UPSs

[Roger Oberholtzer]

On Tue, 2005-11-29 at 00:02 -0800, Ted Ozolins wrote:
> >:
> >
> >  
> >
> >>On Sunday 27 November 2005 04:52 pm, David Bandel wrote:
> >>    
> >>
> >>>Folks,
> >>>
> >>>Not sure if any of you have had this happy experience.  Power in 3rd
> >>>world countries (or at least Panama) is atrocious.
> >>>
> >>>Last nite at 0330 local, power went out (not an unusual occurrance
> >>>here).  When it came back on at 0430, I lost 2 UPSs (blown up), two
> >>>more had to be manually reset, lost a SCSI hard drive (wouldn't
> >>>respond to start command), and more.
> >>>
> >>>Apart from buying a large motor and generator and isolating from the
> >>>Electric disaster company down here via a steel shaft, anyone have
> >>>experience combatting this nonsense?  All my main sites were down this
> >>>a.m.  Lots of driving, reseting of gear, inventorying destroyed
> >>>equipment, etc.
> >>>
> >>>As you can see, our mail server survived, but not by much.
> >>>
> >>>Suggestions (apart from starting my own power company too)?

Are you using on-line UPS? That is, does the power come from the mains
when the mains have it, and then switch to batteries when there is loss?
These are not good. In your case, they would not offer the protection
you seem to need. They are popular because they are less expensive than
off-line UPS. We use equipment in moving vehicles (220V), where power is
never clean. We always use an off-line UPS. This means that the
equipment ALWAYS runs off the batteries in the UPS. It is never
connected to the original power source. This means that the equipment
always gets a nice clean sine wave, no matter what the mains is up to.

Odd but true, the best UPS we have found is made in Italy. Italy, you
say? Well, we were skeptical. We have used US, German and other UPS
sources over the years. Same have been better than others, but most have
really been crap when you want more than just a UPS. The Italian UPS is
by a company called Riello (http://www.riello-ups.com). If your UPS
supplier does not know about them, get a new supplier that actually
checks the market and does not just pass along the obvious choices.

-- 
Roger Oberholtzer
OPQ Systems AB