Cheap UPS's
 

Hi There,

Does anyone out there own one of these cheap UPS's like:

http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/hard...quicklinx=2HQ2

These things seem to be absurdly cheap. I'd be interested in an opinion

I was thinking of getting one to protect my PC's from the occasional
"brown-out" we get in very windy weather.

A second application would be use with a lead lamp when doing electrical
wiring at the fuseboard with all power off, in the half-light and with a
torch in your mouth!

David

Seems OK from the blurb, but, of course, I can't comment on the

quality/service/support etc.

It does lack any way of notifying the PC that the battery is about to die,

so you can't shut down cleanly, but that's no worse than you have at the

moment...

K

"Vortex3" wrote in message
...
Hi There,

Does anyone out there own one of these cheap UPS's like:

http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/hard...quicklinx=2HQ2

These things seem to be absurdly cheap. I'd be interested in an opinion

I was thinking of getting one to protect my PC's from the occasional
"brown-out" we get in very windy weather.

A second application would be use with a lead lamp when doing electrical
wiring at the fuseboard with all power off, in the half-light and with a
torch in your mouth!

David

On Sun, 3 Oct 2004 20:56:38 +0100, "Vortex3"
wrote:

Hi There,

Does anyone out there own one of these cheap UPS's like:

http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/hard...quicklinx=2HQ2

These things seem to be absurdly cheap. I'd be interested in an opinion

I was thinking of getting one to protect my PC's from the occasional
"brown-out" we get in very windy weather.

Most of the cost in UPSs is in the batteries. This one gives a
power output level, but not battery capacity, i.e. doesn't say how
long it will run.

Entry level UPSs are intended to give enough running time to (ideally
automatically) shut down the operating system or Windows rather than
running for any length of time.

You need to decide how long you want. If it's more than a few minutes
then you need a bigger UPS.



A second application would be use with a lead lamp when doing electrical
wiring at the fuseboard with all power off, in the half-light and with a
torch in your mouth!

I have a better solution than that, and less expensive.

I put a maintained fluorescent emergency lighting fitting

http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Ind...s_1/index.html

near to the consumer unit and wired into the lighting circuit.
In my case, the consumer unit is in a cupboard in the kitchen, so I
fitted a door activated switch to the door to control the light.
In another situation, one could have an ordinary switch.

The light is charged from the mains and will operate as a conventional
light - in my case when the door is opened.

If the power fails for whatever reason, the light comes on and will
run for three hours.

This is very useful for working on the CU for whatever reason, as well
as generally useful for finding things at the back of the cupboard.










David


..andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

Vortex3 wrote:

A second application would be use with a lead lamp when doing electrical
wiring at the fuseboard with all power off, in the half-light and with a
torch in your mouth!

If this is an important usage for you, make sure the UPS has (both
in the advertising blurn *and* in practice - says the once-bitten
twice-shy buyer here!) the "cold start" facility - i.e. that you can
make the thing produce the magic 240VAC when you hit the "on" switch
without having it plugged in to a live 240V supply. You may find the
one you're looking at is happy to take over when a load is being drawn
and the supply fails - the standard usage for a UPS - but that it won't
start up all on its lonesome...

Where Andy H has a fixed "emergency light" by his fusebox, I have a
lead-acid rechargeable flourescent torch fed by a wallwart charger,
which comes on when the wallwart is unplugged or if its supply fails.
I got it about 10 years ago from an electrical trade counter, and they
still seem to be sold at such places and by the on-line equivalants (TLC
and the like).

Stefek

On Sun, 3 Oct 2004 22:11:30 UTC, Stefek Zaba
wrote:

Where Andy H has a fixed "emergency light" by his fusebox, I have a
lead-acid rechargeable flourescent torch fed by a wallwart charger,
which comes on when the wallwart is unplugged or if its supply fails.
I got it about 10 years ago from an electrical trade counter, and they
still seem to be sold at such places and by the on-line equivalants (TLC
and the like).

I have a chemical lightstick there as well!

--
Bob Eager
begin a new life...dump Windows!

In message , Bob Eager
writes
On Sun, 3 Oct 2004 22:11:30 UTC, Stefek Zaba
wrote:

Where Andy H has a fixed "emergency light" by his fusebox, I have a
lead-acid rechargeable flourescent torch fed by a wallwart charger,
which comes on when the wallwart is unplugged or if its supply fails.
I got it about 10 years ago from an electrical trade counter, and they
still seem to be sold at such places and by the on-line equivalants (TLC
and the like).

I have a chemical lightstick there as well!

I did have, until my nephew came to stay ...

--
geoff

"Vortex3" wrote in message
...
Hi There,

Does anyone out there own one of these cheap UPS's like:

http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/hard...quicklinx=2HQ2

These things seem to be absurdly cheap. I'd be interested in an opinion

I was thinking of getting one to protect my PC's from the occasional
"brown-out" we get in very windy weather.

A second application would be use with a lead lamp when doing electrical
wiring at the fuseboard with all power off, in the half-light and with a
torch in your mouth!

David

I don't own one, but things to consider are - It may not be possible to
replace the battery on that model when it eventually fails (according to the
manual it is non-user serviceable).
It has a two year warranty - does that include the battery?
It may be noisy (manual says less than 40dB)
There is a running time calculator on the Trust website - runs about 18mins
for an average PC with LCD screen see
http://www.trust.com/home/default.ht...Fartnr%3D13506
It beeps when the mains fails - no auto shutdown of the pc is provided.
Finally, some cheap UPS's can sometimes cause problems when powering certain
equipment because the output waveform can be more distorted than the Sine
wave supplied by normal mains.

Dave

In article ,
Vortex3 wrote:
Hi There,

Does anyone out there own one of these cheap UPS's like:

http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/hard...quicklinx=2HQ2

These things seem to be absurdly cheap. I'd be interested in an opinion

It does look cheap, but I'm sure you can get a "branded" one for not
much more.

If you want cheaper:

http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductsList.asp?Name=ups

Run time on almost all standard UPSs I've used over the years tends
to be about 15 miuntes under half load and it degenerates non-linearly
after that - down to about 5 minutes under full load.

Personally I don't buy anything from Dabs though - they don't have a
phone number to call them on if something goes wrong - you have to use
email, and in my last case, it was time-critical and they took 24 hours
to answer each email.

I was thinking of getting one to protect my PC's from the occasional
"brown-out" we get in very windy weather.

A second application would be use with a lead lamp when doing electrical
wiring at the fuseboard with all power off, in the half-light and with a
torch in your mouth!

Make sure it comes on with no power applied. Some of them don't!

Gordon