The Power Protection Blog

September 3, 2010

Dale Power Solutions are celebrating 75 years of trading with record sales and growth for the first 6 months of 2010

Filed under: Announcements — Tags: , , , — toneus @ 2:11 pm

 Secure power specialists Dale Power Solutions has begun its 75th anniversary year with 75% order intake growth in the first six months of 2010.

As it looks back on a history which has taken it from humble beginnings to a global brand, renowned for its technical expertise and engineering excellence, Dale’s range of new and existing products is seizing a bigger share of the market. In all sectors – generator sets, Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS Systems) products and in service and maintenance – Dale is enjoying international success. As part of the Secure Power Division of TT electronics, 600 people are employed worldwide with circa $120 million per annum.

The excellent start to 2010 has delighted Managing Director Tim Wilkins. He puts it down to a positive, proactive workforce working very hard to meet customers’ demands together with a strong product line-up and the development of new sales and service outlets, most recently in Swindon, Aberdeen and Sharjah.

“We have seen a very strong order intake for the first six months of 2010 and are pleased with the success of new and existing products,” he said. “We have strengthened our sales department and thanks to our new range of products and the strength of our existing generator, UPS and sales and maintenance products, we have captured a greater share of the market, both in the UK and export.” He puts the longevity and success of the brand down to excellent technical expertise, design capability, project management, installation and ongoing servicing.

“It continues to be our ability to discuss a customer’s requirements with them and supply a tailored power solution that meets their needs exactly,” he said. “We operate lean enterprise 6 Sigma working practices and the Dale brand has become synonymous in the power industry with providing customers with an immediate, pro-active response and a perfect technical solution to their requirements. Whether it is off-shore oil and gas platforms, the stock exchange or a hospital operating theatre, our products and expertise are now an integral part of many large, blue-chip companies’ risk and disaster recovery management plans.”

Dale enters its 75th year in great shape, continuing to provide clients with tailored secure power solutions backed by a rich history and a wealth of technical excellence. The late Leonard Dale began Dale Electric in 1935 with 11s 8d (58.5p) from his Yorkshire Penny Bank book, convinced there was a need for his electrical wiring services in his local area. That ethos remains and it is a commitment to providing the customer with exactly what they need that has helped Dale develop into a globally-respected brand. There is little time to pause and reflect on those 75 years, which saw Dale grow from a man and his van, toiling away on the Yorkshire coast, to the international player it is today.
And as we launch new products apace, to meet ever-changing demand, we know it is those years of experience and unmatched technical know-how that benefit our customers and stand us in excellent stead for what lies ahead.
New products that raise the bar in terms of flexibility and capability, matched by investment in our people are twin commitments that we trust to take us into the next 75 years.

One stop shop for secure power solutions
Dale continues to expand on a global scale with an exciting range of new products aimed at consolidating our position as leading provider of secure power solutions and related services, both in the UK and overseas. We are driven by the energy, integrity, technical excellence, teamwork and innovation of our employees.
Our “one stop shop” approach offers a complete secure power solution tailored to clients’ requirements. Products include diesel generating sets, gas turbine, industrial UPS, standard UPS, DC systems, batteries, along with worldwide service, commissioning and maintenance and a range of ancillary products and services.

Raising the bar in containerised generating sets – winning great acclaim
Our Secure Series of containerised generators was launched at the end of 2009 and due to its immediate success the range has now been expanded. New for 2010, the Secure Series now features three concepts: the SecureE, the SecureC and the Secure+.

The new SecureE is fully configurable with a range of options and is available in either a 20ft or 40ft HC shipping container. Suitable for a wide range of applications globally, with a noise level of 85dbA at 1m and high ambient radiators for operation in 50oC ambient, the SecureE offers a cost-effective, modular design for maximum flexibility.
The original SecureC offers more power and flexibility at 1600kVA, and sets new parameters for flexible, off-the-shelf containerised generator sets in a 20ft unit. Extra power offers greater variety of application and use, breaking the mould for units of this size. Step loads of up to 800kW provide total flexibility. The SecureC offers up to 25% more step load capability than other leading competitors to handle the most demanding of situations and applications.
The Secure+ is super quiet at 75dbA at 1m and has a large capacity, 48-hour fuel tank. The robust design offers synchronising capabilities generator-generator or generator-mains. The Secure+ is designed for mobility on UK roads at <44 tonnes gvw in a 40ft HC shipping container.

Reliable power when you need it
We pride ourselves on providing guaranteed power back-up against that moment when an interruption to the power supply could have dire operational or financial consequences. The world-renowned Erskine brand power solution provides continuous clean power, with our products protecting critical loads in the most demanding and at times harshest of global environments – from hospital operating theatres to oil platforms in the desert.

Dale is continuously seeking new markets across the world and expects continuing strong demand to come from the petrochemical industry, already a key sector for UPS and DC products. Dale has developed a new product range of standard UPS systems alongside its Erskine branded industrial UPS products. Designed specifically to work with its range of generator sets to provide an integrated solution and guarantee continuous power to its customers is the E Series UPS. Available with single phase ups with an output range of 1kVA–20kVA, rackmount ups systems and three phase ups output range of 10kVA–400kVA. Features include internal failsafe bypass, extended run times, and high input power factor. With maximum reliability and power availability you can connect several units in parallel. The E Series has multi-language touch screen displays, remote monitoring, an advanced IGBT rectifier, back-feed protection and is configurable for redundancy. A modular approach to system design includes hot-swappable modules ensuring maximum up time. Your power solution lifecycle is totally flexible with ease of maintenance and expandability.
Our role as one of the leading and largest industrial battery providers in the UK completes the picture. Whether you are looking for a battery for your generator or secure power equipment, a service and maintenance package or battery disposal and recycling services your requirements will be met and guaranteed by our technical excellence.

Downtime prevention
Our integrated UPS and generator solutions provide “no-break” power, saving you from costly outages and downtime. Our systems are carefully designed to ensure dynamic instability does not occur due to differing speeds of control loops used for engine speed, alternator automatic voltage regulator and UPS rectifier/charger.

Your power, in safe hands
A new range of service products is also in the pipeline, an area of the marketplace where Dale’s vast technical background and expertise has already made it a global name. Comprehensive service and maintenance, drawing on a team of more than 80 service personnel, helps key clients worldwide protect and prolong the life of their products.

Keeping your power secure for that crucial moment means providing 24 hour, seven days a week, 365 days per year cover. From your first call to Dale Power Solutions your power is in safe hands. Service and maintenance support is tailored to your needs for the lifetime of your equipment. Whether you require planned, preventative maintenance cover, a one off service visit, a breakdown call out, or our total power solution management service, we meet your needs.

The future
Where will the next 75 years take us? Looking ahead, the company’s business plan is to achieve continued growth, driven through increasing sales in existing and new markets, on a worldwide basis. It is also keeping an eye on the future and where the next generation of “green” products will emerge from.

“We are constantly looking for opportunities to develop new products, to increase our offering to our customer base and develop new markets,” Mr Wilkins added.

Now part of the Secure Power Division of the TT electronics group of companies, each year we supply more than 3,000 generator and UPS systems worldwide and service more than 4,000 generator sets and UPS systems. The company has sales and service offices in Aberdeen, London and Swindon and in Brazil, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates.

Not a bad return on an investment of 11s 8d in 1935!

July 15, 2010

Which Uninterruptible Power Supply technology do I require?

Filed under: Help Guides,Technology — Tags: , , , , , , — toneus @ 2:19 pm

All Uninterruptible Power Supply or UPS Systems consist of a rectifier which converts your normal mains AC power into DC power, an inverter that converts DC power into AC power, and an energy storage medium which is usually lead acid batteries.

There are 3 main UPS technologies – Offline, Line Interactive and Online Double Conversion – and two different types of inverter – square wave (also called pseudo-sine wave or modified sine wave) and sine-wave.

An Offline UPS provides basic levels of power protection. There is usually a degree of surge suppression incorporated and when the input mains voltage goes out of tolerance (that is too high/low or fails) the UPS inverter starts up and provides power to your equipment. There is a break in the mains supply when this occurs in the region of 10-20 thousands of a second which will generally go unnoticed by the majority of equipment. The inverter in offline UPS is nearly almost always a square wave.

A line interactive UPS is similar to an offline UPS but has the added benefit of voltage regulation. This means that it will reduce the mains voltage if it goes too high (called “buck”) or raise the mains voltage when it goes too low (called “boost”). It will do this without reverting to battery and hence conserve battery life. Since a line interactive UPS has an inline transformer, it also provides in-built filtering and hence a higher degree of power protection. Like the offline types, there is also a break during the transition from mains power to battery power. In higher quality line interactive units, this break may be as low as only 2 to 4 thousandths of a second. Line Interactive UPS Systems come with square wave as well as sine wave inverters.

The online double conversion UPS System is considered by many to provide the highest levels of power protection. The inverter is always on, and provides power to the load. This means that there is no deviation in output voltage and no break if the UPS reverts to battery power. The output waveform in an online UPS System will almost always be a sine-wave, generally of very high quality and can enhance the operation of certain equipment. An online double conversion UPS also has a bypass circuit, which allows power to be continually fed to your load even if the UPS develops a fault or is overloaded.

In choosing your technology you need to consider:

  1. The power consumption of your load
  2. The type of load you have
  3. How critical your load is
  4. The environment in which the UPS will sit
  5. The required runtime
  6. Your budget

Your normal UK socket outlet is rated at 13Amps which means the most power you can draw from a UK outlet is 3KVA, or 3KW. (Power Measurement will be covered in a separate paper). Above this level (for specialist equipment, or hardwired installations) most UPS will be online double conversion technology as the economies of scale start making other technologies non cost effective. Below this level, however all technologies are available, although above around 2KVA, line interactive systems start to become heavy and unwieldy due to the size of transformer that is required.

If your load is made up of computer type power supplies, then both square wave and sine wave products will power this equipment adequately. If your load contains motors, transformers, pumps or other inductive components (on the input power supply) then square wave systems are not suitable and you must opt for a sine-wave system.

Any load that is susceptible to mains disturbances such as in analytical equipment or audio applications should also choose a sine-wave system. Where mains distortions affect equipment performance then you need to opt for online double conversion where a pure sine-wave is always present.

If your load is critical for operation then the increased benefit of online double conversion technology should be used. This provides additional security against all power disturbances as well as the comfort of a fall-back bypass in case a fault develops with the UPS. You may wish to parallel together UPS and again, this can only be achieved with online double conversion UPS. (We’ll cover parallel systems and redundancy in a separate paper). If you have a PC where you are looking for simple battery backup to stop annoyance rebooting or tripping then an offline or line interactive unit would suffice.

Offline and line interactive UPS Systems are generally quiet in operation and do not utilise cooling fans in normal operation (usually). This means they are suitable to be placed in an office or home environment. Online Double Conversion UPS systems require forced cooling and can be quite noisy and therefore tend not to be suitable for use in an office environment.

If you are running your UPS in conjunction with an emergency backup generator then the benefits of online double conversion technology come to the fore, as the UPS will cover for any transition to generator operation and also provide a constant unchanging power source during generator start up and any shifts that may occur in frequency and or voltage during load switching.

Offline UPS tend to be the smallest of all technologies so can be useful to provide emergency ride through for areas where space is at a premium.

Long runtimes on UPS are better handled with online UPS Systems. This is because they are designed to operate continually from the inverter. In which case it does not matter if the input power is from the rectifier or the battery – the operation is the same. Offline and Line Interactive units tend not to be designed for this continuous operation. (Battery selection and runtime will be covered in a separate paper.) It is also unwise to power any equipment with a square wave inverter for any prolonged period of time as you could cause degradation to electronic components. Square wave systems are designed to allow basic computer systems to ride through brief power outages or time to shut down a system in the event of a prolonged power cut.

You may have already made up your mind which technology you need, but let’s take a look at relative costs. Offline UPS systems used to be by far the cheapest. However nowadays an offline UPS and a line interactive square wave unit are typically similar prices. Online Double Conversion used to be far more expensive than other technologies, but now is comparable to a high quality sine-wave line interactive UPS.

With regard to running costs, the offline UPS is the most efficient as in normal operation the input power goes straight through to the load, so the only power loss is to keep the battery float charged and power the UPS logic. Line Interactive units are similar in efficiency but experience more losses due to the transformer required for the buck and boost facility. Online Double Conversion however, has the drawback of being the least efficient of the technologies.

In summary, for simple low cost battery backup then the offline or line interactive square wave systems are suitable. For high grade protection in a quiet environment, or where your load type demands it, opt for a sine-wave line interactive unit. However, if you want the best power solution, then we recommend online double conversion technology as it is compatible with all load types and provides the highest degrees of power protection.

May 21, 2010

VIX2060 Back In Stock!

Filed under: Announcements,Shop — Tags: , , , , — toneus @ 10:28 am

Due to the huge demand of the VIX2060 Uninterruptible Power Supply we’ve had more manufacturered and are now in stock. At only £49 – including VAT and delivery – this UPS System is a bargain.

The VIX provides everything you need for a simple low cost power protection solution including surge supression, Voltage Regulation and of course battery backup. The unit is simple to operate and comes complete with PC shutdown software that is connected via USB, so you can rest assured you will not lose any data if you have a power cut whilst you are away from your desk (or busy scrambling around in the dark for a torch).

VIX2060 Uninterruptible Power Supply - Bargain.

October 6, 2009

Power Protection in the Hospital

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , — toneus @ 7:50 pm

Here’s a nice article extolling the use of online double conversion UPS Systems for hospital laboratory applications: 

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.

September 15, 2009

Power Cuts Damage Hard Drives

Filed under: Applications,Technology — Tags: , , , — toneus @ 7:57 am

Everybody is aware that a sudden loss of power to your PC will result in it switching off and you losing all data that you have accumulated since your last save. Even if the power cut is momentary, this is enough to cause a reboot.

This is bad enough for many people, especially when used for work and you’ve just lost all the data on that report you’d been writing. But did you know that mains fluctuations can cause damage to your hard drive?

A common effect is to hear a repetitious clicking noise coming from your hard drive – the click of death (like the blue screen of death but more fatal if there’s such an analogy). This renders your hard disk inoperable. What does this mean?

Well, your PC cannot function. You cannot access any data that you have on it without specialist services, and you need to replace your Hard Disk Drive (HDD), it cannot be repaired.

The cost of a new hard drive is relatively cheap these days. Probably around the £30 for a no-frills device. But then you have to fit it, and reload all your software. Assuming you’ve got all the CDs/DVD’s, and your access codes for downloaded software, plus you backed up all your important memories from your digital camera (you did didn’t you?), then this should be a breeze. Only taking a full day or so. It’s no laughing matter loading a PC from scratch. You get used to all your settings, software, and although sometimes its good to have a purge you’ll be surprised how long this process can take.

If you needed to recover data from your hard drive, well that’s a different story. You will be charged anywhere upwards of several hundred pounds to have data recovered – if it can be recovered.

To avoid these issues you need to invest in an Uninterruptible Power Supply. These will allow you to work through brief power cuts and shut your computer down (after saving your work), if the outage is longer than a few minutes. Some people provide a degree of power protection for their PC’s by using surge suppressors. Note that these will NOT protect damage to your HDD because of power fluctuations. A surge strip can do nothing to protect against mains voltage variations and power cuts.

How much is an Uninterruptible Power Supply? It depends upon the level of protection you require and the amount of runtime you need, but a basic standard system can be bought for under £30 (plus VAT). Power Inspired’s VIX series Uninterruptible Power Supply fits the bill for a home office / small office PC and is such a low cost it’s a no-brainer to me.

August 27, 2009

Mind the Watts

Filed under: Help Guides — Tags: , , , , — toneus @ 10:37 am

Here’s a useful article that backs up some of our other posts on sizing for Uninterruptible Power Supplies: Uninterruptible Power Supply: Consider Required Watts Before Buying a UPS

Legacy computer systems had a rectified input power supply that takes current in surges, rather than in a smooth sine-wave fashion. The results of this were that the power factor (the ratio of apparent power to true power) of computer power supplies worked out to be 0.7, that is for each 100VA of apparent power, the UPS needed to deliver 70Watts of true power. This is why UPS have traditionally had two ratings – VA and Watts and typically these tended to be different by a factor of, yes that’s right 0.7.

These power surges caused by computer power supplies can play havoc with the utility supply which is why standards have been introduced to make computer power supplies more utility friendly, and they do this by incorporating circuits to have what is called power factor correction, raising the power factor from the traditional 0.7 to a level approaching 1.

The effect of this on Uninterruptible Power Supply Sizing is clear. On your legacy computers you could add up the VA ratings and your UPS would be practically guaranteed to be sized correctly. However, systems with modern compliant power supplies are different, and you need to make sure you don’t overload the WATTS rating of the UPS.

For example, 4x250VA legacy systems could safely be powered from a 1000VA/700W UPS. Now, you would need to ensure that the 4x250VA systems were powered by a UPS System rated at at least 1000W – about 1500VA (for a traditionally rated UPS). The Eaton 9130 range of Online Double Conversion UPS Systems go some way to overcoming this dilemma by having their systems rated at an impressive 0.9pf, which means that for every 1000VA, the UPS can supply 900W.

If your power supply doesn’t say or if you are unsure, the safe bet is to take the VA rating you have and multiply it by 1.4, in this instance your UPS will in the majority of cases be appropriately rated.

August 25, 2009

How to size for a three phase Uninterruptible Power Supply

Filed under: Help Guides — Tags: , — ups_guru @ 7:12 am

When we talk about three phase power, most people glaze over and leave any discussion to the experts. We’re here to show you that it need not be that difficult.

Take a single phase power system. You can calculate the power you need easily, by multiplying the voltage (230V in Europe) by the current draw from your load (in Amps) and you’ve got the VA rating. If you are unsure of power factor (as most of us will be without special equipment) multiply this number by about 1.4 and choose an Uninterruptible Power Supply above this value. You’ll have no problems. But what about a three phase system?

A three phase UPS is, in its simplest form, three identical single phase UPS Systems stuck together, and you cannot overload any one of these systems.

Imagine you have a three phase load, of which you have split into several load sections – for example, the lighting circuit, the electrical distribution circuit and the cooling circuit. Each of which is a single phase load. You switch everything on, take your ammeter and measure the current flowing in each phase, and get, for example, 15A, 25A, 40A. So what size UPS do you need?

You could say that our current draw is 15+25+40 which is 80 and multiply this by 230 which gives us 18,400VA. So we need a three phase UPS rated at, say 20KVA. This is wrong, and it is wrong because you need to remember the three phase UPS is three – identically rated – single phase UPS Systems.

What you need to do is to take the maximum current draw, which in this case is 40A, and work this out as a single phase UPS. So we get 40×230 = 9200VA. Then multiply this by 3. The actual size of UPS we need is not 20KVA but actually 30KVA (9200×3=27,600).

Modern three phase UPS Systems can cope with 100% unbalanced loads, that is one phase is producing all the power and the others are supplying zero, but they cannot borrow power from one phase to the other.

July 21, 2009

The Benefits of the Modular UPS System

Filed under: Help Guides,Technology — Tags: , , , — toneus @ 3:31 pm

You may have read a lot about the Modular UPS System, and I hope to be able to state some of the key benefits / drawbacks here.

Firstly – expandability. Let us suppose you are developing a data room. The plan is to eventually have, for example, 25 cabinets, each with a power consumption of 3KVA = 75KVA total load. However, at present you only need power for 5 (15KVA), with the remainder being added over the next few years or so.

The sensible approach using the standard Uninterruptible Power Supply would be to fit an 80KVA model. However in the early days it would only be operating at less than 20% capacity. So you’ve shelled out for an 80KVA system that wont be at capacity for a couple of years. For an 80KVA system (excluding battery and installation) you’d be looking at a cost in the region of £8,000, depending on options.

With the Modular UPS, you would fit a 100KVA carrier, and 2x10KVA Power Modules at a cost of around £6,000. You can then add the additional 10KVA power modules as and when required at around £1,500 each.

The benefit here is that the initial outlay is lower, however the total cost will be higher, as you need to add in another 6x 10KVA Power Modules units, making the total cost £15,000 as opposed to £8,000 for the standard Uninterruptible Power Supply.

However, let us now suppose that we want a n+1 redundant solution. So with our standard Uninterruptible Power Supply model, we would put in 2x80KVA UPS Systems, at an upfront cost of £16,000. With the Modular UPS we can put in the 1 extra power module that we need, so our initial upfront cost is 1x 100KVA carrier, and 3x 10KVA Power Modules at a cost of around £7,500.

However, the real benefit is to do with the fact that to achieve n+1 we only need 90KVA of UPS power, as opposed to 160KVA in the configuration above. When the data centre is fully operational we would require 1x 100KVA carrier, and 9x 10KVA Power Modules at a cost of around £16,500. So, slightly more expensive but in an equivalent ball park, however other important factors are that the Modular UPS is in one cabinet with a small footprint, occupying probably half the space of the 2x 80KVA Standard UPS Systems and the fact that the power modules can be easily swapped in the event of a fault – thereby improving on availability figures.

It would be remiss of me however, not to include a third scenario. N+1 Redundancy is achieved by having one more Uninterruptible Power Supply than is needed to do the job. Therefore, it is possible to use, for example 3x40KVA UPS Systems, or 4x30KVA UPS Systems, that too, can grow with demand. If we take the latter, we would need initially 2x30KVA UPS Systems at a £6,000 outlay. You can add another for another £3,000, and then finally have the last in, at a total cost of £12,000. Of course, this price excludes batteries and installation. However, in this instance you need to have room for 4 UPS Systems!

I have also not included the additional costs of switch gear needed for the standard Uninterruptible Power Supply Solution. So, taking this into account, along with the additional floor space needed, you would have to argue that the Modular UPS would be a good solution.

There is another factor that gives the Modular UPS a wholesale advantage over other methods and that is efficiency. Let us assume for a moment, that the Modular UPS and the Standard Uninterruptible Power Supply, all share the same efficiency at full load. It is clear that UPS systems operating at half load or less will be less efficient. With 2x80KVA UPS Systems on a 75KVA load, each UPS will be operating at 47% load, whereas the Modular UPS with 90KVA of power available, will be operating at 83% load. So there is probably some running cost calculation that you could also take into account.

Money makes the world go round as they say, so if I were looking for simple UPS support, I’d opt for the standard Uninterrupibtle Power Supply, however if I was needing to include some redundancy in there, the Modular UPS is starting to look like a great contender.

July 13, 2009

Overvoltage Protection

Filed under: Technology,Uncategorized — Tags: , , — toneus @ 8:53 am

Here’s a neat article written by our friends at APC: Powercuts during summer months may damage data, albeit a confusing title for what the article is about.

They bring up a valid point about overvoltage leading to damage of equipment. Your normal mains supply is designed to operate at 230V±10%, which means a maximum voltage entering your building of 253V. However, the substation providing this voltage has to be able to do so during full power loading. Let’s say you’re on an industrial park and the substation is providing power to all the buildings – the IT infrastructure, the telecom systems, the lighting, the air conditioning, elevators, escalators etc. The load can be quite substantial, but let us take a figure of say, 1000Amps (equivalent to 10 houses). If the impedance on that line was half of one tenth of an Ohm – 0.05Ω the voltage drop across the cable using good old Ohm’s law would be 50V. This means that the substation needs to set its output voltage to around 280V so that when the power reaches your building it is 230V and within limits. However, if the load is suddenly removed – all the air conditioners are switched off, the buildings are empty and nobody is at home, all of a sudden you are hit with 280V, as the lower current causes less voltage to be dropped across the supply cables.

Some people call this a surge and think that surge suppression devices will protect them against it. In fact, this is not a surge but rather a voltage swell or overvoltage condition. (A surge is an overvoltage condition too, but of short duration -usually µseconds), and in order to safeguard your equipment you need to have some form of overvoltage protection. The only way to achieve this is by the use of either voltage regulators or by the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS).

A voltage regulator is a (usually mechanical) device that incorporates a tap changing, or continually variable transformer to keep the output voltage to a tight tolerance.

The Uninterruptible Power Supply, however will also provide overvoltage protection by keeping the voltage within limits. How well it does this depends upon the type of technology used:

  • The Offline Uninterruptible Power Supply will provide overvoltage protection by dropping to battery as soon as the mains voltage is out of limits. This will protect your equipment but if this happens regularly or for prolonged periods, the UPS battery will drain and you will lose power.
  • The Line Interactive Uninterruptible Power Supply will provide overvoltage protection by incorporating some voltage regulation. When the mains goes to high, the UPS System will “buck” the voltage downward by changing taps on a transformer. This has the benefit over the Offline UPS System in that there is no dropping to battery for marginal overvoltage conditions.
  • The Online Uninterruptible Power Supply, (aka Online Double Conversion Uninterruptible Power Supply) provides the best possible overvoltage protection. It has a very wide input voltage window, which means it can take very high voltages (as well as very low voltages) without reverting to battery. What’s more the voltage supplied to your system is constant and unchanging regardless of what is happening to the input voltage.

It’s another string to the Uninterruptible Power Supply bow, as not all power problems are as obvious as the power cut. Give your equipment overvoltage protection with a Uninterruptible Power Supply from UPSMart.

July 11, 2009

New Uninterruptible Power Supply Help Tool Added

Filed under: Help Guides,Shop — Tags: , , — upsmart @ 10:35 am

We’ve added a new tool to the shop to help in identifying which Uninterruptible Power Supply meets your requirements. Knowing what power consumption you require can be a big unknown for may people, so we have added a comprehensive list of over 2000 computers, printers, monitors, networking equipment, storage devices and telecom systems to our Select Uninterruptible Power Supply By Device tool.

Simply select what load you have and add your own items and the tool will calculate your total power requirement. Hit “Select My UPS System” and the tool integrates with the existing bo-selector tool to enable you to make further choices such as run time, technology, form factor, manufacturer to give you the Uninterruptible Power Supply that meets your requirements.

It’s a truly simplified process that makes selecting your ideal system easy. Give it a go here: Select Uninterruptible Power Supply By Device

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