UPS for projector

Hi Simook,

And welcome to the forum.

The fan in the projector is very important when the lamp is on. Proper cool-down cycles are also important on a long term basis, meaning that if you never run a cool-down it will shorten the life of the bulb and possibly the projector. But I don't believe there is any harm in forgoing the cool-down on an occasional basis, such as when the power goes out.

I would just put the projector on the same surge-protector as the Marantz and Apple-TV.

+1

There is a third option - do nothing.

The cost of doing nothing can easily be zero.

Flickering of lights does not have a lasting effect - it is usually due to line voltage sagging (IOW becoming less than normal) when some appliance with a motor starts up. The short-term drop might be 10 volts, which has negligible effect on the life of the projector.

As far as your power outages in the winter go, what are the odds that a power outage is going to occur while you are using the projector? That has a lot to do with how many hours per day you will actually have it turned on, which only you can even estimate at this time.

Then there is the matter of the consequences of dumping a projector. We all agree that it is not a good thing, but quantifying the actual damage is kinda hard to do. For example we have a number of projectors at church on roll-around AV carts. The probability that they get dumped is high. We've had them for years and one of them actually failed, but we aren't sure why.

I looked at the devices you mention and one has more capacity than the other, so your question seems weakly formed - you aren't asking about a comparison of apples to apples.

It looks like either would be capable of shepherding your projector through a cool-down cycle. But unlike computers, projectors don't have a formal interface with the UPS that automatically starts the shut down cycle when power is lost. Will you be able to actually do this 100% of the time, given that it would be a manual operation? Remember, you will have to do this in the dark! ;-)

Bottom line is that power isn't exactly reliable around here and I've taken the position that a UPS is not needed, even though I have some good candidates on hand - they just need a new battery. We've lost power about 20 times this summer, and I guess there might have been one forced shutdown of our RPTV more than a month back. So far, no adverse affects have been noticeable.

What for?

Power grid. I live in one of the oldest parts ot our suburb, and the infrastructure is getting tired. There is probably copper in series with my power plugs that was new in 1932.


I generally am very critical of the looks of audio gear, and take the view that equipment should be heard and not seen.

Why to protect against all those nasty surges lurking around just waiting to damage your expensive gear, of course.

How did we survive all those years before surge protective devices became common place?

The need for surge protection is highly over hyped. But if one feels the need, adequate protection is not expensive. The largest surge you are likely to experience if there is more than 30' of wire between the service entrance and your gear is about 90J. Buy something that will handle an order of magnitude more on each leg and you will have something that should last a long time.

Anecdotal evidence from this site seems to show that the most common surge damage is to HDMI ports of a TV connected to a cable box. My guess is that this is usually because the cable is not properly grounded where it enters the building.

There are some important things to keep in mind when using surge protective devices. The first is that all conductive paths to the equipment must be protected. The second is that if you are using MOV-based devices, if you use 3-mode devices (L-N, L-G, N-G), you can actually create problems you wouldn't otherwise have if you don't know what you are doing. IMHO the best approach is a whole-house approach. But that is not an option for all of us.
Edited by Colm - 8/24/12 at 2:35pm

This has been talked about countless times in the Projector forum, this is the audio theory/setup/chat forum .....do a search there.........