Choosing the right UPS

Associate
Joined
16 Jun 2021
Posts
13
Location
Rowlands Gill
Hi all, with all the potential electric disturbances this coming winter I am going to buy a UPS to protect my PC. The PC and monitor uses about 230w alone plus I need to plug my speakers and scanner into the UPS, also the PSU in my PC is 550w but Im not sure that makes a difference anyway.

So what wattage UPS do I need? I was looking at the 400w one, Would that be enough?

Also any brand recommendations would be appreciated, I heard APC are good, someone else said they'd gone downhill in recent times though

Thanks
Mark
 
Last edited:
Hi, thanks for that extensive answer. Yes, the aim is just to shut down safely, not too bothered about extended running time, just protecting my PC from surges, black outs and brown outs.
The 400w UPS I was looking at has a VA of 650. Would that be too much for what I need? Would it put my equipment in danger? The model down from it is 240W and 400Va, maybe that's the way to go? Sorry if these questions seem really dumb, I have a poor understanding of electricity! :-S
 
Never size UPS tightly.

You can't be sure if transfer to battery operation would be succesfull when nearing specified max load.
There's time delay before UPS starts providing output voltage and during that time power supplies of PC and monitor are drawing power from their primary/bulk capacitor.
And once input voltage returns power supply likely draws higher surge to recharge that capacitance.
(from cold start that surge is decimal position higher than nominal current draw)

Also you can be sure that battery size is minimal and UPS likely won't take battery aging/wearing well possibly degrading actual available output power fast in few years.
Higher than mandatory size UPS has more battery capacity and aging/wear of it doesn't form problem risk as fast.


If you want to use normal main power plugs instead of getting IEC connector power cables there aren't that many possibilities.

Like some APCs, Cyberpower BRIC has UK sockets.
Unlike APCs Back-UPS, those are line-interactive.
AVR functionality does some voltage regulating, like correct smaller brownouts without need to transfer to battery.
Also they have faster transfer time to battery operation, because there's no mechanical switch between inverter and load.




For offline/standby and line-interactive consumer UPSes that doesn't really matter, because power draw on UPS control circuitry doesn't grow with its output
Definitely a bit of a minefield but that's helped a lot! Thank you :-)
 
Back
Top Bottom