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Semi OT: Cheap UPS for crunchers? *UPDATED*

S

Slaughter

Senior member
Its getting hot, and the power is browning out. 4 times today I have had all my rigs reboot. Anyone know of some cheap UPS's that will keep my rigs up during such a pain in the butt phenomenon? 😀


EDIT: Was at Microcenter today. They have some APC 350VAC models for $32 bucks a piece. I bought 4. 😀
 
Can't beat a free UPS (a friend gave me his old APC Back-UPS 650 when he upgraded to a Back-UPS Pro 1100), but since that probably won't work in your situation, try some UPSes at Newegg. APC is good (IME) but rather expensive. The Powercom models are cheap, but I don't know anything about quality or quantity of runtime that you'll get.
 
I'd be happy with something that would give me a minute under heavy load to get through flickers and a couple second brown out. Its the power flickering and the computers restarting 2-3 times in a few seconds that worries me.
 
Originally posted by: Slaughter
I'd be happy with something that would give me a minute under heavy load to get through flickers and a couple second brown out. Its the power flickering and the computers restarting 2-3 times in a few seconds that worries me.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure you'd do this anyway, but please wait for more advice before clicking "Add to cart," because some people here have lots of experience with this kind of stuff, and their advice would be helpful.

To make a better selection, we need to know what kind of equipment you're wanting to power. There's no way you'll be able to power a herd of 5 or 6 systems off of one of those cheap UPSes; just because a single UPS has enough battery capacity to keep your 6 crunchers (or however many you have) up for 1 minute, doesn't mean that it will be able to output enough power at any particular time for all of those machines (UPSes typically have a limit to the number of watts that they can sustain, and it's probably not enough for tons of computers, even if the battery capacity would support them).

Edit: BTW, what kind of budget do you have for this project? To some people, cheap equals less than US$10 (like most of us), or as much as US$1,000,000 (if you happen to be Bill Gates).
 
I'd like to get maybe 3 at less than $50 a pop. I'm reluctant to buy from an online retailer becuase of shipping costs for those things.
 
Originally posted by: Slaughter
I'd like to get maybe 3 at less than $50 a pop. I'm reluctant to buy from an online retailer becuase of shipping costs for those things.
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The three cheapest (in the US$30's) Powercom models listed at newegg have free shipping. Staples has an APC 350VA BE350U 6 Outlet UPS for US$39 (that's under Technology > Power Protection on their website), if you want to buy retail and want something of a little higher quality (the runtime is listed as 8.1 minutes on that, but that's at 100 watts; at 200 watts, you'll get not quite 2 minutes of runtime).
 
Originally posted by: jliechty
Originally posted by: Slaughter
I'd like to get maybe 3 at less than $50 a pop. I'm reluctant to buy from an online retailer becuase of shipping costs for those things.
Click to expand...
The three cheapest (in the US$30's) Powercom models listed at newegg have free shipping. Staples has an APC 350VA BE350U 6 Outlet UPS for US$39 (that's under Technology > Power Protection on their website), if you want to buy retail and want something of a little higher quality (the runtime is listed as 8.1 minutes on that, but that's at 100 watts; at 200 watts, you'll get not quite 2 minutes of runtime).
Click to expand...

I've seen this APC Unit in action, it can do the job. I've also seen it On Sale at Office Max and Microcenter around $20-25.


 
Not as good as $25.00 or less, but I sent Slaughter a mailed OD coupon for $20.00 that I received. He could get 3 of them from OD for around $33.xx each + tax. Also, CC has an Energizer 400VA for $19.99 after MIR's (multiple).

🙂
 
The $60 Belkin in the burgany box (500va 300W (small office version?)) has served me well as long as I only plug the computer box in the UPS side (the monitor plugs into the wall, not the surge side)...a couple of 2-plug 4-year old APCs ($80-90 at the time) still do fine (again with just the box plugged in)...down here we have Best Buy and the low-end version of the brand they carry (sorry do not remember the name off-hand) didn't seem to want to work even with running just the box...

having said all that, haven't priced them lately but I would say the 500va/300w is the minimum (think the Best Buy plugs were just a step below that)...and yes, it's very worth the 60 bucks not having to worry about temporary outtages...
 
if you need power for many boxen (like 5 or more) , you might want to consider just one big one (or 2 big ones or something like that)

 
I bought 5 of the $19 Belkin one's from Home Depot. There is software for them as well. It will keep all my PC's up for 15min. I do not plug my printers or anything else just the PC's and one of my LCD's. And I can remote desktop into the other one's if need be.
 
One big UPS wouldn't cut it in my situation. Rigs are in different rooms of the house to keep me from roasting like a turkey, and to keep me from tripping breakers. Right now I have 5 rigs running, and 3 more I need to complete and get crunching. 2 of which would be duallys( Anyone got any matched P2 450's? 😀 ). Now I'm think I need 4-5, maybe 6. :disgust: I might just 2 for the time being to keep my "work" rigs up without having them take a dive. I'd really hate to lose some information. Both of my XP rigs have already run consistancy checks and have come up with errors becuase of these brownouts. Nothing serious yet, but I see it as a matter of time before I lose something I really don't want to lose. I'm still shopping, but the BackUPS from Office Depot seem to be a good deal. And those Home Depot Belkin's sound inticing, I'll have to run over and see if they still have some here in the Columbus area.
 
One thing you could do is get some kind of lead acid storage battery (car/lawn), connect a battery charger to the battery, and then connect a high wattage inverter to the batttery to run the computers off of. A 12 volt car battery should be easily be able to run 6 computers for quite some time. If your computers are in different rooms you would have to run extension cords from the inverter (through the floor) to the desired place in your house.
 
Originally posted by: titanmiller
One thing you could do is get some kind of lead acid storage battery (car/lawn), connect a battery charger to the battery, and then connect a high wattage inverter to the batttery to run the computers off of. A 12 volt car battery should be easily be able to run 6 computers for quite some time. If your computers are in different rooms you would have to run extension cords from the inverter (through the floor) to the desired place in your house.
Click to expand...
Like this? 😉
 
Originally posted by: jliechty
Originally posted by: titanmiller
One thing you could do is get some kind of lead acid storage battery (car/lawn), connect a battery charger to the battery, and then connect a high wattage inverter to the batttery to run the computers off of. A 12 volt car battery should be easily be able to run 6 computers for quite some time. If your computers are in different rooms you would have to run extension cords from the inverter (through the floor) to the desired place in your house.
Click to expand...
Like this? 😉
Click to expand...

JW could tell you about the system I put in place. I have an 1,100 Watt UPS system in the garage. I then ran a line up to the upstairs where the Computers are so the entire circuit that the Computers are on are on the UPS.

 
Originally posted by: jliechty
Originally posted by: titanmiller
One thing you could do is get some kind of lead acid storage battery (car/lawn), connect a battery charger to the battery, and then connect a high wattage inverter to the batttery to run the computers off of. A 12 volt car battery should be easily be able to run 6 computers for quite some time. If your computers are in different rooms you would have to run extension cords from the inverter (through the floor) to the desired place in your house.
Click to expand...
Like this? 😉
Click to expand...

Exactaly what I was thinking.
 
Eggs-actly what I did last Ice storm we had. 😎

Works great 😀
Hooked the truck battery to two power inverters and started the truck 😛

* Ran all Three rigs with monitors, printers, and still was able to watch TV and have lights.😀

Just aquired 2 'Jell Cell' batteries that are used for power back-up for Cellphone
towers. Hooked up a solar charger and one to my main panel (keeps the Jell Batteries chargered) = constant uninterupted power!

Two Jell cells, from full charge, ran the * above step-up for 3.6Hrs with out a recharge.

 
How far is new albany from Lexington, KY? I have two UPSes that are just sitting on my dining room table. Maybe we could meet somewhere and save some $$ on shipping.
 
It's not that far. Engineer can probably tell you almost exactly how long it would take. 🙂

New Albany is just on the Northeast outskirts of Columbus.

According to Yahoo Maps, ~210 miles, 3 hours 38 mins driving time. 🙂
 
Heck, what is that? I bet you cross 3 states in that amount of time!!!!
Hell, I drove 800 miles this weekend, and never went across the
TEXAS border! !

hahahaha,

🙂
😎
 
Its prolly too far for my gas guzzler. I would prolly spend more on gas than shipping. 😀

RaySun2Be is the one who might need some backup power, I hear from a friend that where he lives(Westerville, a stones throw) is mostly without power from some storms that rolled through. 😀
 
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Originally posted by: jliechty
Originally posted by: titanmiller One thing you could do is get some kind of lead acid storage battery (car/lawn), connect a battery charger to the battery, and then connect a high wattage inverter to the batttery to run the computers off of. A 12 volt car battery should be easily be able to run 6 computers for quite some time. If your computers are in different rooms you would have to run extension cords from the inverter (through the floor) to the desired place in your house.
Click to expand...
Like this? 😉
Click to expand...
JW could tell you about the system I put in place. I have an 1,100 Watt UPS system in the garage. I then ran a line up to the upstairs where the Computers are so the entire circuit that the Computers are on are on the UPS.
Click to expand...

You guys.....now I don't know wether or not to buy or build. 😕 Got any photos dm? 😀
 
Originally posted by: jliechty
Originally posted by: Slaughter
I'd like to get maybe 3 at less than $50 a pop. I'm reluctant to buy from an online retailer becuase of shipping costs for those things.
Click to expand...
The three cheapest (in the US$30's) Powercom models listed at newegg have free shipping. Staples has an APC 350VA BE350U 6 Outlet UPS for US$39 (that's under Technology > Power Protection on their website), if you want to buy retail and want something of a little higher quality (the runtime is listed as 8.1 minutes on that, but that's at 100 watts; at 200 watts, you'll get not quite 2 minutes of runtime).
Click to expand...

I have one of those on my system, and with a 17" monitor(big power eater), my 350W ps, msi kt4vl w/XP1700+, radeon 9700pro(power eater), a cd-rw a dvd-rom, 45W speakers, and lexmark z65 gets about 10 min. on it. with the monitor not on the ups I get about 20min. out of it.
 
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