Hi-

I need to get a UPS and am only familiar with APC units since that's what my company uses. There's one at Amazon here, but I don't really know what I'm looking for/at.

All suggestions welcome!

Thanks-

-Susan

I see Tripp Lite get top marks by techies that actually take them apart and look at what you get for each price point.

I'm not sure if they make UPS systems or just conditioner and surge protection but I'd give them a look see.

best regards,
mike

TRIPP-LITE makes units similar to the one in Susan's link. I am looking at one right now. We have both the APC and TRIPP-LITE models at work. I guess they are OK for what they do. For my personal use, I recently bought this one. I wanted a unit that does a little more line conditioning. I figure the unit costs less than $20 a year. That is pretty cheap insurance. Be aware though, anything larger than the models that look like a power strip with a battery will probably have a fan and make some noise.

Susan, the one you picke out looks fine. APC or Tripp-Lite are fine brands for UPS. Spec-wise, you may also want to know how long they can put out their rated VA rating... that's how long you have to either sail throught he power outage, and/or to gracefully shut down your machine.

Along the same OT, I also highly recommend the Tripp-Lite ISO-BAR power strips. They have very good line filtering, with separate filters on each pair of outlets (so they're actually filtered from each other, right in the same power strip).

Speaking of noise, you will want to keep any sensitive audio lines (and especially any equipment that uses audio transformers) away from one of these puppies... UPS's put out a lot of EMI.

ORIGINAL: Susan G

Hi-

I need to get a UPS and am only familiar with APC units since that's what my company uses. There's one at Amazon here, but I don't really know what I'm looking for/at.

All suggestions welcome!

Thanks-

-Susan

Be aware of two things. UPSs use electricity all the time no matter if your gear is on or not. So look for your bill to go up. Also, they don't last forever and when they fail you could have a crash or even a fire. If you are going to own one of those things you need to keep it up, replace the batteries on schedule, and replace the unit before it fails.

The only computer crash I've ever had was when my UPS shut everything down. I guess it decided I had too much stuff plugged into it or one of them was drawing too many amps at the time. That was the first straw and made me very angry since the only reason I bought the thing was to prevent that exact event and it caused it !! If the computer had been plugged into the wall it would have never happened. The last straw was when the buzzer went off (and I'm so glad it did) in the middle of the night. Lucky it woke me up because I went in there to find the unit was hot as a frying pan and the carpet it was on was almost melted. I was able to get it shut off and risking my life opened it, put on some electricians gloves, and used needle nose pliers to get the wires off the battery. The case of the lead acid battery swelled up and was about to rupture. If the buzzer had failed or failed to wake me up my house could have burned down and maybe killed me and my family. I'm just saying...

Geez, Frank... that's scary. Glad to know you and yours made it through that ok.

My current UPC came from APC's online outlet store (it's a refurb - with warranty), and is doing fine. I paid about 60% off list.

I've got the same APC.. no problems yet.. I got a really good deal on mine though, I got it for under 100.00 (I know someone that works for Best buy).. ;)
I agree with Frank.. Definitely disconnect this when not in use as your bill will rise!!!

ORIGINAL: JJones74

I've got the same APC.. no problems yet.. I got a really good deal on mine though, I got it for under 100.00 (I know someone that works for Best buy).. ;)
I agree with Frank.. Definitely disconnect this when not in use as your bill will rise!!!

Yeah.. it would be nice for those who really need one if it had a shut down mode where it would not try to charge or anything. A ture "off" position. I don't of any that have that. In fact I'd like to have a real power switch or relay that cuts the line. The way I would design it is that switch would be the "test" swtich in the "online" mode so you could confirm the switchover to battery would go without a glitch. And if you had the unit in "offline" mode it would just be a power switch for the entire unit so it wouldn't be using any power.

I usually purchase the APC refurbed units. Much cheaper than a new unit and usually cheaper than replacing a battery.

Jim

APC or tripp-lite is a good choice. i know people who swear by tripp-lite but i've had a ton of APCs and they all last several years on one battery. i have my entertainment system (it's decent sized but not audio-phile or anything) plugged into one and it does just fine during tennessee lightning storms.