APC backup power supply questions…

I have ten APC units scattered around the house and they all provide plenty of time to correctly shut things down once the power goes out. Some have provided plenty of run time that spans some outages. They all come back on once the power returns. Here are a few of my units.

I have four separate BN1500M2 units that are as follows:
1. One powers my NAS and a NetGear GS108 switch. This runs for about 180 minutes after power outage.
2. Another powers my Modem, A NetGear JGS516v2 switch, and a Davis weather receiver. That lasts about 170 minutes.
3. A third one that powers my BI Server and lasts 86 minutes.
4. The fourth one powers two NetGear POE switches. A GS308PP and a JGS516PEv1 and lasts 130 minutes.
5. I have a BN900M that powers a GS305P POE switch and the Fiber ONT box for my internet. It lasts about 30 minutes.
6. A BN700MC that powers my office PC, two screens, and a NetGear GS308PP. I only get about 15 minutes on that one.

The rest are powering things like TVs and small computers.

But next week I have a whole house natural gas generator being installed. So I will be dumping all of the 1500VA units for ones that are significantly smaller. In the design for the generator, one needs to account for the wattage of the UPS's, and this company uses a 3x multiplier. Input harmonics generated by UPS's can cause generator instability and overheating of stator windings. All I really need now is a couple of low wattage/low VA units to keep things powered while the transfer switch operates.

I aslo have a whole-house generator, a 26kW Kohler that is propane-fueled, so my UPses only need to supply uninterruptible power for about 10 seconds.

I have 4 UPSes in my house, all APC brand. A BE600M1 of 600VA runs my Blue Iris server, a BV 8 port POE switch and a TP-LINK Fiber-to-Ethernet converter; at the other end of the house a BE600M1 of 600VA powers the ISP's fiberoptic modem and router, a TP-LINK 5 port POE switch, a TP-LINK dual band wireless access point and a TP-LINK Fiber-to-Ethernet converter. The BE600M1 is sized right and has key slots to hang it on a wall or backboard, a nice feature.

A BX1000M of 1,000VA runs my 65" Sony 4K/3D smart TV and DVD player. Another BE600M1 powers my "daily driver" PC.

All 4 of these APC UPSes play nice with the genset, no beeps or whistles when it kicks in or runs every Monday at 1000 hrs for a under-load, 20 minute scheduled test.

Since 2006 I have bought and installed over 100 UPSes for clients (allbut maybe 3 were APC) and have replaced about 4 dozen batteries and have found that few last long beyond 3 years. My favorite battery vendor is Battery Mart in Winchester, VA. They offer a great price, quick (free) shipping and a great product plus warranty, IMO.

APC (now Schneider) customer service is also good. I had a UPS start beeping at 2 years, so they sent me another battery free. That didn't fix it, so they sent another APC UPS (same 1500M), also free, which did fix it, and now I have a second battery to rotate in. I power all my computer stuff with it so it only lasts 15 minutes.

rdxny said:

APC (now Schneider) customer service is also good. I had a UPS start beeping at 2 years, so they sent me another battery free. That didn't fix it, so they sent another APC UPS (same 1500M), also free, which did fix it, and now I have a second battery to rotate in. I power all my computer stuff with it so it only lasts 15 minutes.

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Yep, owned by Schneider since 2007.
I also had to call them once in 2024 about the BX1000M. Got a quick answer and she followed up a day or 2 later via email to insure that all was well.

I use small UPS units similar TonyR's APC BE600M1 on tons of toys. All are single battery units. In my rural area, blips in the power are too common so they keep my PC's, Poe switches, routers, ISP gateways, TV's etc safely powered without interruption. I do not have a whole home generator but these allow enough time for me to fire up a manual unit.

Jimmyjames said:

@samplenhold @TonyR @rdxny


I appreciate all of your insights here.

Some follow up questions:

In your experiences, what are the worst case scenarios that could result from NOT employing an APC unit? I guess this is a situational/ hypothetical question. I understand that they offer surge protection as well.

I understand the idea that these units provide a time window for the proper shutdown of equipment. But what is the advantage in real terms?

I see these units in the wild everywhere. In all practicality, there is no person on staff in 99% of the commercial environments that these APC units are currently deployed in that would ever think: “we lost power…I guess I should properly shut down all network devices…” That thought will rarely present itself in the mind of a manager of a restaurant or a retail space.

I don’t mean to come off as dense….and I’m not hating on the concept of the APC either: best practices exist for good reasons. But do any of you guys have a real case scenario where one of these back up units saved the day and really proved their worth?

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Since Windows 7, PC's have been a bit better about not causing serious file corruption that can happen by not allowing an orderly shutdown (file closure, etc.) of a PC than can happen when the power is just dumped, but it can and does happen. I cannot speak to the same issue with Macs. That being said, in my experience of using PC's running 24/7/365 to monitor traffic signal operations (in my career from '73 to '04) and my personal experience the last 21 years since '04, I have seen the results several times of file corruption when a PC was not shut down properly due to a sudden loss of local utility power.

I have repaired the corrupted startup process on many Windows PC's belonging to clients in this area after a power outage that did not have UPSes in place; I estimate at least 3 dozen in the last 20 years.

As @Broachoski mentioned, most rural areas like I'm in experience more dips, surges and sudden outages, I think mostly because of falling or line-encroaching limbs, trees and wildlife. We had a 1 second outage just yesterday that did not trigger the generator but caused the digital clock on the shelf under the TV to start flashing with 12:00 but UPS-powered modem, router, Internet, 2 computers and surveillance cameras went on without a hitch.

^^^^ In addition:
I almost forgot! My UPSes were beeping and cutting in during episodes of summer of 2024 due to OVERVOLTAGE (120VAC was 140, 240 was 280) due to a faulty transformer feeding only my house:

Brown outs and quick power blips are the hardest on electronics...thus the UPS.
APC is the brand I trust. I have them sized to offer a long run time. My BI computer can run up to 90min on backup and it never blinks. I have others supplying 1 to 2hrs of backup to devices around the house. That gets me through most power issues.

looney2ns said:

Brown outs and quick power blips are the hardest on electronics...thus the UPS.
APC is the brand I trust. I have them sized to offer a long run time. My BI computer can run up to 90min on backup and it never blinks. I have others supplying 1 to 2hrs of backup to devices around the house. That gets me through most power issues.

Click to expand...

+1
Voltage surges & brown outs... aka: dirty power. Power loss is one thing. However, it has been my experiences that dirt power carries a higher probability of causing damage to electronics.

I had a boot drive get corrupted when the power went out as I was booting up. Took me two days to figure out how to fix it. I could have just reloaded Windows, but I did not want to lose all my apps.

There are apps that can work with your UPS and do an orderly, unsupervised, automatic proper shutdown. I have never used any of them.

I don't like missing cam footage. So one big reason is to not have that happen. Plus my wife gets kind of ornery when the power goes out and her PC stops working.