Is there such thing as a power bar like this?

[Red Squirrel]

I was thinking of building this, then realized, it will still be expensive enough, and I'm sure I'm not the first one to think about this.

What I was thinking is a long strip, maybe about 3-5 feet long, with evenly spaced receptacle boxes, maybe grouped in 2 or 3. There would be two power cords for it, one would go in the surge portion of your UPS, the other would go in the battery portion. Both individual cords would remain seperate and each feed different plugs. I was thinking something like, break the tabs off all the plugs so all top plugs are batttery backed up, and the bottom ones arn't. This would be big and heavy and sit nicely on the ground as opposed to having like 5 small power bars that wont stay put and look disorganized. You'd also never have to worry again about whether you are plugging something into the battery backup or not.

This is kinda how it would look like:

Could even go a step further and add 4 power cords so the receptacles would be staggered on different circuits. Good for a server room, or simply if you have lot of equipment. I'd personally use 12/2 to safely support a 20 amp load. Would be easy to make, though when you start to put all the parts together it's not as cheap as it looks. Oh and for good measure the first outlet would be a GFCI outlet (not sure if they make split version of those... if not you'd need two). Never know if you may spill your drink on it or something.

Using 12/3 internally could work too but I would actually just use two 12/2 so the neutrals are kept separate.

 

[SparkyJJO]

No real sense to keep the neutrals separate as they would join up inside the UPS/house wiring anyway.

The main concern with that is, while it would work, is overloading the battery backup. Unless you have a really big beefy (and expensive) UPS, you won't come close to supporting 20A of power from it, and not for very long even if you did.

 

[Red Squirrel]

No real sense to keep the neutrals separate as they would join up inside the UPS/house wiring anyway.

The main concern with that is, while it would work, is overloading the battery backup. Unless you have a really big beefy (and expensive) UPS, you won't come close to supporting 20A of power from it, and not for very long even if you did.

Yeah you'd still have to watch out to not plug too many things in it, but if you do manage to get a UPS that can handle that much then at least the wiring is up to code to handle it. Most home UPSes that I've seen are 1000VA which is about 600 watts so that's like 5 amps.

 

[Zepper]

different color sockets for backed and just filtered. Still, as was said above, it's generally a bad idea to use power strips downstream from a UPS. How do you make sure that some idget [sic] doesn't plug a floor buffer or such into it?

.bh.

 

[Tristor]

I think what you're looking for is called a PDU or Power Distribution Unit. Most of them are single corded, but they do make dual corded PDUs that are meant to have secondary power (basically redundant UPS). They aren't cheap, and I still don't really see your need for this.

 

[Red Squirrel]

different color sockets for backed and just filtered. Still, as was said above, it's generally a bad idea to use power strips downstream from a UPS. How do you make sure that some idget [sic] doesn't plug a floor buffer or such into it?

.bh.

IDing the plugs is key to ensure something is not plugged unintentionally, and the idea behind this is exactly this: better organization then a bunch of power bars daisy chaining from everywhere. I accidentally plugged my shop vac into my server UPS the other day... had it been a better setup and the plugs properly identified it would not have been an issue. I suppose I could identify power bars but it would still not solve the clutter issue. A 1000VA UPS will actually run my shop vac quite well too, because the vacuum is too loud to hear the beeping. LOL (don't think it would run long if power went out though...)

I already have an idea how I'll build this PDU, just wondered if I can buy one for cheaper then what it cost to make. I'm thinking I could build a 10 duplex receptacle PDU rated at 20 amps for under 50 bucks. I'd have to check the prices of all the stuff and see if it's worth adding GFCI protection too, "just in case". The other benefit of this too is less exposed wire. I'm debating on if I want to add switches to shut off individual socket groups, might do that if I build a PDU for my work bench. Sometimes I'll plug something that I want to quickly turn on/off such as a solder iron or glue gun. Think I'll build the one for my work bench first then my workstation. For my servers I'm not sure yet, I might just make it built right into the cabinet system I plan to build (not sure yet what I'll do).

I need power tools for Christmas.