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Power Conditioning, UPS and Generator Backup

 

 

Electricity is the number 1 utility used in most residential and business environments. Unfortunately, the quality and stability of the power supplied from your local utility may fluctuate to the point of damaging or impeding the proper performance of sensitive equipment, electronics and controls.

As such, it's a good idea to provide power conditioning (to clean the incoming AC power) and surge protection (to protect your equipment from damaging voltage spikes) for all critical loads. For brownouts and outages, battery backup (ie, Uninteruptable Power Supplies) with voltage regulation and a small to mid-sized generator are recommended.

 

 

Critical Loads

Its important to determine which electrical devices are essential to the safety, security and comfort of running your home, business or workshop. This way you can effectively allocate UPS and generator resources to protecting and powering these loads during brownouts, short term or extended outages.

 

In my home and garage, I run multiple UPS and power conditioning units for........

  • Television and audio equipment

  • Computer equipment (excl laser printers)

  • Phone, cable and network hardware

  • Emergency lighting

  • Garage door openers

  • Heating controls and pumps

  • Security system control units

  • Smoke/Heat and CO sensors (hardwired units)

  • Health monitoring equipment

  • Chassis dynamometer

  • Critical cooling fans (for electronics, expensive halogen lamps, etc)

Each UPS unit is rack mounted with a power distribution panel which displays line voltage (as provided from the utility company and regulated through the UPS) and load (true rms ammeter).

The unit above (Tripp Lite SU1000RTXL-2U) provides clean steady power but......

the fan noise (a steady 45-49db, peaking at 315hz....at 1 meter), in my opinion, is unacceptable for use in a home theatre or quiet listening environment. Because of the noise levels, I had to remotely locate this equipment in my basement.

 

As a comparison, the small pancake compressor that I use in my basement workshop for small cfm tasks generates 52db average sound pressure levels at 1m.

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The unit above (an older Tripp Lite 1000va model) backs up my network and PC equipment.

This older model is 10db quieter (35-38db) than the current production units or, to exaggerate the point........"the latest 1000va Tripp Lite UPS unit is 100% louder than the model it replaced".

Tripp Lite's tech says the factory had to increase the fan speed to increase air flow on the newer models which now reside in a smaller chassis. I'll take the older unit.......please!

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The noise issue with the above (current model) Tripp Lite led me to try a competitive APC unit. The APC UPS shown below has a cleaner look and much quieter fan. It also comes in around $100 cheaper than the comparable Tripp Lite model.

Unfortunately, APC's voltage regulation is not as precise as Tripp Lite's. The APC UPS will regulate to 120v only when operating on battery backup. The maximum voltage one can set the AVR to handle brownouts is 104v....with some of the more sensitive electronics in my shop, I start experiencing module lockouts, fault codes and erratic operation when the voltage supply drops below 108v. This APC unit (and this is one of their better models) is not suited to backup and protect this type of equipment.

This Middle Atlantic hinged wall rack houses a weather station, home theatre receiver, and eventually a 2tb NAS for media storage. The APC UPS backs up this equipment as well as the incoming phone (Fiber ONT), wireless modem, cable distribution and security panel power supply.

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The 4th UPS unit I purchased and tested was the Furman SB-1000.

 

Smaller than the APC and Tripp Lite models (it occupies 1 rack space instead of 2), the SB-1000 is engineered to provide 3 minutes of emergency power at its full 600w/5a rated load. Unfortunately, this unit did not work well for me. AVR is set at 109v for brownout protection by the factory and when I experienced a true outage, the Furman went dead after 4 minutes with less than a 1 amp load. I had high expectations for this unit, especially with a $600 price tag. Those expectations were not met and the unit will be limited to non-critical service.

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I've spent over $1800 on the 4 units above and the best of the bunch is no longer available. If anyone can suggest a rack mountable, quiet running, sub-$500 UPS model that will regulate within the 115-125v range, please drop me an email.

 

 

 

Extended Emergency Power - Generators

For extended power outages, a portable or fixed backup generator should be considered for home use. As most outages tend to be short term, UPS may be adequate to keep any critical equipment running without having to use a generator. However, for extended power outages, a portable or fixed backup generator will be required to re-charge the batteries in your UPS units and provide power to key critical and secondary loads.

  • Critical Loads - see above

  • Secondary Loads

  • Refrigerators & Freezers

  • Electric water heaters

  • Sump and Well Pumps

  • Kitchen Convenience Circuits

  • Microwave Oven

  • Small Air Conditioner(s)

  • Electric Skylights

  • Bathroom Circuits

  • 1 or 2 Bedroom Circuits

  • Hallway Lighting

 

To effectively distribute emergency power to these pre-determined loads, its best to use a Transfer Switch. A simple manual Transfer Switch will allow you to isolate (with breaker protection) and safely provide generator power to these circuits.

30a Manual Transfer Switch panel with isolated critical and secondary loads. The manual lockout with this unit prevents accidental backfeed should the utility power come back on while the generator is in operation.

 

50' of SJOOW cable and 30a plug/connector

 

Small portable generator.....

 

......stores neatly in the garage when not in use.

 

A more elaborate solution would be to install an Automatic Transfer Switch. These are generally used with stationary generator installations with higher load capacities. These switches typically have "exercise programs" to run the generator periodically (at least once a month) to ensure readiness when the need arises.

100a Auto Transfer Switch awaiting the arrival of a cost effective fuel cell generator.......

.......hopefully a much smaller version of this electrochemical unit used by Mercedes-Benz. This technology is much quieter, runs cleaner and is potentially far more efficient than the current stationary diesel or natural gas generators used in residential applications today.

 

Ultimate Garage can provide most of the products (ok..not the last one....yet) shown above and work with you or your electrician to detail a solution for your own home, garage or workshop.