UPS for PC and TV

[Phil2008]

Go for the cyberpower 1200va or 1500va, it will do everything I said in my last post. You will need some plug socket converters to change from the kettle lead plug to the uk 3pinned socket. You can get the ups from the bay or rainforest.

Im lucky as mine has the uk 3pinned sockets, but you cant get Belkin UPS's anymore.

 

[EsaT]

You can buy real expensive ones where the UPS is always on battery mode so the mains power doesn't get anywhere near your electrical stuff, so totally safe during storms Im guessing. The mains power just keeps the batteries charged I think? I havent seen any of these to buy, so Im guessing these and the more advanced ones are harder to come by.

Those expensive on-line UPSes are only ones fully 100% cleaning electricity from all voltage, freguency and waveform variations along with interference.
But that doesn't mean they could dissipate energy of lightning strike.
Lightning bolt strikes through hundreds of meters of air just like that, so if major part of its energy gets all the way to UPS something is going to "splode up".

That why they nowadays put overvoltage "short circuit" to ground protection devices to 20 kV power lines which directs majority of energy to ground instead of it keeping going on through power lines and ending up to people's houses.

 

[EsaT]

I did notice that black outs are not happening every time but random.

Unless lights of the room are actually dimming it can't be actual black out or "brown out".
Active-PFC power supplies (if fully functional) commonly work down 100V AC voltage and that would cause major dimming of lights.
(without that there's likely no voltage variation which would trigger UPS to switch to battery operation)

So it's most likely some transient or other interference.
But switching power supplies themselves would be major sources of interference which is why they have line filtering section as first parts.
Besides keeping down the amount of interference they can transmit to AC line that also filters incoming interference.
So maybe that TV's power supply might not be in good shape.
Some grounding problem might also increase vulnerability to interference.

UPSes typically have also some transient/interference filtering, obviously no doubt worser in cheapest UPSes.
(just like in PSUs)

Now can I get one that will fulfil my need for £100/£150?

With needed power output that's tougher for even basic UPSes.
At least frombigger brands.
Not much point in UPS if it can't actually handle real black out without overloading.
So 1000VA/~600W would be good minimum.

Output wave form of UPS is another thing.
Switching power supplies actually rectify AC to DC (+filter it with capacitors) and then use that as power source for actual low voltage making transformer.
So theoretically they really shouldn't care much if input is some square wave or sawtooth wave or what ever.
But they're likely still built on assumption that AC input is sinusoidal liking that best.
And Active-PFC is also made to keep current draw follow voltage smoothly instead of having short sudden current spike (drawn by capacitors) during AC voltage peak.
So for actual black out/notable voltage sagging situation sinewave UPSes don't cause issues with more sensitive devices.


Cyberpower has cheaper sinewave UPSes than APC or Eaton.
Not sure how they keep price that much lower.
Smaller battery capacity alone shouldn't explain that.

And even with (modified) square wave UPSes would looks cheaper models carefully.
Besides line filtering things like durability might be bad.
For example APC Back-UPS ES is basically designed to bake itself from alive and also uses cheap garbage capacitors.

 

[Phil2008]

Sinewave simulates main power, so I agree its not that great, but 99% of the time your using mains power anyway, so its not really a problem

I think my Ups costed a little over £100 and its never let me down. The reason I had it in the first place was because our mains trip switch was always tripping off because it was wearing out, but we didnt find that out untill about 1-2yrs later. So during this time our power went off a few times a day, but the UPS always kept my pc and stuff on and never once failed. Now its just real handy to have mainly for the odd power cut but also, just peace of mind during storms and stuff.. Plus now I have a 3d printer and they take hrs to print stuff out and if you have a power loss, the print is ruined.

About storms,, Nothing would protect your stuff if you get a overhead lightning bolt, but if the storm is a few miles away, a UPS will try to steady the voltage from being too high or low and hopefully stop surges depending if the surge protector is still good in the ups.