Forum Discussion

travelingbard's avatar
travelingbard
Explorer
Apr 17, 2015

Battery backup (UPS) for computer while on house batteries?

Hey all! We're about to start doing some nice electrical upgrades so that we'll be able to run on house batteries a lot more (inverter, more batteries, etc)...

I'm going to start carrying at least one, if not two, computer towers (Mac Pro and a PC tower), and would like to have a typical UPS battery backup to keep them on if our surge protector has to kill power - obviously to be able to save files and do a proper shutdown on them.

Does anyone know if there's an issue to look out for when using one of these while on house battery power? Shore power obviously wouldn't be a problem (which is when the biggest risk of power getting cut would occur), but I would like to be able to keep them on the UPS even on battery power.

Any input would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!

Chris
Class A
  • CT_WANDERER's avatar
    CT_WANDERER
    Explorer
    Apr 18, 2015
    OP, when I first started RV'ing, I had a bunch of UPS. So I used then for small inverter loads. Worked good wired into the house batteries. However going down some of the road was a little hard on them. Hit a few bumps in the road that would drop out the UPS system that was feeding my computer based GPS system. The other problem I ran into with the new UPS I started using did not like it when the batteries were on a high charge.
  • travelingbard's avatar
    travelingbard
    Explorer
    Apr 17, 2015
    Double checking which model I'll need. Mainly it would be used to save projects before powering the systems down. This can take a few minutes because the project files can be rather large (audio/video stuff).
    But I think the UPS will pull what it needs to maintain its own battery (buffering itself for the computers), which could be quirky for the house batteries...
    I know you generally don't use one on a balanced power supply in the studio (only your audio gear would be on that), but not sure if it's for the same reasons.

    Thanks!
  • tahiti16's avatar
    tahiti16
    Explorer
    Apr 17, 2015
    Don't forget to compute the power the UPS will consume when calculating power usage. As long as the UPS is plugged in it will use power to monitor load and charge batteries so depending on the size and construction could be sizable.
  • MountainAir05's avatar
    MountainAir05
    Explorer II
    Apr 17, 2015
    Need to know if you mean that you are going to run them until you get power back or only long enough to shut down.
  • Oldme's avatar
    Oldme
    Explorer
    Apr 17, 2015
    How many AH will these computer battery backup pull from
    your system? They will help run down your house batteries
    while increasing the use of the inverter. Will that be good
    for toy needs?

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