woohoo for my UPS

[OS]

There was a brief power outage/power sag just now. Computer kept going w/o a problem. This thing was worth the 3 dollars or so that I paid for it

 

[Carbo]

A $3 UPS? Damn, you must've got the top of the line. Can't wait to hear you "woohoo" when that power surge hits that $3 gem you found.

 

[OS]

It's an APC 300 VA UPS. Are you saying APC makes crap equipment?

 

[Carbo]

No. I've got an APC, too. Where did you get it for $3?

 

[Freejack2]

He probably got one of the deals in the hot deals forum. I don't know about other ups's but on the APC line they work one of two ways. On the high end ones like the Back UPS Pro line they have voltage regulation. If it's too much voltage it clamps it down, if it's not enough voltage it adds power to the what the line is sending to bring it up.
Now on their lower end series like the non-pro Back UPS's when an under or over voltage occurs it just cuts the line power and runs on battery until the conition rectifies itself. Downside is in a brownout is it's running only on battery and is only as good as the rated runtime of your battery.
So basically his $3 ups kicked off the line voltage and ran the computer on battery.
At work all the workstations are on cheaper kickoff the line in under/over voltage, but the servers are on ups's with voltage regulation.
APC in my opinion makes good stuff.

 

[Mungla]

I've owned a 350vu Back-UPS Pro for several years. The thing keeps on going! Too bad it's only 350vu; I can only have my computer PSU plugged into it, if I plug ANYTHING else into it I get the overloaded signal.