[plug] UPS's

[Kevin Shackleton]

Two items that haven't really been addressed in other replies:

 - Many new BIOS' allow startup on powerup.  TPG PCs we have at work are
delivered that way - you often find them on in the morning because there's
been a power glitch at night.

 - More complicated issue - how to avoid power-up too early after a power
restore.  If you can wait!  There was a design in a recent Electronics
Australia mag for a Mains Monitor.  It cuts out your power if the input
volts go too low or too high (adjustable) _and_ you can set the
wait-for-power-up time from 1 minute to 16 minutes.  Put this device after
your UPS.  Altronics & Dick Smith sell the kit for about $50 - takes 2
hours or so to make (there's an error in the circuit diagram in the
Altronics kit).  I use this device as a Claytons UPS because brownouts or
off-on-off-on power kills ATX power supplies really easily.  Our local PC
supplier sends a block to Western Power every time they have a decent
outage because it usually kills 3 or 4 power supplies in town.


Colin Muller wrote:

> I'd really appreciate it if someone could tell me (or a pointer to one)
> what happens at point 5 below in a well-designed setup (and how it
> happens):
>
> 5. ???