This article was written by Don VanSyckel, the club president, as a part of "The President's Pen". This article appeared in the October 2023 WYSIWYG newsletter.
Uninterruptable Power Supplies (UPS)
by Don VanSyckel
It became apparent to me recently that some people do not know what a UPS is. UPS is the abbreviation for Uninterruptible Power Supply. The way to use a UPS is to unplug your PC or other electronics from the wall socket and plug it into the UPS and plug the UPS into the wall socket. When you turn on the UPS it passes power from the wall socket to the UPS socket and monitors the power input. If the power input stops the UPS immediately generates 100 volts AC and supplies it to the UPS socket to power your PC.
UPS's usually have electrical spike filters on the input power so if there is electrical "noise" on the input power the noise does not get to the output socket and your PC. This protect you PC from being damaged.
The amount of time that a UPS can supply power to your electronics depends on two things 1) how large the battery is and 2) how much power is drawn by the electronics you have plugged in. UPS packaging usually lists the amount of time the UPS will supply power for but you have to look for the power usage also on the package. For instance if the package states 20 minutes at 500 watts and your electronics draw 250 watts of power the UPS should last for 40 minutes. Of course as with all batteries the age of the battery and past usage effect the actual current performance.
After a while, in the two to five year range, the battery will stop performing and need to be replaced. I have UPS's ranging in size. The larger ones I have actually take two batteries connected in series for double the internal voltage. These I buy batteries for these UPS's. The smaller UPS's many time are on sale cheap enough that you simply replace the whole unit. You have to check replacement battery prices and/or wait for a sale and count on it being a good enough sale.
By using a UPS for your electronics you do two things
- Any work you have on your PC can be saved to disk
- You can shut down the PC normally and there by avoid no stress on it
I strongly recommend a UPS for any desktop PC. Laptops run on a battery automatically when they lose wall power so a UPS is not needed here. If you use an external monitor and/or USB disk drive with your laptop then you do need a UPS for those. I also use a UPS for my cable modem and VOP phone adapter. Then there's the one for the flat screen TV.
Note UPS's are different than backup generators. When using a backup generator, the power needs to be off for while, in the order of 20 to 30 seconds, before the generator comes on line. Part of this time is a delay so the generator isn't started for a minor power fluctuation and the remainder of the time is to get the generator engine started and up to speed.
I look at the cost of the UPS and replacement batteries as insurance to protect my electronics which saves me both money and time to purchase and configure new equipment.
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