Electronics backup

[Telly]

I too have an older, but slightly smaller version, the XS 1300. Have had it for years. No problems with it at all. Many many power outages, and has run on my Honda 2000 inverter generator quite a few times.

Looking at the front panel stepable display, I could see that after quite a few years the reserve was declining. I pulled out the battery pack to inspect, was two batteries in a plastic carrier, with a quick-connect wire harness, all held together with big adhesive labels on each side of the carrier. Bought on Amazon two loose batteries of the proper size and amp hours, dissected the factory battery assembly, re-used the wiring harness, and duct taped the carrier pieces back together. That was a few years ago. Still going strong.

 

[steelyman]

The UPS I mentioned a few posts ago in this thread finally got a real test yesterday. After a somewhat severe storm with high winds and fallen trees, power went out for an extended period.

The only devices connected to the unit were a cable modem, router, and an Ooma Telo. I wanted to know if connectivity would be maintained through an outage of the power company (Duke). Would Internet service (Spectrum) still provide a feed?

The answer: yes. The UPS provided about 4.5 hours of power and Internet connectivity was maintained. The power was out for over 10 hours total so it isn’t as good as a generator but good enough for emergency purposes.

I didn’t get any behavior like noises (except for the alarm on the UPS which could be muted) or smells/smoke reported by reviewers on Amazon.

 

[easysurfer]

Nice. Good to see when a UPS comes through as advertised.

4.5 hours is a good amount of time as I'd think power out over 10 hours isn't the norm. At least I hope not .

 

[OldShooter]

... The power going out was a good test. I was suprised that the Ooma box needed an unplug/replug. ...

A jillion years ago I was a computer designer. One thing I learned is that it is extremely difficult to design a reliable power fail/restart circuit. The fundamental problem is that your circuit must function correctly just as the power it needs to function at all is going away. About the only way to do it reliably is to include a small battery to handle the PF/R circuit.

The worst case is when the power sags to just below operating voltage and then comes back.

 

[steelyman]

Nice. Good to see when a UPS comes through as advertised.

4.5 hours is a good amount of time as I'd think power out over 10 hours isn't the norm. At least I hope not .

Yes, it did appear to do as I’d expected/hoped. I have a very low load on it (according to the front panel display it’s a whopping 15W). It’s even lower now because I realized the Ooma doesn’t need the backup.

I’m thinking of leaving things just as they are for the networking gear and having a smaller UPS for the computer with only enough capacity to allow a graceful shutdown. I only have good surge protection on that (an iMac + external drives), but I rarely use a desktop these days.

Thankfully, outages of that length aren’t common in this area. Knock on wood!

[ADDED] I’d also bought a nice Bosch job site radio w/battery backup just before Hurricane Matthew (I think) strolled in. That covered me for the duration after the APC UPS gave up.