Importance of good UPSs - get them!!!

You're confusing surge protection with UPS.
These are two different functions.

Regards

No, I don't believe he is. All UPS's that I know of have surge protection built in.

That's my point.
It's the surge protection function that saved the equipment.
The uninterruptible power supply had no effect.
A good surge protector (w/o UPS) would have offered the same protection.

BTW I've seen UPSs w/o surge protection features, but they were older, industrial (sine wave output) models.

Regards

I agree with blue_z. UPS is for saving data during power outage.

Been there Cybrsage. 100ft away last summer, blew the maintenance covers off the tele/co wire. Fried my Dish HDD and previously an LNB.

One thing to remember - Once a UPS/surge protector has taken a big it the protection it provides is pretty much gone. Typically they use MOVs which essentially burn out leaving the unit still functioning but with little or no surge protection ability left.

This is absolutely true. Most simple surge protectors, even some of the expensive ones, won't really save your butt during a "bad power" situation. A UPS with surge protection (they all have it now a days) is the best way to go. Aside from the initial surge, the line voltage can swing wildly when your power goes out and comes back on. You can get spikes and extended brown-outs that can be just as harmful as a near-strike.

Several years back I worked at an electronics repair shop. If I had a nickle for every time someone brought in a power-damaged piece of equipment and said "But I had it on a surge protector!", they wouldn't have had to pay me a salary.

The best type of UPS not only provides surge protection and backup during a temporary power outage but also provides voltage regulation. All UPSs do not have all three features so be sure to read the specs before you buy.

FYI - a UPS only allows your PC to stay on until the battery is drained, in which case it's going to shut off anyway. The battery backup feature is only useful for brief outages and is utterly useless if the power is off for an extended period. The idea is that the UPS will detect the power outage, switch to battery power, and then direct the PC to perform an orderly shutdown in order to preserve all of your data. Of course, this only works if you've got the proper software for your UPS (not all of them have it) and a connection between the UPS and your PC (usually USB but older models used serial ports).

For HTPC use, as well as any other electronics for your home theater system, a line conditioner with surge protection would probably be a better choice. It filters the line voltage of extraneous noise and regulates it to keep it constant. The regulation circuit will also have surge protection built in so as to prevent spikes or droops from getting to your electronics. They will probably use something other than MOVs for surge protection as they would be designed for long term protection and MOVs have a limited lifespan.

If you only have a surge protected power strip, consider replacing it frequently as they generally use MOVs and the protection function dissipates over time.

You should check with your insurance company, since they were 'damaged' by lightning and need replaced. What sucks, though, is most likely they won't cover it, because it is technically still functional, though now a potential fire hazard and a weakened surge protection.

Depending on how many UPSs one has, it stinks that it can actually be cheaper to skip the protection and let the surge destroy the equipment so it is covered, though the inconvenience factor then sucks more. So we're roped in to buy expensive UPS/surge equipment that insurance won't cover to protect equipment that insurance will cover.

Oh, and don't let Westom see this thread He'll go on and on how your surge protection failed and they're a marketing scam to steal your money and you should "get a whole house protector instead with a 10' or less earth ground."

Sounds scary for sure. We live on top of a hill in the country, and have had some pretty spectacular storms, but in 7 years have had no direct hits, thank heaven, and no failures (that I know of) owing to surges in the lines.

I put whole-house surge protectors at the pole, and then at each "substation" ie. pump house, garage, pool equipment room, and main house. These have LEDs on L1 and L2 to tell when they've been destroyed. Then I have surge and/or UPS devices on each & every one of my electronic goodies, as well as telephone and ethernet wiring. I've probably spent a couple grand in these things, but along with saving my electronics and data they have given me too some peace-of-mind.

I do expect the whole-house units to die first in a direct hit. I think LEDs are a must--though they won't tell you if a MOV is weak, they will at least tell you when they are dead & need to be replaced.

The only downside that I have found in having these many dozens of protectors everywhere is that my X10 controls don't work very well, and a powerline power monitor I bought only works in the pumphouse which is only 25 feet from the pole--all my various surge protectors think RF on the line is noise, and try to shunt it to ground.

But... +1000 for having surge protection and battery-backup units.

Did your refrigerator survive? Your A/C unit? Microwave?

Good question considering they are probably not on UPSes and therefore we need something to compare by... If nothing else got fried, if the UPSes weren't there on the A/V equipment, it's unlikely any of it would have had any problems either.

Most quality surge protectors will guarantee up to $25,000 in coverage if any electronics you have connected to it are damaged due to power surges. Your homeowner's insurance should cover anything else that gets damaged. Check the fine print that comes with the surge protector for details on the coverage. If your surge protector does not come with any such guarantee then you should seriously look for another brand.

You might also want to consult with your utility power company. Many of them offer surge protection devices that are installed at the input to your home for a small monthly rental fee. I'm with Baltimore Gas & Electric and I believe they charge something like $7.99 per month for the device. I'm pretty sure they cover any damages that result from power surges if the device is installed. Considering that many households have a multitude of electronic devices nowadays it's really not such a bad deal if you add up the cost of individual surge protectors for every electronic device you own.

Problem with this (I found out by reading the fine print), is that you have to register your product within so many (90?) days of purchasing it for that guarantee to be valid. Nobody ever tells you that. Pretty stupid if you ask me.

Mike

People maybe quite surprised how much power a UPS will use. I had a 1500 watt APC feeding my TV an assoicated gear. It kept the Tivo from rebooting during a power drop. I have DLP and was interested in the benefits of always getting the lamp properly cooled down before power out. I have been on a quest to reduce enegery use throughout my home. I have committed to reducing my kilo watt hour usage each year by 10% year after year.

I had long ago gone to compact flourescent lighting and made a number of changes to improve the weatherization of my home. I am in the third year of this committement to reduce energy usage. Now I have one of the biggest laundry lists of computer and AV gear, probably even compared to the majoirty here.

Anway, I decide to finally look at the vampire or parasitic type losses. The first thing I found was my UPS behind the TV was using 39 watts. Sorry guys that has to go. As a result of changes I made in weatherization and changes in equipment as well as chasing down pretty dramatic waste like the UPS I will easily exceed a 20 percent reduction in kwh in calendar 2010 over 2009. I have identified changes I can make next year to reduce by 10% again in 2011. After that, it will get hard and expensive. I live in Houston so energy use especially in the summer is hard nut to crack in a 30 year old house. I can envision an average monthly usage of 400 kwh at the end of this quest. That would be 400 kwh per month average over a 12 month period. You can see how 40 watts consuming UPS are poison to that plan. 40 watt x 24 x 30. The UPS alone is almost 29 kwh a month! The TV is on most days for at least 8 hours, the Tivo is an always on device. I am watching the cable card tuners.. the Tivo may go before this process gets to goal.

How much have you invested in this? A better approach may have been to use that money to install solar power, instead. You wouldn't have to reduce your usage or improve efficiency and it would still make a greater impact than you ever could with what you're doing now.

I couldn't imagine reaching 400 kwh a month in my home without solar power. In Atlanta last year my lowest was 500 in the winter and I have a gas heater/stove/dryer/water heater. I peaked at about 1500 last July. 15 year old AC unit.

The 'whole house' protector is your only solution. That UPS has surge protection. Then view the number. Protector is as close to zero as possible and still claim surge protection. Anything that protects next to an appliance is already done inside the appliance. Installing near zero protection increases sales among the many that learn only from myths.

Also bogus is the warranty. In simplest terms, the greater that warranty, the worse that product. If warranties say anything about quality, then GM cars are obviously superior to every Honda and Toyota.

Protection is always about where energy dissipates. Always. Any recommendation that does not discuss where energy dissipates is wasted energy. Either energy dissipates harmlessly outside the building. Or that energy is inside hunting for earth destructively via appliances. UPS makes no difference.

Every appliance already has superior protection. Energy permitted inside the building can overwhelm that protection. Will it destroy everything? Of course not. Energy hunts and chooses the better path to earth.

To claim that UPS did protection means everything else in the house must be damaged. Or do you also have invisible UPSes? How much electronics is inside also makes no difference. Some of the most robust appliances are computers - required to withstand at least 2000 volts without damage.

Any protector that failed did no protection. How to sell the worst protectors for highest prices? Grossly undersize it. A surge too small to overwhelm protection in electronics can destroy a protector. Then the naive will recommend that ineffective protector rather than learn how protection works.

Earth a 'whole house' protector to remain functional even after a direct lightning strike. A direct strike to wires down the street are a direct lightning strike to all electronics. Lightning is typically 20,000 amps. So a minimally sized 'whole house' protector is 50,000 amps. More responsible companies such as General Electric, Square D, Keison, Intermatic, Siemens, and Leviton provide them. A Cutler-Hammer solution is sold in Lowes and Home Depot for less than $50.

Now, no protector is protection. Yes, these many concepts well understood 100 years ago are probably so new that you must reread this at least three times. No protector is protection - no matter how many lie about it. The NIST (US government research agency) says it best:
> A very important point to keep in mind is that your surge protector will work by diverting
> the surges to ground. The best surge protection in the world can be useless if
> grounding is not done properly.

That UPS has no earth ground. Its own numeric specs claim no protection from each type of surge. Two of many reasons why UPSes do virtually no surge protection. Legal is to lie in the sales brochure. And as demonstrated here, many will believe the lies rather than first learn what does protection.

Protection is always about where energy dissipates. That means a protector connects short (ie 'less than 10 feet') to earth ground - or does nothing. Sometimes the ineffective plug-in protector can even earth a surge destructively via some appliance elsewhere in the room. Yes, plug-in protectors sometimes make damage easier. Why? "The best protection in the world can be useless if grounding is not done properly."

Due to retail myths, most will never understand this if it is not repeated constantly. Protection is always about where energy dissipates. A protector is only as effective as its earth ground. You need a 'whole house' protector to even protect undersized power strip and UPS protectors. You had damage. That means you had no surge protection. That surge was inside hunting destructively. Protection is determined by the most critical component in every surge protection system: single point earth ground.

Protection is always about where energy is absorbed. Therefore every protection layer is defined by the only component always required in every layer - single point earth ground. A protector is only as effective as its earth ground.

YOUR fault! "100 lashes, well laid-on."

Good bye.

My surge protection would meet certain catastrophic failure if exposed to this UPS product.

Houston is hotter than Atlanta based on the time I spent there in the late 90s

1750 sq ft house- I installed a radiant barrier, extra insulation (myself). Did the windows with high quality energy efficient stuff. Replaced old ductwork. Added rdige vents last time the roof was done. The back of the house has new hardie siding, the other stuff was masonite and you literally could stick your finger throught it. When the siding was off, I replaced the insulation and used foam board with aluminized coating. Yeah I have spent a lot of money but most of it was normal maintenance for a house of this age. I replaced the AC condensing unit, last year with a SEER 14 but the evaporator coil is not high efficiency so the AC is only working as SEER 10 at best. I am 28 days into the July billing cycle based on the current run rate I will use 728 kwh this month.

It won't really be till the next month before I see what the most recent things have done. I am not using one but there is a very inexpensive device that can dramatically lower your ac costs. It is called a Cool N Save. Basically it is a spray mister for the AC condenser. I tried one for a summer a few years back it works very well even in the high humidty we see in the south. You do need either a water softener or water descaler to keep from liming up the coils on your condenser.

A hundred dollar device and it has a replaceable filter you will need to replace once or twice a cooling season. I will go back to that once I decide the best way to get the minerals out of my water at the lowest cost with the least maintenance. I don't want to mess with salt.

Anway I know this was way off topic.. but UPSes if they save your data bacon can be invaluable I just did not realize that in the last two years I have had one behind my TV set it was eating 40 watts an hour 24x7. I saw a post the other day where someone in the Los Angeles area was paying nearly 40 cents a KWH. That would have cost $260 in electricity in that market over two years. The thing is in the summer all the excess heat from wasted electricity is heating up the house. You pay twice because you have to use cooling BTUs to get that heat back out of the house.

You can only have so many UPSes protecting things and its not a feasible solution to protect appliances. Neither would a UPS be able to protect our $2500 investment of insteon switches and home automation devices all over the house.

I had our electrician wire in a Siemens whole house surge suppression unit directly at the electrical panel when we built our house. Cost was about $150

Using water to increase cooling efficiency has long been a solution in commercial air conditioning. Legionnaire's disease was traced to water cooled air conditioning in Philadelphia. The solution is that old.

Does the manufacturer (Cool N Save) provide numbers that benchmark their improved efficiencies? Have you compared this to another solution using an underground cooling grid - or is that practical in Houston?

What he is talking about is for the condensor not the evaporator. When the fan turns on outside it lifts a paddle that opens a valve and sprays the condensor coil. Yes it works. It's not voodoo.

Putting a sprinkler on your roof during the day helps also, if you live where I live.

And the same concept is also used in commercial air conditioners. Only posted is what I already said.

Subjective reasoning on how it works says little. What does the manufacturer claim - in numbers? How do those numbers compare to a system buried in earth?