Itâs a good feeling to see your equipment happily chugging along when the lights go out.
We had a short outage last night. A distant chirping from the older APC in the far bedroom was all that happened. The other 3 (yes, I know, what can I say?), quietly went about their jobs keeping all my toys safe.
All the Best,
Jeff
Excellent, real world testing is a vital part of preparedness.
Is yours large enough to run stuff till the power comes back or enough time to shut down?
I am considering buying one, we donât get long outages (we had an hour once in the past 7 years) but i get 2-3 second outages a few times a year and am concerned about hard drive failure.
It depends on how long the power is out.
I mainly got the UPS for my PS3 and PS4.
If I'm playing a game, and the power goes out, I have enough time to save my game and turn off everything until the power comes back on.
It's most important for my PS4 because otherwise I have to wait about 10 minutes for the PS4 to check and see if everything is okay when the power goes out.
I saw one online at Costco for $62.99 iirc, if they have it in store it will be closer to $50. But undecided if i should get it, its not in the budget.
You might want to research how much a replacement battery for your specific UPS will cost.
The battery should be replaced maybe every three to five years. 
How i wish we could get lithium versions.
Have it charge to 75% max and it would last a decade or more.
And be cheap, a 21700 at 5000mAh with 5 batteries would give about the same power storage as the one i am looking at for not a lot of money in batteries. Heck a powerbank with 25000mAh would do almost the same job and are commonly available and cheap. All it needs is the control circuitry and an inverter.
I just ordered this UPS from Home Depot.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/CyberPower-650VA-8-Outlet-UPS-Battery-Backup-with-USB-SX650U/307498992
It looks very similar to the one I ordered from Amazon, and it uses the same battery.
This new one will be for my computer in my room, and it's about $11 cheaper than the one from Amazon.
Our electric company turned off our power for a couple of hours today.
I have 2 UPS, and neither worked as expected.
The one in my room didn't work at all until after I turned it back on.
The one in the living room worked fine, but I was playing my PS4, and the PS4 turned off.
Also, my PS3 was off, and the PS3 turned on.
I think that there must have been some power issues to cause those problems because each UPS is not that old.
I also had to set up my mesh network all over again.
Usually when the power goes out, I don't have these problems (thank goodness.)
EDIT:
Actually, the PS3 & PS4 didn't act up for a few minutes after the initial power outage.
I'm thinking the power might have gone off and on repeatedly.
How old are the batteries, what size and load were on each UPS, was everything plugged into the battery backed outlets? Most consumer UPS only provide back up power to half of the outlets. Depending on the temperatures and quality of batteries, you can expect anywhere from 1 to 3 years before needing replacements. Also small units are usually only rated for a couple of minutes at half load, so a small 600VA UPS may only be able to run 200 watts for around 5 minutes and even less as the load approaches max output. Pay attention to the rated VA vs watts ratings as well when adding devices.
KuoH
One UPS is from August 2021 and the other from October 2021.
Everything was plugged into the battery backed outlets.
The UPS in the living room didn't have much of a load.
The UPS in my room had a larger load, which might be why when I got around to checking it, it was turned off.
But my PS4 in the living room should not have turned off.
Nothing else in the living room turned off.
I figured out why the PS3 turned on...
When the power goes out to my PS3 controller charger, it turns on the the PS3 if the PS3 has power to it.
They donât sound old enough for the batteries to be bad yet, but you wonât know unless you test. You might want to find out the runtime and load ratings for each and perform a runtime test after the batteries have fully recharged. A physical inspection of the batteries wouldnât be a bad idea as well. I have several Cyberpower and APC UPS and the APCs seem to cook the batteries faster, especially when placed in a confined area with poor ventilation.
KuoH
You should test the UPSs on a regular basis. My CP gave up the ghost recently after 5 years, which is surprisingly good. My new one came with UPSilon 2000 5.4, allowing for running some internal tests, so donât even have to switch off RCD for a test.
The PS3 turning on when connected to mains is crap. Is there no switch to really disconnect it?
I could unplug the PS3, or I could hook up my PS3 controller charger to my UPS, but I'm not going to do either of those things.
It's poor engineering from Sony.
If the power goes out to a PS3 controller being charged, the controller tries to turn on the PS3.
I think Sony learned their lesson as PS4 controllers don't behave in that manor.
I suspect it was intentional to preemptively turn on the console when the player picks up the controller, but an override option should be available. Plugging the charger into the UPS will likely make little difference to the runtime, but does use another outlet unless you add a power strip.
KuoH
Yes, that was the intention, but it's still annoying and I think a poor engineering choice.
Yep, but I would have to get an extension cord because the PS3 controller charger is nowhere near the UPS, and I don't feel like doing that.
RC,
It only takes a few deep cycles to kill off a UPS battery. Perhaps this has happened since you got them.
The only way to tell whatâs going on is to test them with a known load.
I made up a bank of 100w light bulbs that I use to test my UPSs.
That way Iâm not risking any sensitive equipment and Iâve got a known load.
Slap a volt meter on the output. And, if you can manage it, on the battery as well.
Iâve had UPSs that were seemingly OK with no load - fail with a load attached.
Donât be surprised if the lights dim when the wall power is removed.
The simulated sine wave supplies donât âpass the touchâ as well as a true sine supply.
Some equipment is not happy with simulated sine wave output - perhaps your Sony stuff is like that?
I would not think so since the Sony stuff is using a power supply to drop the line voltage to computer type voltages.
All the Best,
Jeff
Did you do some sort of Runtime test when your UPS were new â sometimes if you buy them on sale, thereâs no telling what the condition of the battery is in â youâd be surprised how little runtime you get from these single 12v SLA type UPS
No, I've never done a runtime on them, but I didn't buy them on sale.
Same. I got an APC 700w and a Tripplite 1kw without batteries for under $15 each.
Come on. Your 100KW UPS is not made in a Chinese sweat shop like the $99 APC UPSs sold at Staples. The two have completely nothing in common.