What do you think of this Battery backup?

[Flintstone61]

ok,,,,,so I am worried about the wrong stuff......I'm completely unlernt on UPS's,,,,,,I used to stay away from that Aisle when I worked at MicroCenter.....I was gonna buy a Kill a watt device to see what im pulling.
but if your pulling 175 watts, i should be the same or less. I'd be extremely happy with 40-45 minutes. I'd have time to close down windows, if need be.....
might buy a kill a watt anyway....I see a $90 kill a watt power strip which looks interesting.

 

[Flintstone61]

speaking of backups, Hubble is back to Science operations, after getting the backup hardware online and up to snuff. Must have one helluva solar charging system. we need to find out if they're using DHCP or Static Ip...lol

 

[th182]

OK, then...anything can fail...YMMV...that's not been my experience and, in the meantime, I'm enjoying the $avings.

I'll assume you mean capacitors...
I can remember seeing one non-battery related UPS failure in 20+ years of battery swaps, and that was a consumer-grade cheapo.
I'm also familiar with an installation using industrial size 5KVA and 30KVA units that have been in place for 19 years and caps were proactively replaced once during a maintenance visit during that timespan.

Just checked, 2 of the 3 rackmounted ones I have in use 24/7 for almost 8 years except for battery replacement.

I bought three used CyberPower 1500 rack units and replaced the batteries. They worked great for over a year but three have since failed. First one didn’t like the monthly generator changeover/test. The other two just decided to kill power randomly.

I just bought two of the Costco cyberpower units. We will see how they go.

I have a bunch of APC 600va units off of Amazon and have only had one go bad over several years. Everywhere there is a computer, switch, or RPi I have a UPS.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[TonyR]

I bought three used CyberPower 1500 rack units and replaced the batteries. They worked great for over a year but three have since failed. First one didn’t like the monthly generator changeover/test. The other two just decided to kill power randomly.

Yeah, my Cyberpower mentioned in my earlier post didn't like my little Chinese 3KW propane generator; it would click, beep, click, beep 75% of the time when the generator was running. The APC I have now will click once when we're on generator if a 'fridge cycles on.

Voltage and sensitivity settings were the same.

 

[Teken]

@Teken

what are u powering with all the amps ?

why no emergency generator? ...

The home and infrastructure is powered by four independent power systems from NG generator, Solar PV, Solar Battery Bank, Primary UPS, and Secondary UPS’s.

Automatic Transfer Switches (ATS) are in place where needed to provide redundant dual power source for automatic fail over and backup on critical infrastructure systems.

Smart PDU’s are in place to help schedule, load shed, and manage power cycling and energy consumption.

The sample of photos you see here are just examples of hardware being staged and moved around for what I call the Big Push

There are four 42U racks being staged for the Big Push. I’ve been moving extended battery packs to different racks to balance run time vs (real world) needed runtime. At one point there were 10~20 extended packs wired to some UPS which obviously offered gobs of runtime. But made very little sense having 30 days of backup battery power just to sustain a 45 watt load?!?

Thus the big push to review all energy consumption (KWH), start up (In Rush), and spool up times to validate how long a piece of gear takes to come back on line and issues seen has taken more time than I care to admit!

Regardless, I use all three types of UPS topology from online (Double Conversion, Line Interactive, and Offline. 95% of those UPS’s are pure sine wave which incorporates PFC and all have some form of AVR system to control dirty power from entering my network.

Regardless of all the fancy bells & whistles the core electrical system is firmly in place. The home uses Ufer perimeter grounding at the foundation using 4 AWG copper wiring. The 120 / 240 single split phase electrical system is protected by SPD 1, 2, 3, 4.

The main 120-240 VAC service is protected by a primary SPD 1. The service panel uses a secondary 120-240 VAC SPD 2. All point of use outlets use a SPD 3 whether they be outlets, strips, etc.

SPD 4 are wired inline to critical infrastructure like furnace, hot water tank, washer, etc.

120 VAC isolation transformers are used on demand when needed. All of network hardware and computer systems wired to one another via optical fibre where possible. The home has four independent and isolated networks two of which run sandboxed and completely separate from anything else.

This provides me a 2N + 1 level of parallel redundancy if needed and required. For those unfamiliar with the term N, N+1, 2N, 2N + 1, please take a few moments to Google.

So what does all this fancy stuff offer me?!? 24.7.365 reliable power to chat on IPCAM and 4K pOrn (kidding)!

Here is a small rack getting ready for the last 9 miles (50K feet) of wiring.

 

[Teken]

Super old photo of one of the racks getting staged, tested, and validated for deployment. I must have moved hardware twenty times to find that perfect balance of redundancy and power consumption.

This rack is the mirror of the other that runs in parallel using the same hardware. The other racks are not only mirrored but physically separated from one another so that is why everything is powered and managed separately by power & control.

The network incorporates 1 - 2.5 / 10 / 40GB switches, routers, and NIC cards. POE Switches span 150, 250, 500, 750 watts in 24 / 48 port versions all interconnected via SFP / SFP+ optical fibre.

23 AWG solid copper CAT6, CAT7, CAT8 shielded cable in 80% of the network is used and stranded where needed / required.

 

[Teken]

ok,,,,,so I am worried about the wrong stuff......I'm completely unlernt on UPS's,,,,,,I used to stay away from that Aisle when I worked at MicroCenter.....I was gonna buy a Kill a watt device to see what im pulling.
but if your pulling 175 watts, i should be the same or less. I'd be extremely happy with 40-45 minutes. I'd have time to close down windows, if need be.....
might buy a kill a watt anyway....I see a $90 kill a watt power strip which looks interesting.

I would encourage you to follow through on power monitoring. That’s the only way you’ll know for certain what the load will be and the needed runtime to budget for. From personal experience I focused on the inrush start up current and power draw.

Doing so provided me a critical view as to what needed to be load shedded vs timed to come on in a orderly fashion. Like you monitoring to see how X vs Y came back up or didn’t while a electrical condition existed is what guided me to use one solution vs another vs a combination of all / some.

Depending upon brand and model switches they take a long time to spool up and suck lots of power during the POST stage. Thus, the importance to understand how this impacts the connectivity to other network devices.

Some devices just need to call home to operate vs others don’t which can impact a piece of gear from operating correctly when a sudden power loss. The vast majority of dumb appliances don’t care if a internet connection is present. While other so called smart appliances do and cause nothing but headaches to a user when something just doesn’t run after a power blip!

 

[Teken]

Someone messaged me to ask if I could share with the group as to some of the SPD's (Surge Protective Devices) in use or staged to be installed. This SPD 1 from Leviton is the one of the gold standards in Industry which incorporates a surge counter.

These are the huge SPD's inside the unit.

To provide scale as to how very big each SPD is in size here is my old Sycom 120 - 240 secondary SPD 2 at the service panel.

Another photo of a rack where the patch panels were getting ready for the Big Pull / Big Push

Two of six APC smart PDU's getting installed to manage the loads.

 

[c hris527]

OK, then...anything can fail...YMMV...that's not been my experience and, in the meantime, I'm enjoying the $avings.

I'll assume you mean capacitors...
I can remember seeing one non-battery related UPS failure in 20+ years of battery swaps, and that was a consumer-grade cheapo.
I'm also familiar with an installation using industrial size 5KVA and 30KVA units that have been in place for 19 years and caps were proactively replaced once during a maintenance visit during that timespan.

Just checked, 2 of the 3 rackmounted ones I have in use 24/7 for almost 8 years except for battery replacement.

,

I bought three used CyberPower 1500 rack units and replaced the batteries. They worked great for over a year but three have since failed. First one didn’t like the monthly generator changeover/test. The other two just decided to kill power randomly.

I just bought two of the Costco cyberpower units. We will see how they go.

I have a bunch of APC 600va units off of Amazon and have only had one go bad over several years. Everywhere there is a computer, switch, or RPi I have a UPS.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I was going to reply to my earlier post about used( Battery Backup gear) but you made my point for me. I would guess that most used stuff is already darn close to being out of tolerance or will be in short time. That being said, I have no issues about buying used but just saying what the other side of the coin is.

 

[Teken]

,


I was going to reply to my earlier post about used( Battery Backup gear) but you made my point for me. I would guess that most used stuff is already darn close to being out of tolerance or will be in short time. That being said, I have no issues about buying used but just saying what the other side of the coin is.

The used recycle market is huge which spans every known piece of hardware including UPS systems. It really comes down to the end user doing their due diligence to insure what they are buying makes sense and offers the features they need vs wants.

Researching for historic failures and recalls that affected many older generation UPS’s is very important if one is to see any value / reliability.

The vast majority of my UPS systems came via over stock, liquidation, government surplus. Others came from factory refurbished while some from eBay / online auction.

Other things to consider is generally speaking the newer hardware offers more efficient standby consumption. Others just offer more value for the money where the same came at a premium just 10 ~ 15 years ago.

The average consumer was hard pressed to buy a pure sine wave UPS that didn’t cost an arm & leg! Fast forward to 2021 there are no less than 15 options which cost less than $400.XX.

You couldn’t even buy the same in a rack style for $650.XX from any major vendor much less $400!

As noted early on don’t ever skip the battery change interval where you push the same into multi years!

Those who have ever handled any UPS battery will know how physically hard they are. So just think what it took for this to happen and what impact it had on the UPS frame!




Other things to consider is the huge cost for multi cell UPS’s. The future is lithium based cells vs what I and everyone uses today. Unfortunately every maker charges a crazy premium for the same and that’s why I built my very own!!

Lastly, regardless of the brand, make, model always have something monitoring the batteries independently of the UPS system. Doing so is the difference between a building still standing vs burnt rubble!

Fire suppression of some sort and the use of a (EPO) Emergency Power Off button at the entrance must be present to insure life and property is protected at all costs.

 

[TonyR]

..... regardless of the brand, make, model always have something monitoring the batteries independently of the UPS system. Doing so is the difference between a building still standing vs burnt rubble!

Fire suppression of some sort and the use of a (EPO) Emergency Power Off button at the entrance must be present to insure life and property is protected at all costs.

Amen to that!
A reminder ==>> Fire breaks out a EV Charging station

 

[Teken]

Amen to that!
A reminder ==>> Fire breaks out a EV Charging station

^ This!

If someone tells you not to worry about fire control with respect to lithium fires. Punch them in the face and walk away! Trying to put out any battery fire is extremely dangerous no matter the type of chemistry used.

This is why fire containment that uses every best industry method from double walled 5/8” X rated sheet rock / cement board is critical. This is coupled by installing Roxul fire batt insulation within the walls cavity that also use metal studs to slow down and contain the spread of fire.

Those who go the extra mile also incorporate a independent HVAC system that exhausts fumes from that zoned area which insures the entire family unit is well protected should a battery fire ensue!

Which at that point the halon fire suppression system should have detected and eliminated before there’s a run away and cascade failure.

Always plan to fail vs failing to plan.

 

[user8963]

@Teken

you can still use halon in canada ?

they are banned in europe since early 2000 and there are only a few exceptions

i never saw a pb battery on fire... in any datacenter the cable (connections) are the problem and cause of any fire on their battery systems

 

[th182]

The used recycle market is huge which spans every known piece of hardware including UPS systems. It really comes down to the end user doing their due diligence to insure what they are buying makes sense and offers the features they need vs wants.

Researching for historic failures and recalls that affected many older generation UPS’s is very important if one is to see any value / reliability.

The vast majority of my UPS systems came via over stock, liquidation, government surplus. Others came from factory refurbished while some from eBay / online auction.

Other things to consider is generally speaking the newer hardware offers more efficient standby consumption. Others just offer more value for the money where the same came at a premium just 10 ~ 15 years ago.

The average consumer was hard pressed to buy a pure sine wave UPS that didn’t cost an arm & leg! Fast forward to 2021 there are no less than 15 options which cost less than $400.XX.

You couldn’t even buy the same in a rack style for $650.XX from any major vendor much less $400!

As noted early on don’t ever skip the battery change interval where you push the same into multi years!

Those who have ever handled any UPS battery will know how physically hard they are. So just think what it took for this to happen and what impact it had on the UPS frame!

View attachment 95515


Other things to consider is the huge cost for multi cell UPS’s. The future is lithium based cells vs what I and everyone uses today. Unfortunately every maker charges a crazy premium for the same and that’s why I built my very own!!

Lastly, regardless of the brand, make, model always have something monitoring the batteries independently of the UPS system. Doing so is the difference between a building still standing vs burnt rubble!

Fire suppression of some sort and the use of a (EPO) Emergency Power Off button at the entrance must be present to insure life and property is protected at all costs.

Idk. The place I bought from seemed pretty legit. Found on Marketplace. Met the guy in his “shop” in the back of a tax office where no one spoke English. Had to drive through the shady part of town. When one of the units on the shelf didn’t turn on, he unplugged his computer and gave me that one. Cash only. I was surprised he gave a receipt.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Teken]

@Teken

you can still use halon in canada ?

they are banned in europe since early 2000 and there are only a few exceptions

i never saw a pb battery on fire... in any datacenter the cable (connections) are the problem and cause of any fire on their battery systems

No new systems allowed to be installed very much like you. But legacy systems can remain in place until replaced / used. Halon is very much like Freon where the R-12 refrigerant is extremely expensive to purchase / recharge.

ABC type chemicals isn’t a choice where electronics are in place. Especially when dealing with a high current devices like UPS battery packs.

No air - No fire . . .

 

[user8963]

No air - No fire . . .

No automatic fire suppression system - more money for stockholders

Poor OVH customers...

 

[IReallyLikePizza2]

Whats next, a picture of somebodies roof with a 12Kw solar array UPS?

Close, 17kw









I just got an SRT3000. Best UPS ever!

 

[Teken]

The SRT3000 is a excellent box that's why I have two of them! Then again it didn't offer enough run time so decided to add a extra battery pack, or two, or more. When I saw a full 1000 watts load was getting a solid eight hours. I said hey what does that look like if I keep adding batteries to achieve 24 hours, 48 hours, 15 days!

 

[IReallyLikePizza2]

The SRT3000 is a excellent box that's why I have two of them! Then again it didn't offer enough run time so decided to add a extra battery pack, or two, or more. When I saw a full 1000 watts load was getting a solid eight hours. I said hey what does that look like if I keep adding batteries to achieve 24 hours, 48 hours, 15 days!

You sure you're not cheating with no load there? It defaults to 24hrs with no load. You'd need a LOT of batteries to actually get 24hrs on 1kw of load

 

[Teken]

You sure you're not cheating with no load there? It defaults to 24hrs with no load. You'd need a LOT of batteries to actually get 24hrs on 1kw of load

Ten batteries on the little one (SRT1000) provides six hours based on a 900 watt load. The same based on a 200 watt load provides more than 29 hours. A SRT3000 tied to my first ten batteries offers 8 hours based on a 1000 watt load. That increases to 44 hours based on a 200 watt load. There are more than thirty of the SRT battery packs and twenty five of the SMX breaking 24 hours isn't hard for me given I don't ever have 1K worth of standby power being consumed.

My power consumption hovers around 45 ~ 160 watts so its not hard for me to achieve more than 48 hours of run time.

My comment was what did it take to achieve 24 hours - more batteries & money. Keep in mind no single rack ever see's more than 50 - 100 watts and all have ten battery packs tied. Some have more but the system doesn't see it and the run time can't be accurately calculated because the sensor max's out at ten packs. This is a really old photo but is hard to tell given its a front facing photo but there are six stack of ten. The ones in the foreground are the SMX extended batteries and the ones not in view are the SRT cells.