UPS Ideas ?

[BFL13]

This could be for an RV where there have been posts about TV receivers etc getting knocked out by slow switching 120v power inputs. In this case it is in the stick house. I have jury-rigged something using RV equipment, but looking for a better answer.

The internet to the house has two things that need plugging into 120v, so when we have a power outage we lose the internet. This can be bad for working at home situations, eg. The laptops, etc, have their own batteries of course.

I have rigged up a 27DC battery with a 300w MSW inverter, and plugged the two things into that. I have a spare deck mount converter on the battery and the converter is powered by stick house 120v. So that all works for being a UPS. However, the converter fan comes on every so often and is annoying. The inverter's fan is quiet so no problem there. It all gets as much air as possible.

So what do people do who know more about all this tech stuff? Thanks for any ideas.

I did run a kill-a-watt on it all to see what the power needs are. (all figures rounded off and averaged where they bounce around some)

1. Phone company equipment (two plug-ins) in stick house receptacles- total- 15w, 28VA, PF 0.55

2. In inverter receptacles- 14w, 31-40VA, PF 0.3- 0.46 jumping around.

3. All running off inverter and from the converter's 120v input-
45w, 58VA, PF 0.76

So drawing about double what it takes straight (58 vs 28 VA), but not worried about that increase in the hydro bill 🙂 . It is more about the converter's fan noise.

[BFL13]

That set-up using a different battery could work for me. I see this gizmo, but it is not clear if its recharger could keep up with the draw of the phone company's equipment via its inverter so I could just leave it plugged in same as my jury rig.

I don't know if the modem would get knocked out in "one cycle" or not. It takes a minute or two to get the internet back once it has power. Leaving it on the inverter all the time avoids that.

https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/motomaster-eliminator-powerbox-600-0112002p.html

[Dutch_12078]

I have a couple of Tripp-Lite UPS's in our cottage to protect the more sensitive electronics and keep them alive through power outages until the backup generator kicks in if necessary. In our motorhome, I use an APC UPS that's had the original 12-volt gel cell removed and uses the coach 12-volt battery system instead. The UPS switches our satellite receiver, TV, Internet equipment, and my wife's medical equipment from shore power to the UPS within one cycle, so there's no service interruptions. I've also disabled the alarm on the UPS so it's not annoying us every time we pull the shore power plug before heading down the road.

[BFL13]

Looking at some UPS units. Not too clear how long the battery lasts, eg.

This one says it has a sealed lead acid battery and you can get replacement batteries for it

"APC 1000VA UPS Back UPS Pro mini tower backup power supply ..... Hot swappable batteries Ensures clean, uninterrupted power to protected equipment while batteries are being replaced"

"Hot swappable" means what exactly? Are there two in it so it keeps running while you swap out one at a time? Can you recharge the battery after the power comes back on?

I have seen those "power box" things that seem to do what I want that you can recharge, but I don't know about fan noise with them if any.

[fj12ryder]

Buy a commercially made UPS, no fan, no noise, no sweat.