Have we talked about UPS things lately?

Just saw Ashyukun mention he hooked the 3d printer up to A UPS and it's holding up during a storm.

This is probably something I should do.

I haven't looked at them in years, what's new, what's changed? 

I'm looking hopefully under $100 to basically keep the modem and router running in case of power outage so we still have phones, but rather than play Amazon roulette, I'd rather ask for advice. 

I lost a ~28 hour print at about hour 22 due to a storm, so I had the same concern.
Dad's cousin had recently passed and we were cleaning his place out.  He had a passel of 'em, all with bad batteries.  I grabbed one for my printer and did this:

I wouldn't have a computer without one.  The power is frequently interrupted, if only momentarily.  More so in summer with thunderstorms.  Needless to say, I have quite a few.  I will generally buy APC, but I'm pretty flexible on brand.

The best one I ever owned was one a friend gave me in the late 90's, salvaged from a commercial job he was doing.  It was a Best Power Fortress, 1.7 kW.  That thing had two honkin' 12-volt SLA batteries in it, and it would run my system for well over an hour after the power went off.   Not a cheap proposition replacing those batteries, and of course the batteries will crap out after a while.  I find that the consumer-grade units have batteries that might last two years or so, and then you'll need to replace it. 

Pretty much anything you can buy will help you ride through momentary interruptions, but if you need it to run for a while after the power goes out, you'll want a big one.  I like Mr. Asa's solution above, but not everyone has a spare lead-acid battery lying around.  Of course, a lot of us do.

I have a cheap Amazon UPS on my network equipment (cable modem, router, mini server). It can only power everything for maybe 3 minutes, but that wasn't the point. It is just for power hiccups. Ever since I put it in my work flow has been uninterrupted by our usual power line antics. I have the same cheap UPS on my desktop PC, but I can power it down almost immediacy if the power truly goes out. But I highly recommened using one on the networking stuff. Stops a lot of annoying blips.

I have UPSes on...just about everything. 3 here, one for the router/modem, one for the server and a network switch, and one for my gaming PC and dedicated work PC (together they could probably overload it but they're basically never on at the same time). Two of them are APC Back-UPS Pro 1000S models and the one for the router/modem is a smaller APC unit. They're mainly for avoiding unplanned restarts around here since we have just a few power blips per year and some multi-second-long power blips that could be considered power outages. I think I mainly bought them out of habit from living in the Caribbean where power outages were common and often lengthy.

Another "UPSs on anything" person here.

Actually, I have one that's somewhere between 1100VA and 1500VA with iffy batteries and a spare set of batteries in the correct size but wrong configuration that you can have for free if you want to make the trek out to the WV Eastern Panhandle. I may even have a spare, lower capacity one (650VA, I think) that also needs a battery that I'd throw in if I can find it.

Supposedly the newer ones are a tad more efficient, which is why a lot of people suggest just to buy a new one rather than replacing the batteries. I usually end up going through at least one battery replacement cycle, though.

I had one recently go out, and looked at the actual specs on some of the UPSs and it was disappointing.

On a 1500VA, which is what most of the consumer stuff maxes out at, it might advertise 900W, but it'll only do that for 2 minutes.  To get an hour out of them, you need to put only like ~75 watts on it.  

I was warned against the car battery thing in the past, but I don't remember why.

I've got a hookup for SLA batteries. 

This is sounding more like I just need to dust off the generator if I want more than enough time to call in and report that the power is out. 

Recently picked up a UPS for my grandfathers lift chair. One of his friends lost power and was stuck reclined till the power came back on 8 hours later. Also a good reason to keep the phone close to the elderly that live at home alone. 

^that is something that never occurred to us before. 

scardeal said:

I was warned against the car battery thing in the past, but I don't remember why.

Hydrogen buildup and acid fumes in your house are not good things.

Honsch said:

scardeal said:

I was warned against the car battery thing in the past, but I don't remember why.

Hydrogen buildup and acid fumes in your house are not good things.

Probably not that, the proper UPS batteries are SLAs as well and have all the same issues. They're usually sealed, but car batteries can be sealed SLAs too. I remember there are some odd problems you can have hooking up UPSes to big SLAs like car batteries, but I don't remember what they are...it's a common mod that generally works well.

I have them on everything electronic/computer related. I would definitely have one for a 3D printer setup. I use APC, most all of them are 1500VA Pro models. 

We had our first non-battery failure of one last weekend, watching Aquaman. Just when they were going in for the kiss toward the end, boom, total darkness. The kids thought it was perfect timing. I just thought it was a power failure for a minute, until I realized the kitchen power was still on. The entertainment center UPS had an F07 fault (temperature) and it was scorching hot and bulging the sides. I had smelled something crispy earlier in the day, but couldn't find the culprit. It's at least 5 years old, original battery. I have a spare battery but the wife doesn't trust the unit anymore. So it's sitting in timeout until I decide what to do with it. I briefly plugged it in, and it seems fine.

What do you think, would you continue to use it? With a new battery?

llysgennad said:

I have them on everything electronic/computer related. I would definitely have one for a 3D printer setup. I use APC, most all of them are 1500VA Pro models. 

We had our first non-battery failure of one last weekend, watching Aquaman. Just when they were going in for the kiss toward the end, boom, total darkness. The kids thought it was perfect timing. I just thought it was a power failure for a minute, until I realized the kitchen power was still on. The entertainment center UPS had an F07 fault (temperature) and it was scorching hot and bulging the sides. I had smelled something crispy earlier in the day, but couldn't find the culprit. It's at least 5 years old, original battery. I have a spare battery but the wife doesn't trust the unit anymore. So it's sitting in timeout until I decide what to do with it. I briefly plugged it in, and it seems fine.

What do you think, would you continue to use it? With a new battery?

I would inspect it first for things like a failed fan, the temperature probes on these are usually not in the battery bay, they're usually on the power conversion electrical bits. I'd also test-run it with no battery and a power meter on the output before putting devices or fresh batteries back on it.

Welp we just had the power drop out for two minutes. My work computer stayed up and my network stayed online. No hiccup in my work flow.

Buying two of these was money well spent:

https://www.amazon.com/CyberPower-ST425-Standby-Outlets-Compact/dp/B07GZR981Y