use VOIP on the network for our phone service, and more. My
home business also relies on my computer being up and running at all
times. For me, the cost of a UPS was worth a little more insurance of
keeping things running when there are power issues. Or at least have
enough time to save files I'm working on and shut down cleanly.

I chose a Cyberpower CP1500PFCLCD UPS for a little over $200:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16842102134
&Tpk=Cyberpower%20CP1500PFCLCD%20UPS

Of course, we haven't had any power problems since I hooked up the UPS,
so I don't know for sure how it will handle similar power problems in the
future. However, it has already recorded a few hundred "events", and
kicks in to even out the power when my laser printers drop the voltage
when they first kick on.


Are you leaving consumer grade computer equipment running 24/7?

TDD

On Feb 17, 10:44*am, "Pete C." wrote:
Nate Nagel wrote:

Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... *all it does is back
up my wireless router. *Battery is done. *new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. *Be happy for another 5 years or so. *Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. *Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either..)

which would you do? *This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? *Have had no problems with
my setup so far. *(touch wood.)

nate

The simple answer here is to assess the quality of the current UPS and
compare the cost of new batteries to the cost of a new UPS of comparable
quality.

I have the same situation here, where the UPS that supports my garage
server rack is an old but high quality Best Fortress 1420 (the good
version with 4 digit display). This UPS is at least 14 years old and
it's original batteries are finally failing. It uses two 17ah gel cells
and clearly the cost of those new batteries is much lower than the cost
of a comparable new UPS.

In my office I have a cheap little Tripp-Lite branded POS UPS that cost
$100 new. The status display on the thing died in the first year of
use, though the UPS function still works properly. Clearly when the
battery in that UPS goes it will make more sense to buy a complete new
unit rather than replace just the battery.

Yes, I think you understood my question correctly. But I really don't
have any feel for the quality of my old UPS - it's a Back-UPS 650 IIRC
- vs. anything that I could buy new for a reasonable price.

However, I suspect that I am likely going to try a new battery in it
anyway because I'm a cheap ba$tard, unless someone can recommend a
new, amazingly good product that is available for, say, $300 or less.

nate

On Feb 17, 11:33*am, N8N wrote:
On Feb 17, 10:44*am, "Pete C." wrote:





Nate Nagel wrote:

Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... *all it does is back
up my wireless router. *Battery is done. *new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. *Be happy for another 5 years or so. *Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. *Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either.)

which would you do? *This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? *Have had no problems with
my setup so far. *(touch wood.)

nate

The simple answer here is to assess the quality of the current UPS and
compare the cost of new batteries to the cost of a new UPS of comparable
quality.

I have the same situation here, where the UPS that supports my garage
server rack is an old but high quality Best Fortress 1420 (the good
version with 4 digit display). This UPS is at least 14 years old and
it's original batteries are finally failing. It uses two 17ah gel cells
and clearly the cost of those new batteries is much lower than the cost
of a comparable new UPS.

In my office I have a cheap little Tripp-Lite branded POS UPS that cost
$100 new. The status display on the thing died in the first year of
use, though the UPS function still works properly. Clearly when the
battery in that UPS goes it will make more sense to buy a complete new
unit rather than replace just the battery.

Yes, I think you understood my question correctly. *But I really don't
have any feel for the quality of my old UPS - it's a Back-UPS 650 IIRC
- vs. anything that I could buy new for a reasonable price.

However, I suspect that I am likely going to try a new battery in it
anyway because I'm a cheap ba$tard, unless someone can recommend a
new, amazingly good product that is available for, say, $300 or less.

nate- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I would go with a new battery. If your existing one is 12 volts you
might try hanging a car battery on it. run times will skyrocket, and
car batteries are cheap

On Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:30:54 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

On Feb 16, 9:23Â*pm, G. Morgan wrote:
Nate Nagel wrote:
Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... Â*all it does is back
up my wireless router. Â*Battery is done. Â*new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Â*Be happy for another 5 years or so. Â*Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Â*Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either.)

which would you do? Â*This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Â*Have had no problems with
my setup so far. Â*(touch wood.)

nate

Hi Nate,

If your UPS has a line-conditioner and software "Parachute", I
would replace the batt. Â*You can get a 7.5 Ah gel-cell for $20 at
an alarm-parts supplier.

If not, I'd go for one with a line conditioner and the
safe-shutdown software. Â*- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


I think the first question here is what's the overall mission
objective?
I haven't had a UPS on any of my home computers or routers. The
only problems I've had are if the power goes out, which is infrequent,
I might lose whatever work I had open. Even that isn't for sure, as
many apps do timed saves of the open documents, so you may
only lose the last 15 mins.

I've never had a disk corrupted by the power failing, or anything like
that.
Nor can I recall ever losing any document, etc that I was working on
that
amounted to anything. So, I personally wouldn't spend $40, let alone
several hundred on any UPS.
Depends what your power quality is.
At the office where I spend all my mornings, we were going through
power supplies and hard-drives in particular at a ridiculous pace
untill I talked the owner into installing UPS on all the machines.
With the UPS units installed, computer failures dropped to less than
10% of what they were before.
They are all low-mid-line line interactive units, except for the dual
conversion units on the servers.

They've paid for themselves several times over just in computer life,
lot counting down-time and lost production, or even agrivation.

There were some industrial properties nearby - and every time the
bakery (Westons) started the line the voltage did strange contortions,
and when some things shut down, we got spikes (confirmed by the power
company when they put the Ganz analyzer on line for a week).

We are in a new building now, in a newer area of town, with less
industry etc - but the UPS units are staying.

At home my systems are all on a PowerWare Prestige 1000, my wife's is
on a Best Patriot 600, and my modems/routers/switches are on a Pulsar
500 line interactive.

If you know anything about UPS, these are all "senior citizens" and
the batteries get changed about every 4 or 5 years, as needed. As soon
as one of them reports a bad battery, I just go to my battery
wholesaler and pick up the whole works at once.

On Wed, 16 Feb 2011 21:40:04 -0500, Nate Nagel
wrote:

On 02/16/2011 09:23 PM, G. Morgan wrote:
Nate wrote:

Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... all it does is back
up my wireless router. Battery is done. new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Be happy for another 5 years or so. Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either.)

which would you do? This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Have had no problems with
my setup so far. (touch wood.)

nate


Hi Nate,

If your UPS has a line-conditioner and software "Parachute", I
would replace the batt. You can get a 7.5 Ah gel-cell for $20 at
an alarm-parts supplier.

If not, I'd go for one with a line conditioner and the
safe-shutdown software.

not a concern... not running PCs. just cable modem and wireless router.
PC is on newer UPS elsewhere in house. I did have software for this
one but I lost it and the cable long ago. no big deal.

this one uses a 12AH SLA battery.

nate
$40 for a 12ah is not terribly far off the mark, unless you can buy
wholesale at the distributor (not dealer) level.

On Thu, 17 Feb 2011 04:54:50 -0800 (PST), N8N
wrote:

On Feb 16, 10:11Â*pm, wrote:
On Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:47:29 -0500, Nate Nagel
wrote:





Got an *ancient* (and I do mean ancient) APC UPS... Â*all it does is back
up my wireless router. Â*Battery is done. Â*new one I expect to cost
$30-40 (which I find extortionate as I buy them for work at about $10
all day but still.)

options:

1) buy a new battery. Â*Be happy for another 5 years or so. Â*Cost $40 max.

2) buy a new true-online UPS for my PC, and rotate the old, sorta-decent
one currently serving PC to wireless router duty. Â*Would cost $266 for a
750VA unit with trade in (smallest one that qualifies for trade in
credit) or $252 for a 1000VA unit (yeah, I don't understand that either.)

which would you do? Â*This is an old UPS that I scavenged from a previous
employer something like 7-8 years ago, and at that time it was being
discarded because the battery was dead then, so it now could conceivably
be as many as 15 years old.

I want to go true online but worth the cost? Â*Have had no problems with
my setup so far. Â*(touch wood.)

nate

Â*I definitely prefer the on-line, and I DETEST APC, but that's
personal. If you buy the batteries for $10 at work, buy one for
yourself and pay the boss.

Hah. we're so uptight, you have no idea. Worse than ADI. We sell
only to contractors, and I ain't a contractor :/

Who do you like, if not APC? I know they're consumer grade cheez, but
that's what I can afford, and the one with the dead battery has been
serving me faithfully for years, although I know the inverter output
probably looks more like the teeth on a dog clutch than a sine wave.
Not much variety on the shelves at the Big Boxen, but I'm not averse
to ordering from newegg, etc. if I have to. Tripp-Lite? Other?

I have seen rack-mount APCs used for access control system backup, so
I just ASSumed that they weren't that bad, but I'm certainly not an IT
guy, the equipment that I specialize in has the backup built in so I
never have to worry about it...

nate
I generally recommend PowerWare and I buy directly from the
distributor so I can make good markup on them and still be very
competetive. They don't waste a lot of money blowing their own horn
like APC. And they WORK. Haven't had to scrap one yet.
About every second or third APC I get involved in is non-functional
even after battery replacement - gotten so I test them with "iffy"
batteries before buying replacements. (Batteries the still work but
are a bit low on capacity/run-time)
My distributor also carries a low cost line which has served me well.
(no failures, other than batteries, in something like 7 years).
Powerware bought out BEST and absorbed Exide and a few other brands.

On Thu, 17 Feb 2011 10:16:46 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 2/17/2011 10:09 AM, HerHusband wrote:
I think the first question here is what's the overall mission
objective? I haven't had a UPS on any of my home computers or
routers. The only problems I've had are if the power goes out,
which is infrequent, I might lose whatever work I had open.
Even that isn't for sure, as many apps do timed saves of the
open documents, so you may only lose the last 15 mins.
I've never had a disk corrupted by the power failing, or
anything like that. Nor can I recall ever losing any document,
etc that I was working on that amounted to anything.

Consider yourself lucky... I went many years without a UPS for my
computer. Despite my rural location, we rarely have power outages. I've
always used high quality surge supressors, and backup regularly, so I
wasn't overly concerned about power surges either.

Unfortunately, power "fluctuations" are usually more of a problem than a
total outage, and I've lost both hardware and data because of them.

The typical situation is during wind storms where a tree falls on a power
line. It doesn't knock the power out completely, but cycles it on and off
several times a second, or drops the voltage way down (brown outs).

The first time it happened I lost a power supply. My system runs 24/7/365
so it could probably be said the supply was getting weak anyway, but the
cycling and voltage surges were too much for it and it finally died.

The second time the brown outs and power cycling occurred while data was
saving to my hard drive and it corrupted the drive. I had to reformat the
drive and (thankfully) restore from a backup. No physical damage that
time, but a lot of wasted time rebuilding the system.

We had a wind storm again a couple of months ago, and this time my
computer wouldn't boot up. I installed a new power supply, but it was
still dead. I pulled all PCI cards and got it to boot. Then I slowly
added them one by one till I found the one that had failed (thankfully it
was a tuner card I was no longer using anyway). Again, not a major
expense, but a lot of wasted time trying to track down the problem.

My computer runs non-stop recording TV shows, controlling our home
lighting, we use VOIP on the network for our phone service, and more. My
home business also relies on my computer being up and running at all
times. For me, the cost of a UPS was worth a little more insurance of
keeping things running when there are power issues. Or at least have
enough time to save files I'm working on and shut down cleanly.

I chose a Cyberpower CP1500PFCLCD UPS for a little over $200:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16842102134
&Tpk=Cyberpower%20CP1500PFCLCD%20UPS

Of course, we haven't had any power problems since I hooked up the UPS,
so I don't know for sure how it will handle similar power problems in the
future. However, it has already recorded a few hundred "events", and
kicks in to even out the power when my laser printers drop the voltage
when they first kick on.


Are you leaving consumer grade computer equipment running 24/7?

TDD
I do, all the time - and it lasts at least as well as those run on an
"as needed only" basis.
But my "consumer grade" isn't DELL.

In article ,
Nate Nagel wrote:

I guessed wrong. It was actually $50... which to me seems extortionate,
but then again, I'm used to buying wholesale, and in large quantities.

Try making a battery for $50.

On 02/17/2011 09:35 PM, Smitty Two wrote:
In ,
Nate wrote:

I guessed wrong. It was actually $50... which to me seems extortionate,
but then again, I'm used to buying wholesale, and in large quantities.

Try making a battery for $50.

I could probably do it for a lot less than that, but the pickle jar full
of sulfuric acid doesn't fit the form factor of your average UPS :P

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

On Thu, 17 Feb 2011 18:21:01 -0500, Nate Nagel
wrote:


So I already bought a battery and it's working, although for what I paid
for the battery I feel like I should have just bought a UPS.

For future reference, what's the magic decoder ring to Eaton's product
lines? Really why I want to know is at a minimum next time I buy a UPS
I would like it to be minimum line-interactive but true sine wave;
preferred would be true-online... e.g. equivalent to APC's "SmartUPS" line.

The Eaton Magic Decoder ring:

3 series are standby
5 series are line interactive
9 series are on-line dual conversion.

Worst part is, I have a true-online APC sitting in my office at work
leftover from a job (customer said "don't install it, our power here is
the cleanest around" - idiot) but damn ethics won't let me just take it
home :/

nate

On Thu, 17 Feb 2011 18:45:55 -0600, G. Morgan
wrote:

wrote:

$40 for a 12ah is not terribly far off the mark, unless you can buy
wholesale at the distributor (not dealer) level.

But most distributors will sell to the public, you just have to
look the part!
Helps to have a business licence or retail permit too. (you get the
better price that way)

Any respectable distributor doesn't give the same price to "retail"
customers as he does to dealers or other wholesalers.
The guy I buy from sells to garages and security companies etc, as
well as to guys that sell to those guys.