[time-nuts] UPS for my time rack

[Mark Spencer]

Yes this is a complex topic.   At one point in my career when I was responsible for the up time of several data centres for a high tech firm I had an Electrical Engineer on my team to (amongst other roles) work thru the various issues pertaining to UPS systems.   I recall there were significant differences between the various UPS designs.

Getting out of high tech and into an industry where data centres were out sourced was a nice change for me (:

To relate this to time nuts, those of us looking at making significant investments in this type of equipment would do well to seek out the advice of those who are knowledgable.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 10, 2015, at 7:51 AM, Bob Camp <kb8tq at n1k.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi
> 
> All of the UPS vendors these days make a wide range of products. They range from 
> low cost to mighty expensive. They also range a bit in terms of performance. Finding out
> exactly what this or that model *does* do can be a major pain. The marketing guys apparently
> don’t want you to figure out that the low cost gizmo does not have all the performance 
> of the one that costs 5 times as much. 
> 
> First thing to avoid - the pure square wave output versions. These may or may not
> generate RFI in this or that UHF band. They will take out big chunks of HF and mess up 10 MHz
> distribution. I suspect that the filters on some are better than the filters on others. The bigger issue
> is that they do not play nice with modern power factor corrected power supplies. These supplies 
> seem to expect a sine wave and a (possibly ringing) square wave may get them confused.
> 
> Next thing to avoid - The stepped square wave / modified square wave versions. Theses aren’t 
> quite as bad as the centuries old square wave units. It’s more likely you will find these than a 
> pure square. They still have the same issues on RFI. They may or may not antagonize a PFC 
> supply to the same extent. 
> 
> The target is a “pure sine wave” output. That keeps a PFC supply happy. As with any verbal spec, 
> “pure” likely has a few qualifiers on it. It’s not guaranteed to take out the RFI. It at least will reduce 
> the spikes on your 1 pps lines. If you look at the output on a ’scope the waveform at least *looks* like
> a sine wave. 
> 
> All of these gizmos run a switcher in the “few hundred KHz” range to generate the output. They run 
> a similar switcher to charge the battery. None of them are compatible with an indoor antenna in the same
> room trying to listen to MF. None of the ones I have tried are nasty enough to bother GPS, either indoor or
> outdoor. Put another way, I’ve had more trouble from LED lights than from sine wave UPS’s. 
> 
> Cyber Power (via Amazon) seems to make some pretty good stuff at a price point a bit below APC. As
> with everybody else, it’s a pain to figure out what’s what. Are you after a “big” rack mount unit (as in $500
> and up) or something smaller?
> 
> Bob 
> 
> 
>> On Oct 10, 2015, at 9:20 AM, Chris Waldrup <kd4pbj at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> 
>> I have decided I'd like to get a UPS to put on the rack containing my Thunderbolt, the laptop that runs Lady Heather, and frequency counter. 
>> Has anyone had bad experience noise wise with the APC brand units like are available on Amazon and at Staples? I'd like to get one that doesn't generate lots of RFI. Thank you. 
>> 
>> 
>> Chris
>> KD4PBJ
>> 
>> —
>> Sent from Mailbox
>> _______________________________________________
>> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts at febo.com
>> To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
>> and follow the instructions there.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts at febo.com
> To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
> and follow the instructions there.
>