UPS recommendations

[RichardT]

I’m looking for a UPS for two use cases.

The first one is to keep a Mac Studio and other studio equipment going in case of power failures. So the ability to kick in quickly enough that the computer doesn’t go down, and to maintain a power draw of 400W at mains voltage for > 10 minutes.

The second is to power two indoor video cameras and a Wifi with a combined power draw of 30W at mains voltage for 24 hours.

These won’t be needed at the same time- the second use case is for when we go away.

Does anybody have any recommendations?

[porthoss78]

Hi Richard,

I'm going to to buy a UPS, or two, soon and have been searching for information too. From what I've read, including on SOS, APC have a good reputation and that paying extra for one with a pure sine wave is a good investment.

I'm sure there are plenty of people on here with much better knowledge/experience so hopefully they'll be able to give you some more suggestions (that I'll also be looking at! ).

Thanks
J

[merlyn]

... The first one is to keep a Mac Studio and other studio equipment going in case of power failures. So the ability to kick in quickly enough that the computer doesn’t go down, and to maintain a power draw of 400W at mains voltage for > 10 minutes. ...

That would be quite a beefy UPS. Usually a UPS isn't intended to be used for that long. When the mains cuts out, it starts beeping, which is your cue to power everything down safely, saving everything so you don't lose work.

400W at 240V, ~1.7A. On the battery side the voltage is 12V, so the current is ~33.3A. A 20Ah battery would do it, which is quite big as a lead-acid. Lithium ion could be the way to go, which could get expensive.

[Hugh Robjohns]

APC have a handy calculator on their website to work out which size of UPS you need to maintain a given load for a given duration.

I'm a happy APC customer. Have been for decades. I currently run a pair of Smart UPS 1500s which are Line Interactive models with true sinewave outputs.

Line Interactive means the battery inverter is always connected to the output, charging the battery when mains is available and instantly powering the output if the mains disappears. This arrangement provides automatic voltage regulation, additional mains supply filtering, and reduced switching transients compared to a standard Standby UPS... but it's not as expensive as an Online UPS which uses a double conversion setup such that the output is always derived directly from the battery.

My SmartUPS 1500 units will support a 400W load for around 33 minutes. The smallest load it can support is 100W which it can sustain for just under 3 hours.

I think you'll struggle to find an APC UPS that can maintain an output as low as 30W for as long as 24 hours. That requirement might be better served with a Leisure battery setup and inverter intended for a caravan or boat.

[resistorman]

APC is great. You might consider a small solar setup for the video cameras and wifi. Depending on the DC requirements of the camera and router (many are 12V) you may not need an inverter.

[sonics]

I don't trust APC any more. Quality is much worse than a decade ago. I see lots of failures. I've moved to CyberPower and Liebert.

[Hugh Robjohns]

One of mine is a decade old, the other four years old. The older one has had one replacement battery. They're both running 24/7 and have been rock solid.

I had a smaller Backups unit before the Smart which I gave to a friend and its still going strong (albeit with several batteries over the years).

So I've not seen any reliability concerns with APC, but recommended alternatives are always welcome.

[ajay_m]

You will want to factor in that the battery or batteries - usually sealed gel cell lead acid batteries in the smaller units - will need replacing every few years, probably around 4 years or so.

[merlyn]

... My SmartUPS 1500 units will support a 400W load for around 33 minutes. ...

For Richard's benefit you wouldn't really want to do that. If the battery capacity has been used up, then when the power comes back on you now don't have a UPS until the battery is recharged. I would think it's best to think on a UPS as a way to shut things down, rather than as a portable generator, no?

[Hugh Robjohns]

It's a good point, but I dont think I suggested a UPS could/should be used as a portable generator! I was simply quoting the projection from the APC website as a rough indication of required unit size relative to load and sustained duration.

I agree that it is very sensible to configure the UPS to shut things down well before the battery is completely depleted, and/or to ensure sufficient up-time for a safe manual shutdown of things that can't be automated.

Personally, I use my UPS systems to cover the brown-outs and short black-outs that are commonplace in my village in winter due to overhead supply cables. There is comfortable capacity to keep things running for outages up to ten minutes which covers 85% of power issues I've experienced. Most are restored after 2-5 minutes if not almost immediately.

After 10 minutes the UPS systems shut down the computer, NAS boxes etc, and then shut themselves down. The batteries are never allowed to become fully depleted, and the system has to be restarted manually once I'm confident power is reliable again.

[merlyn]

... Personally, I use my UPS systems to cover the brown-outs and short black-outs that are commonplace in my village in winter due to overhead supply cables. There is comfortable capacity to keep things running for outages up to ten minutes which covers 85% of power issues I've experienced. Most are restored after 2-5 minutes if not almost immediately. ...

Yes, totally agree. In my head this is what a UPS is for.

[RichardT]

... Personally, I use my UPS systems to cover the brown-outs and short black-outs that are commonplace in my village in winter due to overhead supply cables. There is comfortable capacity to keep things running for outages up to ten minutes which covers 85% of power issues I've experienced. Most are restored after 2-5 minutes if not almost immediately. ...

Yes, totally agree. In my head this is what a UPS is for.

Yes, that's what I'm after. Most power outages here are short (less than a minute) and I want to be able to survive them without having to shut down. Obviously for longer ones a controlled shutdown would be necessary.

[RichardT]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and comments, especially Hugh for his description of the different types of UPS.