Question UPS

[pcslookout]

What kind of UPS would you recommend for a gateway/modem for my BGW 210 Fiber equipment and ONT (I think it is called all I know is it is a white little box on the wall that is plugged in too)

Is it even worth doing this?

Mainly want it so we still have hardware line for at least mobile devices when the power goes out. At least for 2 hours + even 2 hours exactly is fine. The more the better though but not really required.

 

[mindless1]

You could measure power consumption, or look at the wall warts' specs, or assume an amp per device would give some margin, and then get whatever suits your budget.

The most basic, offline, modified sine wave UPS is tolerable for the little brick wall wart SMPS PSU that power such devices.

Just about anything should give you a couple+ hours. What's the budget? If you want to spend a little more, some of the lower capacity UPS now use Li-Ion batteries instead of sealed lead acid, can handle more recharge cycles and deeper discharge without as much degradation, but if the outages only happen once every several weeks to few months, probably not worth the cost difference, as they tend to have not so easily sourced replacement batteries too (unless bought from the UPS manufacturer at a premium price), while a typical ~500VA UPS with a SLA battery, you can get those batteries anywhere for $20-25.

Some of them have the DC output already so you aren't suffering a double conversion loss. I don't know which of those are best but here's one with a good battery capacity to price ratio:

https://www.amazon.com/TalentCell-Uninterrupted-27000mAh-Wireless-Smartphone/dp/B07WLD32RP

 

[Fallen Kell]

Just do yourself a favor and get an APC Back-UPS Pro BR1500G or other similar (like Eaton) that has expansion battery support. It may be overkill right now, but it really all depends on the power draw of the devices you have connected. If you are pulling ~200W, you will need more than 1500VA to hold for 2 hours, which means you will need the external expansion battery.

 

[mindless1]

^ It's probably a lot closer to 20W than to 200W... or see this topic where someone measured 16W:

AT&T Modem BGW210-700 | AT&T Community Forums

Does the AT&T Modem BGW210-700 include a built-in battery back-up power supply / Uninterrupted Power Supply? If so, what are the specs for the battery back-up power supply? How long will the buil...

forums.att.com

However at the conclusion post in that topic, the math was a little too oversimplified, in that the lighter the load, the longer the realized battery capacity, though in that topic post, no mention was made about whether the equipment had much of a load on it or was just idling during power consumption readings.

 

[Red Squirrel]

A basic 1000va UPS should provide plenty of run time. They typically come with 2x 7.2ah batteries which will give you around 172 watt hours. If the network gear uses 50 watts (just a wild guess - you'll want to check) that would give you around 3 hours. 172wh / 50w = hours. You could always add more batteries too. These calculations are very rough and don't take everything into account such as efficiency loss or fact that you never run down a battery to zero, but it should give you a decent ballpark figure.

You don't need even close to 1000va as far as output goes but bigger UPSes typically have bigger batteries and having it means it will work for a PC as well if you repurpose it in the future.

If you want very long run time like 12+ hours then an inverter-charger with golf cart batteries is an option too but that starts to get more involved and expensive.