UPS for home?


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Hello,

hi,

 

i work with APC UPS for years and must say they are great; reliable but not so cheap. The software (Powerchute, in the various versions it exists) could also be improved, but for most users it does his job very well.

 

The only downside from owning a UPS is the duration of the battery: the more it's used (power surges, instable line) the less it will last and the price of them is almost the same of a new UPS :/

Yeah, Im kinda on a budget so Id perfer to spend as less as possible.

I doubt this will be used often. My home doesnt have much power outages and the surge protector I have installed has served me well. The only reason Im getting this is for a ESXi box (which will serve as my gateway) I hope to get by the summer.

I gotta make that ESXi box thread soon :) Just want to research some more and get the UPS first before anything else.

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hi,

 

i work with APC UPS for years and must say they are great; reliable but not so cheap. The software (Powerchute, in the various versions it exists) could also be improved, but for most users it does his job very well.

 

The only downside from owning a UPS is the duration of the battery: the more it's used (power surges, instable line) the less it will last and the price of them is almost the same of a new UPS :/

That definately depends on the ups.  The cheaper ones, it is better to just replace it.  The low end - mid data rooms, you are better to replace the batteries...it works out cheaper.  A $200 battery is cheaper than replacing a $1500 unit.

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Hello,

I have a small ($80) APC battery backup powering a Synology NAS. So far the uptime on the NAS is 400-some days, and I'm quite happy with it.

? Um what?
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Yeah, i agree with you there. I got a APC Smart-UPS 2200 with "6" year old batteries. That's what they show in the monitoring software but they got here before me so i dunno how accurate it is :p.

 

Buying a new one runs in the $1000 range vs batteries being in the $70 for OEM and $35 for "for" batteries from reputable battery companies. Think it's 6 of them needed so pricing ranges from $420 down to ~$200 for just batteries. They've survived 1 full 30min power outage and they gracefully shut down the servers so guess they are still good for now at least.

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That definately depends on the ups.  The cheaper ones, it is better to just replace it.  The low end - mid data rooms, you are better to replace the batteries...it works out cheaper.  A $200 battery is cheaper than replacing a $1500 unit.

 

Of course, the bigger the UPS the more batteries it will need; i was talking about the small scale UPS OP will need. In fact replacing the UPS will give you a brand new UPS and warranty; replacing just the battery it will give you a very small warranty (a few months).

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Yeah, i agree with you there. I got a APC Smart-UPS 2200 with "6" year old batteries. That's what they show in the monitoring software but they got here before me so i dunno how accurate it is :p.

 

Buying a new one runs in the $1000 range vs batteries being in the $70 for OEM and $35 for "for" batteries from reputable battery companies. Think it's 6 of them needed so pricing ranges from $420 down to ~$200 for just batteries. They've survived 1 full 30min power outage and they gracefully shut down the servers so guess they are still good for now at least.

 

I have a client with a APC with factory batteries, with 8 years on them. It lasts till this day because the power line is very good so the UPS and the batteries hardly are stressed; on the other hand i just RMA a UPS (not just the batteries but the whole unit) from a client (still on warranty) because his power line is incredible instable: the UPS only lasted a year :/

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Ok.. Not sure on where you guys are looking for battery prices vs the ups, etc. Or what models you have. But so here is my current ups which is a few years old to be sure.. But batteries still test fine

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1TW0RT2156

CyberPower CP1350AVRLCD UPS Replacement Batteries - Pack of 2

$26 -- I could never buy a replacement ups unit for that price, not even close. The cheaper one only 650VA I got for my n40l was 55.. And yes my unit has 2 batteries.

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Ok.. Not sure on where you guys are looking for battery prices vs the ups, etc. Or what models you have. But so here is my current ups which is a few years old to be sure.. But batteries still test fine

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1TW0RT2156

CyberPower CP1350AVRLCD UPS Replacement Batteries - Pack of 2

$26 -- I could never buy a replacement ups unit for that price, not even close. The cheaper one only 650VA I got for my n40l was 55.. And yes my unit has 2 batteries.

$26!!! Lucky you. My UPS has 9*12v batteries, using a generic shop, http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/12v-sealed-lead-acid-battery-72ah-1-pack-mm26d

?38 per battery, ?38*9 = ?342....

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9 Batteries - for a HOME ups???

Subject of the thread "UPS for home?"

I can not picture a UPS with 9 Batteries used in a HOME setup.. Those batteries are 6" x 4" roughly when you convert the mm listed. That is freaking HUGE amount of space for ups I put under my desk to power my pc ;)

What is the VA and runtime on this unit with 9 batteries.. Is this for your WHOLE home? Not just a ups for your PC and or small electronics, etc.. This thread is about what UPS to power his computer/network equipment for less than an hour, etc. Not power his house for an hour ;)

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Haha yeah I guess it's not classed as a home UPS, but when I bought it, it ended up being cheaper than a home UPS.

It's 3KvA and ironically can only power a server and networking equipment for 110 minutes at 100% charge!

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What kind of server? And how much networking equipment and what sort.. That little green 5 port switch is going to require much less power than say a cisco 3750 with 24 ports ;)

No I would not class a 3KVA as a HOME, PC sort of ups ;) Out of pure curiosity how could you possibly have gotten such a thing cheaper than a normal say 500-1000VA home ups.. Picked it up off ebay, some auction, its just really really ###### device and was on sale for 100$?

So if you look on say the cyberpower ups site http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/products/ups-systems.html under home/small business the highest they have listed is 1500VA.

If you look for a 3KVA model they are 2U Rack mount -- not something you would put underdesk or even want in your home, unless its in your garage or basement computer room.. And they run like suggested retail of $1K -- no not something you would normally get on a home budget ;)

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Oh it's big it's about 8U and has 2 battery packs. The guy selling it on ebay obviously didn't have a clue how to sell on ebay, he was doing an auction of them as a quantity of 4, so I bid on one... He said he only had 2 sets of new batteries for them though and said the first two winners would receive them... So the final price (I was the first bidder on them) was something like ?5, and the guy got arsey saying he'd apparently sent the batteries to the other buyers (which was rubbish, he didn't), so I argued the toss with the guy and he eventually agreed to sell a set of batteries to me for ?60 or so, excluding shipping, so with shipping I think it was about ?80 or so for the whole UPS and batteries (The UPS was obviously a reject from GE Digital Energy as it has problems, I've worked out what the problems are but haven't fixed them as I swapped out the UPS for an APC line conditioner instead).

So that's the story of how I managed to pick up a very cheap (business I guess) class UPS cheaper than a home UPS :D.

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8U?? Yeah that is freaking HUGE!!!

Great story, not even sure I would of bid 5 quid on it - Really you wanted a 8U ups for your house?? Where do you keep it? 8U that like half the size of a smart car ;)

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Hello,

Thanks to all for keeping this thread alive :)

Recently, Ive been torn between "fun" and "safe"; This was the "safe" choice but today on of my RAID drives has crashed on me. So this might set back the UPS idea, I don't know (dec-jan-feb is usually horrible because of holidays, my birthday, then a love one's birthday all at once).

Im posting my next thread but if anyone has anything to add or such, please go on :)

Thanks to all.

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Well I have my scripts all setup.. Even setup email ;) And a restart of the daemon, or maybe full restart of host when I was testing my shutdown script, not exactly sure. But now the status shows the model number, etc..

post-14624-0-94501600-1390188130.png

And shows actual load as well. So get email being sent on both just a powerfailure and when the low battery and its shutsdown will get one as well.

post-14624-0-05182500-1390188242.png

I still have to actually do the test of pulling the plug ;) I have the low batter threshold set for 80% currently so shouldn't have to wait all that long.. But wife is on wifi, maybe I will pull the plug in the morning. Once fully tested will post up the scripts, etc. incase your interested in using or anyone else once you get yours.

Easy way to send the shutdown commands to esxi was using the plink tool from putty, yup it runs on linux.. Lows you to just put password in the command.. Prob tweak that to use public key - but this is still all POC and pilot ;)

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