That unit will work, but I wouldn't recommend it -- or any other UPS without AVR.    Without AVR, every time there's a voltage fluctuation of more than a few %, the UPS will switch to batteries -- this can cause excessive switching during a brownout or surge situation.  While this isn't necessarily "bad", units with AVR can compensate for this without the need to switch to inverter power.

 

Thanks.  I guess it depends on the reliability of the mains supply.  Where I live I see only two or three short brown-outs a year and even fewer full power cuts.  For me it's an acceptable trade-off to use the cheaper UPS.  It bugs me just how much cheaper the AVR units seem to be in the US.

Agree -- if your power is really reliable and has few fluctuations it's less important to have AVR.  If you get the cheap unit and occasionally hear it clicking in and out, that's what an AVR unit would avoid.  I do think it's worth the extra cost, but it's a personal choice ... and it's certainly true that either unit will provide the same basic protection.

 

I won't be worried about AVC for most (if not all) modern computer power supplies.  Many of the then are rated to provide full output power with input voltages between 90 and 260 volts.  In fact, there are a lot of them no longer have the switch on the back to select either 110 or 220 volt operation!

 

 

Most PC power supplies are in fact universal --  but that has nothing to do with AVR. 

 

Whether or not a UPS has AVR has nothing to do with the voltage supplied to the PC.  In either case, the UPS will provide the designed voltage (110 or 220).  AVR circuitry allows the UPS to adjust the output voltage to compensate for minor fluctuations (typically ~ 15%) without switching to inverter power.  Without AVR, if the input voltage fluctuates, the UPS will switch to the battery/inverter power -- but the output voltage will still be correct.

 

This is what you do NOT want to do ("... waited for the batteries to drain ...").    Just set the configuration to do this shutdown after 5 minutes.

 

I'm not sure I see exactly how you do this from APC UPSD.  There are "Battery Level" and "Minutes" fields. I'm pretty sure those are looking for the thresholds of battery level left and minutes left before the battery is drained.  What you are looking for is something that counts down from power failure.  Is that what the TimeOut field is for?  By default it is set for 300.

This is what you do NOT want to do ("... waited for the batteries to drain ...").    Just set the configuration to do this shutdown after 5 minutes.

 

I'm not sure I see exactly how you do this from APC UPSD.  There are "Battery Level" and "Minutes" fields. I'm pretty sure those are looking for the thresholds of battery level left and minutes left before the battery is drained.  What you are looking for is something that counts down from power failure.  Is that what the TimeOut field is for?  By default it is set for 300.

 

The "TimeOut" parameter is the time (in seconds) that the computer waits before it starts the shutdown procedure.  Example, the default 300 is a delay of 300 seconds.

 

EDIT: I have mine set to 30 seconds because, in my area, if the power is off for that long, it will be out for hours!

Thanks.  So what happens if you have BATTERY LEVEL, MINUTES, and TIMEOUT all with figures?  Does one take precedence over the other or does it enable the one that it reaches first?  What if one of the figures is left blank?  Does it just disregard it?  I'm trying to understand the logic here.

Thanks.  So what happens if you have BATTERY LEVEL, MINUTES, and TIMEOUT all with figures?  Does one take precedence over the other or does it enable the one that it reaches first?  What if one of the figures is left blank?  Does it just disregard it?  I'm trying to understand the logic here.

 

I believe the first one to occur will start the shutdown.  As I said, I have the TIMEOUT set to thirty seconds and the server starts its shutdown about that point,  The other parameters still have a long way to go to reach their setpoints.  (However, I did watch the display on the UPS once and noticed the the runtime remaining took a drastic plunge as soon as the drives all came up in order to stop the array. That is one reason that you should be careful about depending on that parameter to determine when to start the shutdown!) 

There's a lot of good info here, but there's also probably a lot of stuff you don't need...

 

http://www.apcupsd.com/manual/manual.html

 

As noted above, the shutdown will start when the first value is reached.  For example, if you have the timeout set to 300 (a good value in most cases), but there's not enough battery time left to allow that; then the shutdown will occur immediately.  Ditto if the battery level is below its threshold -- the shutdown will occur immediately.