Automatic Voltage Regulation (AVR) vs. Power Conditioning???

[techfuzz]

I've been searching and I can't find a good comparison of the two "features". Does anyone have a good explanation of what each does?

techfuzz

 

[Navid]

Some of these phrases are made by marketing people!
Where have you seen power conditioning?

Automatic Voltage Regulation (AVR) refers to the function of keeping the voltage (reasonably) constant as the line voltage changes. A UPS can offer this capability.

Of course what you really get may be quite different than this description. Again, goes back to who put this phrase on the box and for what reason. For example, some UPS units that claim to offer AVR, in fact do not engage AVR unless the line voltage drops below 108V!

I would like to see a link to a product that has power conditioning advertised.

 

[Looney]

All AVR does it prevents the massive spikes and dips that can occur to the lines... say from turning on a printer (and the brownouts that can occur sometimes). But line condition cleans up your line. A good UPS (Smart UPS or better) offer line conditioning, and will in effect take the power form the lines, charge the battery, then use the battery to send out clean power to whatever you have plugged into it.

If you need line conditioning because you have sensitive equipment or trying to stop monitor shakes, AVR won't do a thing for you.

 

[techfuzz]

Navid, the APC website using both power conditioning and automatic voltage regulation.
I recently purchased a UPS from them that was advertised as having "power conditioning": http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BE725BB

So which is better? AVR or PC?

techfuzz

 

[Navid]

That's ironic! That is my UPS!

Anyway, if you click on "more details" on that page under "General Features", you can see their definition of "Power Conditioning".

Power conditioning: Protects connected loads from surges, spikes, lightning, and other power disturbances.


I don't think that is anything that you can afford not to have on a UPS. But, I don't see how anyone can sell a UPS without that!
You are not supposed to plug a UPS into a surge protector. So, the UPS itself must offer that capability.

I would not get a UPS that does not offer protection against surges, even if it offers AVR.

 

[techfuzz]

So my take on all this is that "Power Conditioning" is essentially a fancy term for surge protector. AVR must be the input conditioning that corrects the current so that it always maintains an even flow even if it drops from say 120 down to 108 or lower.

techfuzz

 

[Topweasel]

Originally posted by: techfuzz
So my take on all this is that "Power Conditioning" is essentially a fancy term for surge protector. AVR must be the input conditioning that corrects the current so that it always maintains an even flow even if it drops from say 120 down to 108 or lower.

techfuzz

Depends, almost every UPS with have built in surge features but while getting power it may dip below a reasonable level (brown outs) some UPS's only deal with loss of power and not brown outs this is where AVR comes in. Most line conditioning is a noise cleaner. Almost any signal has very small spikes and dips, this is supposed to put wear on any device hooked up to it. Conditioning tries to clear that up. The definition APC gives makes seem like a fancy Surge protector, this may or may not be the case for them and wouldn't recommend purchasing it for that sole reason. APC is a good brand and i suggest getting it but without further information i couldn't tell you whether your getting true line conditioning at all.

 

[techfuzz]

Originally posted by: Weaselboy

Originally posted by: techfuzz
So my take on all this is that "Power Conditioning" is essentially a fancy term for surge protector. AVR must be the input conditioning that corrects the current so that it always maintains an even flow even if it drops from say 120 down to 108 or lower.

techfuzz

Depends, almost every UPS with have built in surge features but while getting power it may dip below a reasonable level (brown outs) some UPS's only deal with loss of power and not brown outs this is where AVR comes in. Most line conditioning is a noise cleaner. Almost any signal has very small spikes and dips, this is supposed to put wear on any device hooked up to it. Conditioning tries to clear that up. The definition APC gives makes seem like a fancy Surge protector, this may or may not be the case for them and wouldn't recommend purchasing it for that sole reason. APC is a good brand and i suggest getting it but without further information i couldn't tell you whether your getting true line conditioning at all.

I bought it because I need a UPS, not for any of the fancy wording in the description. The price was right too

techfuzz

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: techfuzz
So my take on all this is that "Power Conditioning" is essentially a fancy term for surge protector. AVR must be the input conditioning that corrects the current so that it always maintains an even flow even if it drops from say 120 down to 108 or lower.

techfuzz

An ideal AVR is the act of correcting the output voltage of the UPS to keep it at 120V regardless of how high or low the input voltage of the UPS goes.
There are times, when the line voltage is still there but it is less than 120V. That is called a "brown out". In that case, AVR would provide a 120V voltage to the PC.

So, in short, it is the correcting of voltage.

 

[jclose]

I think that it totally depends on how the marketing types are applying the word. It may mean something totally different to the engineer that designed the UPS. I would send your question to the technical support for the unit (or just a general question to all of the various UPS manufacturers: APC, Belkin, Tripp-Lite, etc.

As for my perceptions, it would depend on how it is implemented. Taking Automatic voltage regulation at its face value would imply that the voltage is maintained at a certain level when the input voltage doesn't meet the specification. But what the range of that specification before it maintains that voltage is open to question. Does it start regulating at 108V as mentioned here? Or less? Or more?

Power conditioning, in my understanding, is probably a step up from AVR. It constantly regulates and cleans power (removes very small spikes, line noise, harmonics, etc). You can buy power conditioners that have absolutely no ability to supply battery backup capability, they just clean the power. But often what many products do is what Looney said: incoming power charges the battery and then the battery ALWAYS supplies power to the computer. This completely isolates the line voltage from the components hooked up to the PSU.

Interstingly (well, I think it is interesting) this is what the definition of UN-interruptible power supply used to be: the power was regulated constantly, hence UN-interruptible. But anymore the UPS has also come to encompass power supplies that only come on when the power goes out: i.e. they are interrupted *UNLESS* the power goes out.

Here is a link about power conditioning: http://www.dansdata.com/sbs9.htm
(I just did a quick Google search; do one of your own for "power condintioner" or whatever else to find MANY more sources.)

Another term you might see is Line Interactive UPS: this just might be another term for AVR or power conditioning depending on the company or marketing department. This tends to be a step up from a basic battery backup device which only comes on if the power goes out totally. Line interactive "interacts" with the line voltage. Imagine that!

 

[Burpo]

It's all just noise filtering and in the better units, sine wave tracking. Power Conditioning (the term as I know it) involves the process of converting the AC from outside into DC, then back to AC again as a perfect, noise-free, stable voltage sine wave. You end up with a perfect 120v output, regardless of what’s happening from the outside, and regardless of the load.

You'll pay some big bucks for that, or make them yourself like we did at Coca Cola.. We had a power conditioning room..