On 11/17/2013 5:50 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 11/17/2013 6:15 PM, wrote:



Do you really turn the entire entertainment system off when you leave
the house? Amazing. Our satellite box would go bonkers. You must
love resetting clocks. ;-)


We were having some less than a second power blips that would knock out
the sat receiver. It was such a PITA that I finally put it on a UPS.
Problem solved.



Problem may not be solved. My BIL had his satellite system on a UPS to
take care of the blips then one day when they were away from the house
for a few hours because the power had gone out for an extended period of
time the UPS went dead and the satellite tuner/DVR permanently freaked
out because of the low voltage coming from the UPS as it was running out
of back up power. He created his own brown out machine. The whole
tuner/DVR had to be replaced.

On 11/17/2013 7:16 PM, Leon wrote:

We were having some less than a second power blips that would knock out
the sat receiver. It was such a PITA that I finally put it on a UPS.
Problem solved.



Problem may not be solved. My BIL had his satellite system on a UPS to
take care of the blips then one day when they were away from the house
for a few hours because the power had gone out for an extended period of
time the UPS went dead and the satellite tuner/DVR permanently freaked
out because of the low voltage coming from the UPS as it was running out
of back up power. He created his own brown out machine. The whole
tuner/DVR had to be replaced.

Thanks for making me feel confident.

"Mike" wrote:

I have 2 Milwaukee 12V Li battery devices. One is almost 2 years
old and the other about 6 months old. They get used a lot and the
batteries hardly get warm from use or recharge.

However, being a belt and suspender type guy I use a timer as Leon
suggested. Not that I'm particularly worried that they will
overheat. I just have an aversion to leaving anything on that
doesn't need to be on.

-----------------------------------------------------
SFWIW, about 96-97 time line I bought an 18 VDC DeWalt drill and
panel saw kit.

After about a year, DeWalt issued a recall of the charger due to over
heating problems.

Got a new changer from DeWalt; however, never had any problems
with the original one.

Lew

On 11/16/2013 10:40 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
woodchucker wrote:

What Leon was referring to is balancing technology. Which makes sure
each cell is in range, and not deviating from the others.
That is actually where most of the problems are, especially with low
end chargers. The better chargers will monitor each cell rather than
the pack and if one cell gets higher than the other it will deplete
it while bringing the others up. If they are too far out it shuts
down.

How do you monitor an idividual cell when they are connected in series?

Generally they are not just connected in series.
Nicads and nimh were, but not lion or lipo.


The better batteries have prongs for the drill, or whatever
and another set for monitoring the cells. Charging can be done on the
normal prongs, but monitoring is done on the second set. They are not
monitoring for heat like nicad and nimh, they are monitoring for
voltage. They need to be close, and they can't exceed the recommended
cells voltage. Same with depletion of batteries, they can't be drawn
down to low or they may not charge again, or worse. So the manufacturers
have handled that. You'll see all the lion/lipo units stop when voltage
drops. So if you are drawing a lot of amps it will cut out. let it cool
and the battery bounces back a bit and you can continue... but it's a
matter of time b4 it stops running and needs charging.

Even the cheapies have something, probably not as good. Take a look at
your pack, you will see another set of connectors.

I love the Lithium technology the drills are always ready. No quick
discharge like the nicad/nimhs had.




--
Jeff

Leon wrote:
On 11/17/2013 5:50 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 11/17/2013 6:15 PM, wrote:



Do you really turn the entire entertainment system off when you
leave the house? Amazing. Our satellite box would go bonkers. You must
love resetting clocks. ;-)


We were having some less than a second power blips that would knock
out the sat receiver. It was such a PITA that I finally put it on a
UPS. Problem solved.



Problem may not be solved. My BIL had his satellite system on a UPS
to take care of the blips then one day when they were away from the
house for a few hours because the power had gone out for an extended
period of time the UPS went dead and the satellite tuner/DVR
permanently freaked out because of the low voltage coming from the
UPS as it was running out of back up power. He created his own brown
out machine. The whole tuner/DVR had to be replaced.

Crappy UPS in that case. A decent UPS would provide signalling to shut down
the system at the point where power was getting marginal. Another case of
people not knowing or caring enough to really understand, and simply buying
blind eye, wishful confidence.

--

-Mike-

woodchucker wrote:

Generally they are not just connected in series.
Nicads and nimh were, but not lion or lipo.


The better batteries have prongs for the drill, or whatever
and another set for monitoring the cells. Charging can be done on the
normal prongs, but monitoring is done on the second set. They are not
monitoring for heat like nicad and nimh, they are monitoring for
voltage. They need to be close, and they can't exceed the recommended
cells voltage. Same with depletion of batteries, they can't be drawn
down to low or they may not charge again, or worse. So the
manufacturers have handled that. You'll see all the lion/lipo units
stop when voltage drops. So if you are drawing a lot of amps it will
cut out. let it cool and the battery bounces back a bit and you can
continue... but it's a matter of time b4 it stops running and needs
charging.
Even the cheapies have something, probably not as good. Take a look at
your pack, you will see another set of connectors.

I love the Lithium technology the drills are always ready. No quick
discharge like the nicad/nimhs had.


Very good explanation of things I was not aware of - thank you Jeff. I was
well aware of the drop off characteristics of LiON, but did not know the
underlying logic. I too love LiON, and have had no problems at all with
it - either in my laptops or in my drills.

--

-Mike-

On 11/17/2013 9:25 PM, Lew Hodgett wrote:

After about a year, DeWalt issued a recall of the charger due to over
heating problems.

Got a new changer from DeWalt; however, never had any problems
with the original one.

Lew
I wonder if it is the same one in the Boeing 787

Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 11/17/2013 7:16 PM, Leon wrote:

We were having some less than a second power blips that would knock out
the sat receiver. It was such a PITA that I finally put it on a UPS.
Problem solved.



Problem may not be solved. My BIL had his satellite system on a UPS to
take care of the blips then one day when they were away from the house
for a few hours because the power had gone out for an extended period of
time the UPS went dead and the satellite tuner/DVR permanently freaked
out because of the low voltage coming from the UPS as it was running out
of back up power. He created his own brown out machine. The whole
tuner/DVR had to be replaced.

Thanks for making me feel confident.

If only the DVR could power down like a computer does when the power is out
for more than a few minutes.

On Sun, 17 Nov 2013 23:37:06 -0600, Leon wrote:
out because of the low voltage coming from the UPS as it was running out
of back up power. He created his own brown out machine. The whole
tuner/DVR had to be replaced.

Thanks for making me feel confident.

If only the DVR could power down like a computer does when the power is out
for more than a few minutes

I'm a little confused here. Most UPS' (at least mine does) can be
configured to power down if it starts getting low on battery power.
This is a function of the UPS and not some program like Powerchute
which lives on a computer.

wrote:
On Sun, 17 Nov 2013 23:37:06 -0600, Leon wrote:
out because of the low voltage coming from the UPS as it was running out
of back up power. He created his own brown out machine. The whole
tuner/DVR had to be replaced.

Thanks for making me feel confident.

If only the DVR could power down like a computer does when the power is out
for more than a few minutes

I'm a little confused here. Most UPS' (at least mine does) can be
configured to power down if it starts getting low on battery power.
This is a function of the UPS and not some program like Powerchute
which lives on a computer.

My UPS and my BIL's is designed to work with a computer. It communicates,
it's state of charge and or how long the power had been out, with the
computer via a USB cable. When the UPS reaches a preprogrammed condition it
signals software on the computer to shut down computer before all power is
lost. IIRC there is a warning on the computer screen and an audible alarm
on the UPS when power is lost. This gives you enough warning of the event
and time to save your work should you actually be working on the computer
when this all happens.

A DVR cannot communicate with a UPS.

You mention that your UPS can be configured to power down if it starts
getting low on battery power. Is yours not intended to be used with a
computer and or does your computer simply lose power from the UPS vs.
shutting down before the UPS shuts down?

On 11/18/2013 06:44 AM, Leon wrote:
wrote:
On Sun, 17 Nov 2013 23:37:06 -0600, Leon wrote:
out because of the low voltage coming from the UPS as it was running out
of back up power. He created his own brown out machine. The whole
tuner/DVR had to be replaced.

Thanks for making me feel confident.

If only the DVR could power down like a computer does when the power is out
for more than a few minutes

I'm a little confused here. Most UPS' (at least mine does) can be
configured to power down if it starts getting low on battery power.
This is a function of the UPS and not some program like Powerchute
which lives on a computer.

My UPS and my BIL's is designed to work with a computer. It communicates,
it's state of charge and or how long the power had been out, with the
computer via a USB cable. When the UPS reaches a preprogrammed condition it
signals software on the computer to shut down computer before all power is
lost. IIRC there is a warning on the computer screen and an audible alarm
on the UPS when power is lost. This gives you enough warning of the event
and time to save your work should you actually be working on the computer
when this all happens.

A DVR cannot communicate with a UPS.

You mention that your UPS can be configured to power down if it starts
getting low on battery power. Is yours not intended to be used with a
computer and or does your computer simply lose power from the UPS vs.
shutting down before the UPS shuts down?

I have three APC units. On one, the USB interface quit a couple of
years ago, so the computer can't talk to it. On a power outage, it
still beeps and after a few minutes, it shuts down the UPS protected
outlets. It's still OK for short outages.

The other two APC units operate the same way except they notify the
computers they are attached to and the computers shut down before the
UPS outlets are de-activated.


--
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure,the creed of ignorance, and the
gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery"
-Winston Churchill

On Mon, 18 Nov 2013 07:44:44 -0600, Leon wrote:
You mention that your UPS can be configured to power down if it starts
getting low on battery power. Is yours not intended to be used with a
computer and or does your computer simply lose power from the UPS vs.
shutting down before the UPS shuts down?

It's intended to work with a computer and will notify you if there's a
problem so you can close and save your work. But, if you're not there
and there's problem, it will run until the battery gets low and then
it runs the Powerchute program on the computer which saves and shuts
the computer down. After that if the power gets so low that it's
close to a brown out state, it shuts all power off. This is preferable
to actually going into the brown out state which can cause serious
damage to hardware.

So whatever device you have plugged into the UPS, computer, DVD or
otherwise, would be shut down. I was under the impression that
all/most UPS' could/should be able to do that.

On 11/17/2013 6:15 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 17 Nov 2013 14:38:37 -0500, Mike wrote:

On 11/17/2013 11:42 AM, wrote:
On Sun, 17 Nov 2013 09:48:44 -0500, Mike wrote:

On 11/16/2013 11:06 PM, Leon wrote:
On 11/16/2013 9:35 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
dpb wrote:
On 11/15/2013 7:26 PM, patrick wrote:
As to lithium batteries yay or nay. ...

I'm still holding off...heard too many firsthand stories of chargers
overheating to be comfortable having one in the house or barn lest I
forget to unplug it.

You'd be very well advised to check into those stories before placing too
much confidence in them.


Most recent story of just a couple of months ago--JD dealer here has
started carrying Milwaukee, Makita, and another one or two in new
dealership showroom besides the Green-branded stuff (the maker of whom
for them I'm not positive--need to ask Russ about that). Anyway was
looking for the LED lantern attachment to go on the existing Milwaukee
NiMH packs I have for winter backup power-outage lighting relief and
didn't have any for them, only the Li. So that naturally go to the
discussion of same and he mentioned he'd had three packs overheat and
nearly start fires on different tools/manufacturers and they had also
had trouble with some in the shop. So his take was "don't leave them
unattended" -- mine is "not taking a chance" at least yet.

I find that very hard to believe. Very hard. Dealer's stories are
not all
that reliable. Especially if the dealer is older or fixed in some
older way
of doing business. You really don't think this would be more well
publicized if it were really true?

It could happen.....right after the dusc collector explodes from a
spark. ;~)

I think the safe bet is to put the charger on a electric timer to shut
the power off after a couple of hours or what ever the normal charging
time is.




I think the stories of Li batteries bursting into flames got started
years ago as a result of early use by the R/C crowd. Model plane flyers
are always looking for a way to reduce weight and Li batteries were seen
as the new perfect answer. The problem was they would frequently build
their packs without the benefit of knowing how to protect them from
under or over charge. Discharge too low and you kill the battery.
Overcharge it and you have instant fire. The fix, of course, was to add
circuitry to prevent either condition.

R/C modelers have had issues with NiCd, too. However, the issue with
LiIon is real, if overstated in the "sky is falling" press. Laptops
have had trouble as has the Tesla (a burning $100K car would **** me
off). I witnessed one LiIon fire at my PPoE - one of ours. :-(

True enough. A lot of it was self inflicted though.

A lot was cause by a premature rollout of LiIon, but not all. Again,
any time you pack that much energy into a small space, you're asking
for trouble.

Some tool chargers are pretty aggressive, too. It's not enough for me
to shy away from the technology, though. Any energy storage device
has to be considered dangerous. I don't lose sleep about the gas can
in my garage, either.

I have 2 Milwaukee 12V Li battery devices. One is almost 2 years old
and the other about 6 months old. They get used a lot and the batteries
hardly get warm from use or recharge.

How long is the charge cycle. Heat is a fact of life. It can't be
mitigated by the color of the plastic.

Around 1.5 hours. I didn't say the color mattered. However, you could
get more or less heat depending on how the manufacturer chose to handle
the charge cycle. I mentioned the brand in the interest of full disclosure.

The reason is that it's only .7C. Chargers (batteries) running at 4C
will get hot. It's not the brand. It's the physics.

I understand that.


However, being a belt and suspender type guy I use a timer as Leon
suggested. Not that I'm particularly worried that they will overheat.
I just have an aversion to leaving anything on that doesn't need to be on.

Do you unplug your TV every time you shut it "off", too? Your lamps?

Lamps? No, flipping the switch takes care of that just like the timer
on the charger does. Everything in the entertainment center is
connected to a power strip.

Do you really turn the entire entertainment system off when you leave
the house? Amazing. Our satellite box would go bonkers. You must
love resetting clocks. ;-)


Well, everything but the DVR. If I did, it would reset its clock, but
wouldn't record the couple of shows I watch.

On 11/18/2013 8:49 AM, wrote:
On Mon, 18 Nov 2013 07:44:44 -0600, Leon wrote:
You mention that your UPS can be configured to power down if it starts
getting low on battery power. Is yours not intended to be used with a
computer and or does your computer simply lose power from the UPS vs.
shutting down before the UPS shuts down?

It's intended to work with a computer and will notify you if there's a
problem so you can close and save your work. But, if you're not there
and there's problem, it will run until the battery gets low and then
it runs the Powerchute program on the computer which saves and shuts
the computer down. After that if the power gets so low that it's
close to a brown out state, it shuts all power off. This is preferable
to actually going into the brown out state which can cause serious
damage to hardware.

Gotcha! Obliviously the one my BIL used would not shut power to the
device when it got low.






So whatever device you have plugged into the UPS, computer, DVD or
otherwise, would be shut down. I was under the impression that
all/most UPS' could/should be able to do that.


Apparently not the older less expensive ones from Cyber Power.

On 11/17/2013 9:19 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
Leon wrote:
On 11/17/2013 5:50 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 11/17/2013 6:15 PM, wrote:



Do you really turn the entire entertainment system off when you
leave the house? Amazing. Our satellite box would go bonkers. You must
love resetting clocks. ;-)


We were having some less than a second power blips that would knock
out the sat receiver. It was such a PITA that I finally put it on a
UPS. Problem solved.



Problem may not be solved. My BIL had his satellite system on a UPS
to take care of the blips then one day when they were away from the
house for a few hours because the power had gone out for an extended
period of time the UPS went dead and the satellite tuner/DVR
permanently freaked out because of the low voltage coming from the
UPS as it was running out of back up power. He created his own brown
out machine. The whole tuner/DVR had to be replaced.

Crappy UPS in that case. A decent UPS would provide signalling to shut down
the system at the point where power was getting marginal.



Can you name a UPS that will actually do what you said, signal to shut
down the satellite receiver/DVR? I don't know of any satellite DVR's
that actually communicate with a UPS to power down.

Another case of
people not knowing or caring enough to really understand, and simply
buying
blind eye, wishful confidence.


I think you may be FOS.

On 11/18/2013 12:59 PM, Leon wrote:
On 11/17/2013 9:19 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
Leon wrote:
On 11/17/2013 5:50 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 11/17/2013 6:15 PM, wrote:



Do you really turn the entire entertainment system off when you
leave the house? Amazing. Our satellite box would go bonkers. You
must
love resetting clocks. ;-)


We were having some less than a second power blips that would knock
out the sat receiver. It was such a PITA that I finally put it on a
UPS. Problem solved.



Problem may not be solved. My BIL had his satellite system on a UPS
to take care of the blips then one day when they were away from the
house for a few hours because the power had gone out for an extended
period of time the UPS went dead and the satellite tuner/DVR
permanently freaked out because of the low voltage coming from the
UPS as it was running out of back up power. He created his own brown
out machine. The whole tuner/DVR had to be replaced.

Crappy UPS in that case. A decent UPS would provide signalling to
shut down
the system at the point where power was getting marginal.



Can you name a UPS that will actually do what you said, signal to shut
down the satellite receiver/DVR? I don't know of any satellite DVR's
that actually communicate with a UPS to power down.

Another case of
people not knowing or caring enough to really understand, and simply
buying
blind eye, wishful confidence.


I think you may be FOS.

Ease up, Leon. Mike was referring to the brown out comment, not the
fact that non computer devices don't get a shut down signal.

My UPS by APC will not "brown out" as the battery runs down, it will
shut down instantly with no transient spikes or other damaging activity
when it can no longer supply full power to the UPS outlets.

So I agree with Mike - a ups that doesn't shutdown instantly when unable
to supply full power instead of browning out is nothing I would want
powering any device.




--
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure,the creed of ignorance, and the
gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery"
-Winston Churchill

On 11/18/2013 01:26 PM, Doug Winterburn wrote:
On 11/18/2013 12:59 PM, Leon wrote:
On 11/17/2013 9:19 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
Leon wrote:
On 11/17/2013 5:50 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 11/17/2013 6:15 PM, wrote:



Do you really turn the entire entertainment system off when you
leave the house? Amazing. Our satellite box would go bonkers. You
must
love resetting clocks. ;-)


We were having some less than a second power blips that would knock
out the sat receiver. It was such a PITA that I finally put it on a
UPS. Problem solved.



Problem may not be solved. My BIL had his satellite system on a UPS
to take care of the blips then one day when they were away from the
house for a few hours because the power had gone out for an extended
period of time the UPS went dead and the satellite tuner/DVR
permanently freaked out because of the low voltage coming from the
UPS as it was running out of back up power. He created his own brown
out machine. The whole tuner/DVR had to be replaced.

Crappy UPS in that case. A decent UPS would provide signalling to
shut down
the system at the point where power was getting marginal.



Can you name a UPS that will actually do what you said, signal to shut
down the satellite receiver/DVR? I don't know of any satellite DVR's
that actually communicate with a UPS to power down.

Another case of
people not knowing or caring enough to really understand, and simply
buying
blind eye, wishful confidence.


I think you may be FOS.

Ease up, Leon. Mike was referring to the brown out comment, not the
fact that non computer devices don't get a shut down signal.

My UPS by APC will not "brown out" as the battery runs down, it will
shut down instantly with no transient spikes or other damaging activity
when it can no longer supply full power to the UPS outlets.

So I agree with Mike - a ups that doesn't shutdown instantly when unable
to supply full power instead of browning out is nothing I would want
powering any device.




BTW, an easy way to determine if a UPS shuts down instantly or "browns
out" when there is a power outage is to plug in an incandescent light
into one of the UPS outlets and then uplug the UPS. After the battery
is unable to supply full power, the light should turn off instantly, not
dim over minutes or seconds.


--
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure,the creed of ignorance, and the
gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery"
-Winston Churchill

Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet writes:
On 11/17/2013 9:19 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
Leon wrote:
On 11/17/2013 5:50 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 11/17/2013 6:15 PM, wrote:



Do you really turn the entire entertainment system off when you
leave the house? Amazing. Our satellite box would go bonkers. You must
love resetting clocks. ;-)


We were having some less than a second power blips that would knock
out the sat receiver. It was such a PITA that I finally put it on a
UPS. Problem solved.



Problem may not be solved. My BIL had his satellite system on a UPS
to take care of the blips then one day when they were away from the
house for a few hours because the power had gone out for an extended
period of time the UPS went dead and the satellite tuner/DVR
permanently freaked out because of the low voltage coming from the
UPS as it was running out of back up power. He created his own brown
out machine. The whole tuner/DVR had to be replaced.

Crappy UPS in that case. A decent UPS would provide signalling to shut down
the system at the point where power was getting marginal.



Can you name a UPS that will actually do what you said, signal to shut
down the satellite receiver/DVR? I don't know of any satellite DVR's
that actually communicate with a UPS to power down.

All but the most low-end uninterruptable power supplies have a notification
means. Anything from relay contacts to a USB port, depending on generation and
capability.

If the DVR has both a USB host port and UPS software on-board, then it should
be able to respond to the UPS low-time notification and initiate an
orderly power down procedure. I've read that some Tivo's will support
a standard USB HID UPS device, but have no personal experience with that.

In any case, a well-designed UPS won't provide a low line voltage to any
protected device(s). Unfortunately, there are a glut of cheap, poorly
crafted UPS devices available on the market.

On Sun, 17 Nov 2013 22:52:42 -0500, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On 11/17/2013 9:25 PM, Lew Hodgett wrote:

After about a year, DeWalt issued a recall of the charger due to over
heating problems.

Got a new changer from DeWalt; however, never had any problems
with the original one.

Lew
I wonder if it is the same one in the Boeing 787

Probably not. Lew said he never had any problems with his. Mr. B has
had a few. ;-)

Leon wrote:


Can you name a UPS that will actually do what you said, signal to shut
down the satellite receiver/DVR? I don't know of any satellite DVR's
that actually communicate with a UPS to power down.

No - I can't. I don't know that DVR's can receive a signal from a UPS. I
was (maybe mistakenly) speaking of how a UPS typically associates with a
computer. Most provide a signalling for low battery to allow for the
computer to shutdown.


Another case of
people not knowing or caring enough to really understand, and simply
buying blind eye, wishful confidence.


I think you may be FOS.

What? Me?

--

-Mike-

On 11/18/2013 2:46 PM, Doug Winterburn wrote:
On 11/18/2013 01:26 PM, Doug Winterburn wrote:
On 11/18/2013 12:59 PM, Leon wrote:
On 11/17/2013 9:19 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
Leon wrote:
On 11/17/2013 5:50 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 11/17/2013 6:15 PM, wrote:



Do you really turn the entire entertainment system off when you
leave the house? Amazing. Our satellite box would go bonkers. You
must
love resetting clocks. ;-)


We were having some less than a second power blips that would knock
out the sat receiver. It was such a PITA that I finally put it on a
UPS. Problem solved.



Problem may not be solved. My BIL had his satellite system on a UPS
to take care of the blips then one day when they were away from the
house for a few hours because the power had gone out for an extended
period of time the UPS went dead and the satellite tuner/DVR
permanently freaked out because of the low voltage coming from the
UPS as it was running out of back up power. He created his own brown
out machine. The whole tuner/DVR had to be replaced.

Crappy UPS in that case. A decent UPS would provide signalling to
shut down
the system at the point where power was getting marginal.



Can you name a UPS that will actually do what you said, signal to shut
down the satellite receiver/DVR? I don't know of any satellite DVR's
that actually communicate with a UPS to power down.

Another case of
people not knowing or caring enough to really understand, and simply
buying
blind eye, wishful confidence.


I think you may be FOS.

Ease up, Leon. Mike was referring to the brown out comment, not the
fact that non computer devices don't get a shut down signal.

My UPS by APC will not "brown out" as the battery runs down, it will
shut down instantly with no transient spikes or other damaging activity
when it can no longer supply full power to the UPS outlets.

So I agree with Mike - a ups that doesn't shutdown instantly when unable
to supply full power instead of browning out is nothing I would want
powering any device.




BTW, an easy way to determine if a UPS shuts down instantly or "browns
out" when there is a power outage is to plug in an incandescent light
into one of the UPS outlets and then uplug the UPS. After the battery
is unable to supply full power, the light should turn off instantly, not
dim over minutes or seconds.


I would be looking for an easier way at the store before I bought one.

On 11/18/2013 09:31 PM, Leon wrote:
On 11/18/2013 2:46 PM, Doug Winterburn wrote:
On 11/18/2013 01:26 PM, Doug Winterburn wrote:
On 11/18/2013 12:59 PM, Leon wrote:
On 11/17/2013 9:19 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
Leon wrote:
On 11/17/2013 5:50 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 11/17/2013 6:15 PM, wrote:



Do you really turn the entire entertainment system off when you
leave the house? Amazing. Our satellite box would go bonkers. You
must
love resetting clocks. ;-)


We were having some less than a second power blips that would knock
out the sat receiver. It was such a PITA that I finally put it on a
UPS. Problem solved.



Problem may not be solved. My BIL had his satellite system on a UPS
to take care of the blips then one day when they were away from the
house for a few hours because the power had gone out for an extended
period of time the UPS went dead and the satellite tuner/DVR
permanently freaked out because of the low voltage coming from the
UPS as it was running out of back up power. He created his own brown
out machine. The whole tuner/DVR had to be replaced.

Crappy UPS in that case. A decent UPS would provide signalling to
shut down
the system at the point where power was getting marginal.



Can you name a UPS that will actually do what you said, signal to shut
down the satellite receiver/DVR? I don't know of any satellite DVR's
that actually communicate with a UPS to power down.

Another case of
people not knowing or caring enough to really understand, and simply
buying
blind eye, wishful confidence.


I think you may be FOS.

Ease up, Leon. Mike was referring to the brown out comment, not the
fact that non computer devices don't get a shut down signal.

My UPS by APC will not "brown out" as the battery runs down, it will
shut down instantly with no transient spikes or other damaging activity
when it can no longer supply full power to the UPS outlets.

So I agree with Mike - a ups that doesn't shutdown instantly when unable
to supply full power instead of browning out is nothing I would want
powering any device.




BTW, an easy way to determine if a UPS shuts down instantly or "browns
out" when there is a power outage is to plug in an incandescent light
into one of the UPS outlets and then uplug the UPS. After the battery
is unable to supply full power, the light should turn off instantly, not
dim over minutes or seconds.


I would be looking for an easier way at the store before I bought one.


APC - no problems.

http://www.apc.com/site/products/ind...m/?segmentID=1



--
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure,the creed of ignorance, and the
gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery"
-Winston Churchill

On 11/18/2013 2:26 PM, Doug Winterburn wrote:
On 11/18/2013 12:59 PM, Leon wrote:
On 11/17/2013 9:19 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
Leon wrote:
On 11/17/2013 5:50 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 11/17/2013 6:15 PM, wrote:



Do you really turn the entire entertainment system off when you
leave the house? Amazing. Our satellite box would go bonkers. You
must
love resetting clocks. ;-)


We were having some less than a second power blips that would knock
out the sat receiver. It was such a PITA that I finally put it on a
UPS. Problem solved.



Problem may not be solved. My BIL had his satellite system on a UPS
to take care of the blips then one day when they were away from the
house for a few hours because the power had gone out for an extended
period of time the UPS went dead and the satellite tuner/DVR
permanently freaked out because of the low voltage coming from the
UPS as it was running out of back up power. He created his own brown
out machine. The whole tuner/DVR had to be replaced.

Crappy UPS in that case. A decent UPS would provide signalling to
shut down
the system at the point where power was getting marginal.



Can you name a UPS that will actually do what you said, signal to shut
down the satellite receiver/DVR? I don't know of any satellite DVR's
that actually communicate with a UPS to power down.

Another case of
people not knowing or caring enough to really understand, and simply
buying
blind eye, wishful confidence.


I think you may be FOS.

Ease up, Leon. Mike was referring to the brown out comment, not the
fact that non computer devices don't get a shut down signal.

I missed that part in his comment. I was talking about a UPS shutting
down a Satelite/DVR, I thought he was too.


My UPS by APC will not "brown out" as the battery runs down, it will
shut down instantly with no transient spikes or other damaging activity
when it can no longer supply full power to the UPS outlets.

So I agree with Mike - a ups that doesn't shutdown instantly when unable
to supply full power instead of browning out is nothing I would want
powering any device.

Given the choice neither would I. Until this conversation I was unaware
that such a feature existed.

On 11/18/2013 3:10 PM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet writes:
On 11/17/2013 9:19 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
Leon wrote:
On 11/17/2013 5:50 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 11/17/2013 6:15 PM, wrote:



Do you really turn the entire entertainment system off when you
leave the house? Amazing. Our satellite box would go bonkers. You must
love resetting clocks. ;-)


We were having some less than a second power blips that would knock
out the sat receiver. It was such a PITA that I finally put it on a
UPS. Problem solved.



Problem may not be solved. My BIL had his satellite system on a UPS
to take care of the blips then one day when they were away from the
house for a few hours because the power had gone out for an extended
period of time the UPS went dead and the satellite tuner/DVR
permanently freaked out because of the low voltage coming from the
UPS as it was running out of back up power. He created his own brown
out machine. The whole tuner/DVR had to be replaced.

Crappy UPS in that case. A decent UPS would provide signalling to shut down
the system at the point where power was getting marginal.



Can you name a UPS that will actually do what you said, signal to shut
down the satellite receiver/DVR? I don't know of any satellite DVR's
that actually communicate with a UPS to power down.

All but the most low-end uninterruptable power supplies have a notification
means. Anything from relay contacts to a USB port, depending on generation and
capability.

If the DVR has both a USB host port and UPS software on-board, then it should
be able to respond to the UPS low-time notification and initiate an
orderly power down procedure. I've read that some Tivo's will support
a standard USB HID UPS device, but have no personal experience with that.

Understood this is not rocket science, but please tell me which
satelite/dvr will have all the features that you mentioned above. Lots
of if's you mention.

On 11/18/2013 6:07 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
Leon wrote:


Can you name a UPS that will actually do what you said, signal to shut
down the satellite receiver/DVR? I don't know of any satellite DVR's
that actually communicate with a UPS to power down.

No - I can't. I don't know that DVR's can receive a signal from a UPS. I
was (maybe mistakenly) speaking of how a UPS typically associates with a
computer. Most provide a signalling for low battery to allow for the
computer to shutdown.

Exactly, however the major satellite providers don't offer this feature
but if they could that would mean that even a crappy UPS would work just
fine even though it might not offer protection from it's won from brown
out.




Another case of
people not knowing or caring enough to really understand, and simply
buying blind eye, wishful confidence.


I think you may be FOS.

What? Me?

First Offering Sarcasm. ;~)

Doug Winterburn wrote:
On 11/18/2013 09:31 PM, Leon wrote:
On 11/18/2013 2:46 PM, Doug Winterburn wrote:
On 11/18/2013 01:26 PM, Doug Winterburn wrote:
On 11/18/2013 12:59 PM, Leon wrote:
On 11/17/2013 9:19 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
Leon wrote:
On 11/17/2013 5:50 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 11/17/2013 6:15 PM, wrote:



Do you really turn the entire entertainment system off when you
leave the house? Amazing. Our satellite box would go bonkers. You
must
love resetting clocks. ;-)


We were having some less than a second power blips that would knock
out the sat receiver. It was such a PITA that I finally put it on a
UPS. Problem solved.



Problem may not be solved. My BIL had his satellite system on a UPS
to take care of the blips then one day when they were away from the
house for a few hours because the power had gone out for an extended
period of time the UPS went dead and the satellite tuner/DVR
permanently freaked out because of the low voltage coming from the
UPS as it was running out of back up power. He created his own brown
out machine. The whole tuner/DVR had to be replaced.

Crappy UPS in that case. A decent UPS would provide signalling to
shut down
the system at the point where power was getting marginal.



Can you name a UPS that will actually do what you said, signal to shut
down the satellite receiver/DVR? I don't know of any satellite DVR's
that actually communicate with a UPS to power down.

Another case of
people not knowing or caring enough to really understand, and simply
buying
blind eye, wishful confidence.


I think you may be FOS.

Ease up, Leon. Mike was referring to the brown out comment, not the
fact that non computer devices don't get a shut down signal.

My UPS by APC will not "brown out" as the battery runs down, it will
shut down instantly with no transient spikes or other damaging activity
when it can no longer supply full power to the UPS outlets.

So I agree with Mike - a ups that doesn't shutdown instantly when unable
to supply full power instead of browning out is nothing I would want
powering any device.




BTW, an easy way to determine if a UPS shuts down instantly or "browns
out" when there is a power outage is to plug in an incandescent light
into one of the UPS outlets and then uplug the UPS. After the battery
is unable to supply full power, the light should turn off instantly, not
dim over minutes or seconds.


I would be looking for an easier way at the store before I bought one.


APC - no problems.

http://www.apc.com/site/products/ind...m/?segmentID=1




I took a look at the APC site, and I have long been aware that APC is a
better brand. That said I looked at what appeared to be a low end and a
high end " Back-UPS" and looked at the features and benefits section an did
not see any thing that specifically pointed out the feature of shutting off
out put before voltage dropped to a specific point.

I'm not doubting what you are saying about this feature but would certainly
like to know what to look for specifically when shopping for a new one.

On Mon, 18 Nov 2013 23:31:05 -0600, Leon wrote:
I'm not doubting what you are saying about this feature but would certainly
like to know what to look for specifically when shopping for a new one.

I believe this one would fill your need. That being said, I'd query
them and confirm that it will power off instead of going into a
brownout condition when the battery is exhausted.
http://www.tripplite.com/en/products...xtModelID=3193

wrote in :


My Makita batteries don't last long at all. I don't use the drills
anymore because I got tired of buying batteries.

There was a bad batch of 18V LiON batteries some time ago. Lots of
complaints on Amazon about it. Mine are about 3 years old and getting
weak, but that's about the lifetime of LiON batteries anyway.

Puckdropper
--
Make it to fit, don't make it fit.

On 19 Nov 2013 06:06:39 GMT, Puckdropper
puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com wrote:

wrote in :


My Makita batteries don't last long at all. I don't use the drills
anymore because I got tired of buying batteries.

There was a bad batch of 18V LiON batteries some time ago. Lots of
complaints on Amazon about it. Mine are about 3 years old and getting
weak, but that's about the lifetime of LiON batteries anyway.

My Makitas are NiCd.

At my PPoE we had some "new" batteries that were three years old
(stock for a widget that was *way* late to market). We grabbed a
bunch of them and did a life test. They were still better than 90%
capacity. It's not time that kills LiIons (so much), rather charge
cycles. Unlike NiCds, they really do have a long shelf life.

On 11/17/13 12:38 PM, Mike wrote:

Lamps? No, flipping the switch takes care of that just like the timer
on the charger does. Everything in the entertainment center is
connected to a power strip.

Chargers also present a small power drain even when no batteries are
present. My two Milwaukee chargers (NiMH and Li) draw about 10 watts
when unloaded. Put them on a timer for 1 hour a day and the trickle
charge will keep the batteries up if needed and you can save a few watts
(over the losses in powering the timer) and maybe help pay for a new
battery after several years. Of course it makes no financial sense to
buy a new timer, but if you are like me and have several just sitting in
a 'junk' box on a shelf....


-Bruce

On 11/18/13 8:01 AM, Leon wrote:
On 11/18/2013 8:49 AM, wrote:
On Mon, 18 Nov 2013 07:44:44 -0600, Leon wrote:
You mention that your UPS can be configured to power down if it starts
getting low on battery power. Is yours not intended to be used with a
computer and or does your computer simply lose power from the UPS vs.
shutting down before the UPS shuts down?

It's intended to work with a computer and will notify you if there's a
problem so you can close and save your work. But, if you're not there
and there's problem, it will run until the battery gets low and then
it runs the Powerchute program on the computer which saves and shuts
the computer down. After that if the power gets so low that it's
close to a brown out state, it shuts all power off. This is preferable
to actually going into the brown out state which can cause serious
damage to hardware.

Gotcha! Obliviously the one my BIL used would not shut power to the
device when it got low.






So whatever device you have plugged into the UPS, computer, DVD or
otherwise, would be shut down. I was under the impression that
all/most UPS' could/should be able to do that.


Apparently not the older less expensive ones from Cyber Power.


'better' UPSs will only let the battery discharge to about 80% before
shutting down, This is to prevent deep cycling the batteries which helps
extend their life.

I have about a half dozen around the house protecting various things,
Any UPS should have batteries that last years if all you get are short
power 'blips'. Around here, if it isn't just a blip, it usually will
last for about an hour (I guess that means a crew had to be dispatched).
I see a definite correlation with battery replacements being more
frequent on my cheap vs. 'good' UPSs.

-Bruce

On 11/23/2013 10:02 AM, Brewster wrote:

I have about a half dozen around the house protecting various things,
Any UPS should have batteries that last years if all you get are short
power 'blips'. Around here, if it isn't just a blip, it usually will
last for about an hour (I guess that means a crew had to be dispatched).
I see a definite correlation with battery replacements being more
frequent on my cheap vs. 'good' UPSs.

When my home flooded with 3' water in 2001 at 1AM, the first thing I did
was wade through water to cut off the electricity.

Prudent thing to do ... but tell that to the four, submerged, UPS' that
immediately kicked in.


--
eWoodShop: www.eWoodShop.com
Wood Shop: www.e-WoodShop.net
google.com/+KarlCaillouet
http://www.custommade.com/by/ewoodshop/
KarlCaillouet@ (the obvious)

On 11/23/13 9:23 AM, Swingman wrote:
On 11/23/2013 10:02 AM, Brewster wrote:

I have about a half dozen around the house protecting various things,
Any UPS should have batteries that last years if all you get are short
power 'blips'. Around here, if it isn't just a blip, it usually will
last for about an hour (I guess that means a crew had to be dispatched).
I see a definite correlation with battery replacements being more
frequent on my cheap vs. 'good' UPSs.

When my home flooded with 3' water in 2001 at 1AM, the first thing I did
was wade through water to cut off the electricity.

Prudent thing to do ... but tell that to the four, submerged, UPS' that
immediately kicked in.



But at least you didn't need to reset your clocks or reboot your
computers right 8^)