UPS solution for audio and visual systems

[leonpjhb]

Eskom is playing up big time. The last week or so I have been getting way too many current sags in the electricity supply... Either my neighbour has started awelding business or it is just plain winter electricity blues...  The sags last for a few seconds only, but this is enough for my AV processor and power amplifiers to shut themselves down and go into protection mode! So I assume the voltage drops to below 170volts on these occasions...

Eskom has tested and ofcourse they find everythong ok, but then they dont test during peak periods when I really want to listen to music.

I believe that installing a decent online UPS system (or multiple smaller ones) will do the trick and supply the system with power during those short durations when there isma dip in power...


Does anyone have any experience with this? I would really appreciate some help....

As far as I can make out, the 3 power amps each can pull 2kw at max power and the TV, processor, dstv, etc combined take about The same. So if UPS is an option, I could take four 2kva units, if they were to deliver about 2kw each...

Is my thinking solid?

[chrisg]

I had very limited experience with true on line, perfect sine wave,  UPS. I wanted it to protect my AV receiver, BR player, HD PVR, DVD recorder and  LCD TV for the same reason as you mentioned. I also wanted to eliminate HDCP errors which I get on my HD PVR from time to time.

Unfortunately my experience with online ups wasn't a good one. Probably due to wrong choice of equipment. Firstly, ups cooling fans were far to loud for living room - although they are supposed to run only during battery charging. Secondly, after few minutes of use (or sometimes few seconds) UPS tripped my earth leakage in main board -so no power in the house. It was battle like that for two days, then I decided to return unit and fortunately got my cash back.
I am not saying this unit was bad or had a fault. It was most probably me at fault, buying  gear more suitable for server room than recreation area.

Support guys from company I bought UPS from, told me power points for on line UPS shall be wired outside earth leakage circuit. This requires mod to house wiring by qualified electrician. Hope my 2c helps.

[Skeeter]

APC sell line conditioners with the biggest unit being 2200VA. This offers boost and trim but not standby, which sounds like what you're looking for anyway. Bonus is cost effectiveness and absolute silence. Not sure of minimum voltage before the unit falls overs because it has happened to me a couple times where the drop is too big. Still, I am happy to know it is better than nothing and my equipment always gets clean power.

Edit: my mistake, biggest unit is 1200VA. This supplies my entire home theatre.

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[chrisg]

I need standby power for 5 or 10 minutes just to switch off everything civilized way. Eskom power shedding and my own power shedding trips electricity from time to time. My single phase installation is overloaded, need 3 phases but Randburg City Power is not so keen to give 3 phase permits.

I think on-line true sine wave ups is a way to go for av equipments but it has to be quiet or fan-less type.

[Skeeter]

What I posted costs 500 bucks per unit. What you refer to will be at least 10 times that...just saying.

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[windshear]

The one thing to keep in mind is the quality of the components you will be looking to buy. Given that you have invested rather heavily on your current equipment, you should not skimp on the UPS. Another thing not to overlook is quality of the power they provide. A lot of the cheaper units are very very noisy depending on how they work and if they just filter or fully regenerate as a static inverter. Your equipment may not like the computer based UPS solutions in terms of proper AC.

[J.S.]

Although I might be totally wrong here, but I think you're looking at the wrong type of instrument. UPS are for things like computers. There are products specially designed for this and in typical Hi-Fi burble they are called power conditioner. This unit (well from what I understand) can take anything and through a complex process of converting it to DC and then reconverting to AC maintains the constant voltage which you can set. http://www.psaudio.com/ps/products/description/perfectwave-power-plant-10?cat=power
Apart from being built for high end Hi-Fi it has all the features that one could possible dream of. It should maintain the power at a constant 220v for listening at anytime and you can (supposedly) rest assured that what might come is dirty, but what comes out is as good as it gets.

One can be seen in action in that thread on electricity where Dr. JDZA shows off his Hong-Fong multi meters.  
http://www.avforums.co.za/index.php/topic,9796.0.html

[LAV]

If you locate the UPS in another room, then fan noise is not an issue. A professional online UPS (from someone like APC - they build great large UPS units too) will not be cheap at all, but will do what you expect it to. You could also look at something that will simply disconnect the load during undervoltage and overvoltage events, but of course then it interrupts the enjoyment. If budget is not too much of an issue, go the UPS route.

[Skeeter]

Yowza...40 big ones for that P10 Powerplant?  I will quietly exit this thread...

P.S. The APC Line R Conditioner gets used on servers that cost hundreds of thousands...so the marginal cost is a god send.  Many people use them specifically for hi-fi gear.

[Jaws]

I have been using an online PC UPS for my AV gear without a problem for the last five years. In winter time on the odd occasion you can hear the UPS beep when the power dips or spikes.

[leonpjhb]

Thanks to everyone for the replis so far!

Windshear, agreed. This is why I need as much info as possible.. I have so far investigated pure sinewave, double conversion, double isolated ups units from APC, Sinetech and Wattronics, unfortunately they are about R12k per 2kva, but that is that!

JS, these devices do not givE backup. I already own several power filtration devices but they cannot deliver current during voltage sags and that does not solve my problems.

Skeeter, the PS Audio is too small for my needs and does not provide backup time...

Jaws, which brand and sizeddo you use? How much current do you pul?

[audiomuze]

I've got one of these between my wall socket and hi-fi gear: PL-8 C E POWER CONDITIONER.  It doesn't provide continuous power, but it's silent and it stops power supply to your equipment in under or over voltage situations.  I'm guessing you could put a UPS between it and the wall socket.  Perhaps a APC Power-Saving Back-UPS Pro 1500, 230V might do the trick for you.

[chrisg]

The one I had and returned was 1 x 3KVA, TRUE ONLINE, DOUBLE CONVERSION, QON SERIES UPS - 1 0 MINUTES for R 4,386.00 excl VAT. from www.powermode.co.za
It looked very solid and well built, if not for noisy fan and dedicated power outlet I would be using it now.
Dedicated power point is not such a big issue, it probably will be far less "noisy" after taking out of earth leakage than rest my power outlets. Fan noise was to much for living room but if you can put ups elsewhere it might be ok. It is possible fans only coming on during battery charging but never had chance to check it.

[Tonyb]

Regarding noisy fans: it is possible to retrofit a "silent" PC fan in most units - I have done this to all 3 of my UPS's and the noise drops significantly.

Alternatively, turn up the volume! 

[leonpjhb]

TonyB: thatbis great advice!!