Anyone know anything about Uninterrupted Power Supplies?

sabrewulf69

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My father brought me a beast of an old UPS from work that used to go to one of his stores cash registers.
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It's a large NCR (which stands for National Cash Registor) UPS rated for max output of 12a (no other info about output is listed anywhere on it).
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The batteries are bad as to be expected from a used 25 year old unit but they seem to be standard 12v 7Ah batteries and fairly cheap at around $20 each. So it would cost $80 to replace all 4. Would it be worth replacing them or just tossing it out?
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I can't find a number on it that brings up anything online, but it seems extremely well built, all the caps in it were Nippon Chemi-con's, so it seems at least some of the parts are top shelf. I don't have a UPS currently, so it would be really nice to have one for my workshop PC and 3d printers. I also love the vintage look lol.
 
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Good luck with a UPS. Our production at work was stopped by a power outage on Friday. The UPS glitched and did nothing for us. I hate when this stuff happens late on Friday, and I have to get everything running again before I can go home.
 
I have no idea how much the UPS has saved us in the past. That would be the beauty of that system. I do know that whenever we have an external power outage, we deal with odd failures for weeks.
 
I have no idea how much the UPS has saved us in the past. That would be the beauty of that system. I do know that whenever we have an external power outage, we deal with odd failures for weeks.
I've never messed with one myself and know next to nothing about them, I do however live in a heavily forested area and power flickers and outages are fairly common, so i had been considering one for my 3d printers for quite awhile but have been to cheap to invest in one.
 
That thing has massive energy storage capacity for large loads if it takes 4 x 7ah batteries. A typical computer UPS is 1 x 7ah or 1 x 8ah battery.

If you do end up buying replacement batteries, I highly recommend that you replace them with batteries from ExpertPower. A TON of the replacement UPS batteries out there are crap, and so for many years I wouldn't bother to replace the batteries when they died, I'd just buy a new UPS because it was almost the same cost.

Now that many of the APC UPSes are crap, I've kept some of my older ones and replace the batteries with ones from ExpertPower and I have the best of both worlds. But you're kind of gambling here that the electronics are still good before you invest $90 in new UPS batteries.

I had read nothing but good comments about the ExpertPower batteries and sure enough, they are really good, at least as good as OEM if not better, and they are 1/3 the price of OEM batteries.
 
That thing has massive energy storage capacity for large loads if it takes 4 x 7ah batteries. A typical computer UPS is 1 x 7ah or 1 x 8ah battery.

If you do end up buying replacement batteries, I highly recommend that you replace them with batteries from ExpertPower. A TON of the replacement UPS batteries out there are crap, and so for many years I wouldn't bother to replace the batteries when they died, I'd just buy a new UPS because it was almost the same cost.

Now that many of the APC UPSes are crap, I've kept some of my older ones and replace the batteries with ones from ExpertPower and I have the best of both worlds. But you're kind of gambling here that the electronics are still good before you invest $90 in new UPS batteries.

I had read nothing but good comments about the ExpertPower batteries and sure enough, they are really good, at least as good as OEM if not better, and they are 1/3 the price of OEM batteries.
Thanks for the info! I am on the fence about it, to be honest half of the reason I want to use it is because it's such a massive, clunky, vintage looking unit, but I had been putting off buying one for a few years now, but if I do go through with it and I'm lucky, I get decent $90 USP if not I get a $90 noisy power strip 😆.
 
Thanks for the info! I am on the fence about it, to be honest half of the reason I want to use it is because it's such a massive, clunky, vintage looking unit, but I had been putting off buying one for a few years now, but if I do go through with it and I'm lucky, I get decent $90 USP if not I get a $90 noisy power strip 😆.
Yeah, pretty much.

I can tell you that if you opt to not repair it, I'm not aware of any really good computer UPSes these days. APC used to be the go-to brand, but a handful of years ago they switched their designs and have had a TON of problems since then.

Cyberpower used to have pretty trashy products as well. I'd read tear-down reviews and the build quality of the Cyberpower units were usually pretty bad and the APC was considerably better. These days the APC products, even the higher end consumer products, have terrible reviews; go look on Amazon and you'll find report after report of large 1500VA units throwing error codes and dying and/or sparking/burning and dying. It's really sad; those $200-$250 units used to be rock solid.

I've gone from being a happy APC UPS fanboy who bought ~20 UPSes to being an unhappy ex-customer.
 
Yeah, pretty much.

I can tell you that if you opt to not repair it, I'm not aware of any really good computer UPSes these days. APC used to be the go-to brand, but a handful of years ago they switched their designs and have had a TON of problems since then.

Cyberpower used to have pretty trashy products as well. I'd read tear-down reviews and the build quality of the Cyberpower units were usually pretty bad and the APC was considerably better. These days the APC products, even the higher end consumer products, have terrible reviews; go look on Amazon and you'll find report after report of large 1500VA units throwing error codes and dying and/or sparking/burning and dying. It's really sad; those $200-$250 units used to be rock solid.

I've gone from being a happy APC UPS fanboy who bought ~20 UPSes to being an unhappy ex-customer.
Yeah wow, I just looked that's nuts hundreds of poor reliability reviews, 190 positive to 300 negative, yikes! I might just chance it with this one after all, at least from what I've seen from the internals it seems fairly serviceable.
 
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@demogo is right. APC was king. They had great stuff.

I do have cyberpower now and it hasnt failed me yet. Yea they have their own issues too for sure. I have two OR2200LCDRTXL2U backing up my server, NAS data vaults and my network stack. They work well, provided you keep on monitoring the batteries and changing them every 3 to 4 years.
 
I had the APC UPS's on PC's and equipment for many years, too. I can't say that they ever saved me from any data loss in the 15+ years that I used them.

You mention possibly using it in your workshop for PC's and 3D printers, is that because you are having trouble with circuit breakers tripping or something? If so, then a UPS won't fix that.
 
I had the APC UPS's on PC's and equipment for many years, too. I can't say that they ever saved me from any data loss in the 15+ years that I used them.

You mention possibly using it in your workshop for PC's and 3D printers, is that because you are having trouble with circuit breakers tripping or something? If so, then a UPS won't fix that.
No, I've never had any breaker problems, I live in the Appalachian mountains, power flickers and outages happen several times a year here. I've never lost any important information or anything before, it just more than a nuisance than anything. I've had at least 2 prints I've had to resume due to the power flickering but nothing major.
 
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No I live in the Appalachian mountains, power flickers and outages happen several times a year here. I've never lost any important information or anything before, it just more than a nuisance than anything. I've had at least 2 prints I've had to resume due to the power flickering but nothing major.

OK, that makes sense! You've have some rough weather there lately, from what I've seen. Hope all is well!
 
@demogo is right. APC was king. They had great stuff.

I do have cyberpower now and it hasnt failed me yet. Yea they have their own issues too for sure. I have two OR2200LCDRTXL2U backing up my server, NAS data vaults and my network stack. They work well, provided you keep on monitoring the batteries and changing them every 3 to 4 years.
I had a couple of Cyberpower UPSes a long time ago and had issues with them, and I had an issue with one of their surge protectors, so I just gave up on that brand entirely. That was long ago. Then I started reading the magazine tear downs of their products and they were pointing out the crappy components and the serious build issues that were hazards and it cemented that idea in my head. I haven't see any tear down reviews in YEARS; I wonder why?

I've also had a Belkin UPS (it was okay). I do have one APC UPS (900 VA unit) that I bought about a year ago that had decent reviews and I've just started using it, but I won't buy most of their lineup at this point.

The one that I want to try is Tripp Lite; they are my go-to brand for surge protectors, but I have 6 operating UPSes right now and just keep replacing the batteries. A new as good as OEM-battery is $25 from ExpertPower; I just don't see going in any other direction.
 
OK, that makes sense! You've have some rough weather there lately, from what I've seen. Hope all is well!
I'm good! I live on the side of a mountain thankfully 😆 but not just here recently, the weather last 4 years has been kind rough. In 22' we had a flood where the water level in the river rose about 15-17' feet above normal in the span of 1 - 2 hours and wiped out a large portion of my neighborhood. Luckily no one died but most people that got flooded lost everything and were forced to pack up and move away.
 
I had a couple of Cyberpower UPSes a long time ago and had issues with them, and I had an issue with one of their surge protectors, so I just gave up on that brand entirely. That was long ago. Then I started reading the magazine tear downs of their products and they were pointing out the crappy components and the serious build issues that were hazards and it cemented that idea in my head. I haven't see any tear down reviews in YEARS; I wonder why?

I've also had a Belkin UPS (it was okay). I do have one APC UPS (900 VA unit) that I bought about a year ago that had decent reviews and I've just started using it, but I won't buy most of their lineup at this point.

The one that I want to try is Tripp Lite; they are my go-to brand for surge protectors, but I have 6 operating UPSes right now and just keep replacing the batteries. A new as good as OEM-battery is $25 from ExpertPower; I just don't see going in any other direction.
Actually I do have a tripp lite. My first experience was so so. Its nice hardware and works nicely however it has had a malfunction since I got it. It never shows the power output and the remaining time on the display. It always shows it as zero despite the batteries kicking in and working
 
Sorry to hear about the loss of your neighborhood. I can't imagine... Glad to know that all is well where you are at right now.

The reason I asked is because somehow Tipper & Matt found their way into my YT feed, and now I follow them for all my Appalachia content.... :)

They just posted a few hours ago about a big storm that came through and the clean-up they are doing.





Sooo, back to....

Uninterrupted Power Supplies

 
Actually I do have a tripp lite. My first experience was so so. Its nice hardware and works nicely however it has had a malfunction since I got it. It never shows the power output and the remaining time on the display. It always shows it as zero despite the batteries kicking in and working
I take it that you're not bothered enough about the malfunction to send it back?
 
I take it that you're not bothered enough about the malfunction to send it back?
Funny enough...I didnt notice for over a year. I saw it was showing 0 for output but assumed it only would change when the batteries kicked in. After we got a power outage for more than 10 seconds over a year later, i decided to look at the display and saw it didnt change. Thats when i realized something was wrong with it. By that time, since it was still functioning properly as a UPS, I said hell with it and didnt bother seeking replacement.
 
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