Our new Dell PoweEdge Server contains a Quad Core Intel Xeon processor with 12GB RAM, 2x750GB hard drives in Raid configuration. Access times are improved with a fast 100MBS port with increased bandwidth. Of course the system is protected by a 2N+1 Uninterruptible Power Supply.

We’ll be migrating some further sites over the course of the next few months, but at present our main sites including UPSMart for single phase SOHO UPS Systems and battery backup and our exclusive Dale Power Solutions online portal for Dales’ highly competitive online UPS Systems are all hosted on the new system.

A power cut hit West London on Wednesday just seconds before England scored against Slovenia to put them through to the last 16, ensuring that thousands of fans (including the unfortunate Declan Donnonly) missed the all important goal. Even those who were at work and had Sky+ recording it would find when they got home that the recording hadn’t taken place. It just goes to show that when people say that they never get power cuts, one comes along right at the worst possible time.

And it all could have been avoided with a low cost UPS System starting from as little as £49, and with long runtime units capable of supporting all your AV needs for hours on end if need be, Power Inspired have an Uninterruptible Power Supply solution to make sure you don’t miss that all important goal. Not to mention the landlord of the pubs revenue stream gone up in smoke as the punters all head out for somewhere with power – or a UPS!

You can read more about the unfortunate Dec here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/entertainment_and_arts/10396861.stm

Studio 3000 AC ReGenerator

Oxford based Power Inspired have launched the Studio 3000 , an Uninterruptible Power Supply designed exclusively for the professional recording studio. The Studio 3000 provides the highest degrees of power protection, coupled with battery backup and enhances the operation of recording equipment and extends equipment life.

“Not only is the Studio 3000 the ideal power protection solution, protecting sensitive equipment from all power anomalies, the output power is a pure sine-wave and the voltage is completely stable and can be adjusted from 208V-240V”, says Power Inspired’s Tony Bell, “this is essential for prolonging the lifespan of the components in the console. Capacitors are vulnerable to overvoltages and transients and are stressed over time. The Studio3000 ensures that equipment is supplied with nothing but the best power supply thereby maximising equipment life.”

“The fact that the output voltage can be adjusted means that the system is ideal as a power source for legacy European equipment that was designed to operate on 220V and may be unduly stressed at the typical 240V seen in the UK. In addition, since the device is a perfect AC ReGenerator the output frequency can be adjusted to 60Hz enabling 208V US Equipment to be powered. What you get is a pure power supply of the voltage and frequency that you want coupled with Battery Backup.”

In addition to providing the ideal power source there are other issues to contend with. Tony Bell continues “One of the design challenges was the powering up of equipment in sequence. In the recording studio certain equipment needs to be on before others. The programmable outlets on the Studio 3000 solve this issue. When the UPS is switched on, the main power is provided, but there are two further power banks that can be programmed to come on after set delays, allowing for the sequential power up of up to 3 load banks.”

“Furthermore, the design of the Studio 3000 is such that it can be housed in a 19″ cabinet, occupying no more than 2U of rack height, or can be free standing. It’s 3KVA or 2.4KW rating means the system is capable of delivering more than the power requirements of a typical console. What’s more the system is provided with several means of communication with attached computers – RS232, USB and an internal SNMP card, and the software used is compatible with MAC OS.”

The Studio 3000 is available exclusively direct from Power Inspired.

Dale Power Solutions

Dale Power Solutions have chosen Power Inspired as their official online retailer for single phase and small three phase products. All Dale UPS Systems are online double conversion topology, providing the highest levels of power protection and coupled with 75 years of Dale Engineering expertise the E-Series of UPS Systems provide one of the highest quality power protection solutions around.

Available in tower format from 1-3KVA pluggable, and 6&10KVA hardwired. The E206 and E210 series have a unique removable bypass saving money on installation costs and improving service availability. Available to purchase through www.powerinspired.com , http://upsmart.co.uk, and the dedicated Dale online webstore: www.dale-online.co.uk

Products are available in stock and despatched through a next day courier, so you can order today and have it tomorrow.

Firstly, it is important to know that the Ampere Hour or Ah rating of a battery is given at a 10 hour rate, a 20 hour rate or even 100 hour rates. So a 110Ah battery with a 20 hour rating can provide 110/20 = 5.5Ah per hour, OR if you take 5.5Amps from this battery it will last 20 hours. If you take 110Amps from this battery IT WILL NOT LAST FOR 1 HOUR. In fact it will last for A LOT less than this, and the equation required to determine the actual runtime is very complex and usually relies on the use of look-up tables or charts.

The point here is although for runtimes of 1 or 2 hours a simple calculation isn’t possible, you can get pretty good approximations when the runtime is in the order of several hours.

So, how do you start? Firstly, you need to know what power you will require in Watts. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that you want to power a computer system, some lighting and a few ancillaries, so you’ve got a total load of let’s say, 1200W.

Next, what is the DC voltage input for your inverter? Some inverters, will take a 12Vdc input, some 24V and some 48V. In this case we’ll assume that the DC voltage for our inverter is 48V.

We now need to calculate how much current is drawn from the battery. We do this by dividing the power required in Watts (in our case 1200), by the DC voltage (in this case 48) and we get 1200/48 = 25 Amps.

We also now need to allow for some inefficiencies in the inverter and some fudge factors so multiply this figure by1.25 and we get 25 x 1.25=31.25Amps

Now we can determine the Ah rating based on this figure:

If we want one hour then the rating will have to be OVER 31/1=31Ah, but this is inaccurate by as much as 60%.

If we want two hours then the rating will have to be OVER 31×2=62Ah, getting more accurate but still not precise, as this could be about a third out.

If we want four hours, 31×4=124Ah (about 20% right), eight hours 31×8 = 248Ah which is accurate enough for our purposes (about 10%).

We want 8 hours, we know that we need 248Ah, how do we achieve this with individual batteries?

Well, batteries can be connected in series, to obtain what we know as a “battery string”. As we need a 48V dc voltage then we need to put 4 x 12V batteries in series to get this voltage. To connect batteries in series we connect the positive terminal of battery 1, to the negative terminal of battery 2, the positive terminal of battery 2 to the negative terminal of battery 3, the positive terminal of battery 3 to the negative terminal of battery 4. We now have 48V between the positive terminal of battery 4 and the negative terminal of battery 1 and we connect these to the inverter. When we connect batteries in series the Ampere Hour Rating Remains Unchanged. So, connecting 4x12V 110Ah batteries in series would still give us 110Ah, although since the DC voltage is higher, the battery string can produce more power than a single battery.

How to connect 12V 100Ah blocks to make a 48V 300Ah Battery

If we connect batteries (or entire battery strings) in parallel the Ampere Hour rating is increased – you add the individual Ampere Hour ratings together. To connect batteries in parallel you connect the negative of battery 1 to the negative of battery 2, and the positive of battery 1 to the positive of battery 2. If you are connecting battery strings in parallel, for example our 48V system above you connect the negative of battery 1 to the negative of the next string and the same for the positive.

So, for our example above, we want 8 hours runtime, so we’re going to need a battery rated at at least 248Ah. Luckily there’s a single battery available that will do the job – a 270Ah battery, and we need to connect 4 of them in series to make our 48V battery string. 

What if our inverter was rated at 12Vdc input, what batteries do we need then to achieve 8 hours runtime?

The same system applies:

Step 1: Calculate Watts (1200W)
Step 2: Work out Amps (Watts / Inverter DC Voltage = 1200 / 12 =100Amps)
Step 3: Allow for losses (Multiply by 1.25  = 100 x 1.25 = 125Amps)
Step 4: Work out AmpereHours (Multiply Amps by hours required = 125×8 = 1000Ah)
Step 5: Work out how many strings you need by dividing the Ah by the Ah rating of your string (1000Ah / 270 Ah – for the 270Ah battery  = 3.7).
Step 6: As you cannot have a fraction of a string – round UP – (3.7 => 4).

So, as you can see in both instances we will still require 4x270Ah batteries the only difference is, is that one is connected in parallel, and the other in series. Is their any difference? Well the answer is emphatically YES. Fewer battery strings is better. This is because of ease of connection and the fact that the batteries will be charged more effectively. In addition, the danger of having one bad string take down all the others is eliminated. Another important factor is the cable size that is required. Note in the 12V inverter we require 125Amp rated cable. For the 48V version this is 31Amps. This is a HUGE difference in cost and ease of installation.

If you find all this a little to mathematical, we’ve put together our AH FOR INVERTER CALCULATOR on the UPSMart Help Section.

We’ve streamlined the product offerings and added some application headers to make the site easier to navigate and be less confusing. However, if you don’t see what you’re looking for – check out www.powerinspired.com or contact us for help.

We’ve also added GOOGLE CHECKOUT to the payment options for those of you who prefer to use the ease of this payment option. With GC you will not need to log in or enter your details into our system, Google takes care of all this, once you have registered with them. If not, we still accept all major debit and credit cards as well as PayPal. (Note that you need to select SagePay to pay by PayPal as the same system does both credit/debit cards AND PayPal).

We’ll be making some further changes over the next few weeks, so keep checking and if there’s something you would like to see then let us know.

A new Emergency Power Off (EPO) port has been added to ensure that should an emergency occur the UPS can be made dead in an instant and not continue to provide power to the load in case of emergency.

These systems are designed with runtime in mind and so they require external battery cabinets that provide 38 minutes full load runtime on the 3KVA and 20 minutes on the 6KVA. Additional cabinets can be added as required extending autonomy into the hours should this be necessary. What’s more – unlike similar systems that boast long runtime capability, these systems come with a 4Amp charger as standard (rather than the normal 1A charger in most comparable systems) ensuring that your batteries are charged expediently following an outage.

For integration with standard data centre environments, the cooling fan takes cool air from the front and exhausts this from the rear, ensuring that the UPS will meet with any hot aisle/cold aisle configuration.

The full system is rack mountable, or free standing should you require. Occupying no more than 5U of rack space, the KR-J-F series is the latest on the highly competitive Kehua Tech range of UPS. Available exclusively through Power Inspired Ltd.

KR6000-J-F 6KVA Online Double Conversion UPS

It’s achieved in the main with UPS systems that communicate with each other and effectively share the load. Such systems are usually in the high power three phase category. It is unusual to find any systems at low power ratings that can do this. What’s more, you will need a special output distribution circuit to be able to accommodate this.

For the small business owner, whose dependence on IT is no less valid than major data centre operators this leads to a dilemma, as he needs critical load power protection, but doesn’t have the infrastructure or budget to put in a fully configured n+1 solution.

The answer – the KTS redundant switch from Kehua. This is a rackmounted device occupying no more than 1U of height. It accepts two inputs and provides a single power output that is provided from a primary source. If the primary source should fail, the system will automatically transition to the secondary source within 4 mseconds which is fast enough not to be noticed by any computer type loads.

The primary source should be an online UPS system, and the secondary source can either be another UPS (for full protection) or fed from the mains so you can cover in case anything untoward should happen to the UPS. Of course, there is still the single point of failure on the KTS, but built with reliability in mind it has extremely high MTBF to ensure peace of mind.

Coupled with a KR1000J online double conversion 2U rack mount UPS, you can have a redundant solution for under £350, protecting up to 4 servers and occupying only 3U of rack space. Available in 2KVA, 3KVA and 6KVA modules the KTS redundant switch is an ideal method of achieving redundancy without breaking the bank.

KTS Redundancy Switch Available in 10A, 16A and 32A versions

Smaller items will now be despatched through the post rather than courier slashing these costs, and we’ve now got a two tier upto 10Kg for only £8.05 and upto 30kg for only £11.50. All shipping charges are now detailed on the individual product pages so there are no surprises when you place your order.

While we’re on the subject we’re often asked why we don’t offer free shipping. Well that’s because shipping is never free. Anything with free shipping has the costs already incorporated into the price. So if you order more than one item you’re losing out as the items are usually combined into one delivery which is what we regularly do. For example, if you order a UPS from us and some additional power leads, the postage charge will be the same for the UPS with or without the leads. If we offered free shipping this wouldn’t be the case.

Remember we’re the most competitive UPS Systems store you will find anywhere.

http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/article-sh-reliable-test-results-1009.aspx

We couldn’t agree more.

Laboratory Equipment needs clean power to operate effectively, and this comes from  being supplied by a good quality sine-wave power waveform at all times. If you actually read through on the article above you will see an image of a “standard generator output”. Don’t be fooled by this.  Generators are never as bad as this – ever. However there is a degree of switching transients, power glitches and frequency variations that can cause havoc with lab equipment (so much so that I’ve known hospital labs to routinely unplug equipment during generator testing – so what will they do when the generator kicks in for real?). Depending upon the generator used and connected loads, the output from the generator can become distorted however, and this is where the online UPS will correct this. Other technologies cannot. I include in this galvanically isolated products that are based on line interactive technology. They cannot do anything about distorted waveforms except drop to battery and go dead a few minutes later.

Another issue that is technically incorrect is the use of galvanic isolation to correct stray earth currents. Since in most galvanically isolated equipment the earth is connected straight through, any current that is flowing will still flow, if the load is galvanically isolated or not. What galvanic isolation does do, is remove any neutral-earth voltage that may exist if the electrical infrastructure is poor or the line is long with heavy load equipment sharing it.

Our recommendations therefore, are for online double conversion for all laboratory products and there’s no need for galvanic isolation meaning smaller, lighter and ultimately cheaper products can be used instead.