A few days in power hell
For some reason, the power utility and my DSL provider decided to take a dump during the last week, both at the same time. It all started with a day without power, which was blamed on maintenance work. Until today, I ran an APC BackUPS 350 to filter out any power problems that could affect the desktop and other things plugged in it. Well it seems that the power cut and subsequent voltage fluctuations managed to terminate the UPS, rendering the phone line protection port useless. This caused my DSL line to effectively grind to a halt, and also killed my Linksys AG241 router in the process. A couple of days after all this happened, the phone line went dead for almost 48 hours, after which I spent one day running normally, and then all hell broke loose.
The power failed once again for the best part of a day, this time due to a blown transformer taken down by the heavy rain we had during five days, non-stop, and since I was without a UPS, the main hard drive on my desktop got totalled. It would just not boot up.
Drastic times call for drastic measures
Fed up with all this crap and having to reinstall Leopard, apps and get my data back from the latest Time Machine backup, I decided to overkill the problem.
Scotty! We need more power!!
Enter the Honda EC5000 gasoline-powered generator. I plan on converting it to LPG using a Honda kit so that it can run off our house’s big propane tank – much cleaner, longer run times, and no problems with fuel going stale.
I also had to buy a 50A switchover, disruptor, cable, connectors and other stuff to get the generator plugged into our home grid. The first part of the problem, our power utility, had been solved.
A big pile of Duracells
The second big part of the problem was the busted UPS. I decided to replace it with something beefier, not just present to filter out surges and drops, but to provide at least 15 minutes of runway to allow the generator to come online, while keeping powered the Mac Pro, two external hard drives, the new Cisco 877 DSL router that replaced the busted Linksys, three monitors, the Time Machine, and a Mac Mini I use as a media server. A 2,000VA UPS would cover this, but it cost just shy of 1,000€, but instead two 1,000VA SmartUPS units cost 250€ each, and would allow me to distribute load.
Right now, my main UPS handles the Mac Pro plus the external FireWire drives, and the secondary handles the rest (monitors, DSL router, etc.). After powering everything up, the main UPS is at 40% load, while the secondary sits comfortably at 20%. This gives me at least 30 minutes of runtime on the desktop, plenty of time to go outside, fire up the generator, and switch away from the outside grid.
Cost of all this? Almost 4,000€, but in the long run, it will be money well spent. It will be the difference between falling behind work schedules by a full week and keeping up as if nothing happened.
LPG is certainly a superior fuel for long-term storage, but gasoline engines simply run too fast, too loud, and too inefficiently. If you need power for more than a day or two, choose a diesel generator. It runs slower, quieter, cooler, and won’t tear itself apart running for a week straight.
Looks like you made a smart move buying two UPS’s for half the cost of one… I lucked out recently and found a $300 UPS with a perfectly good battery at a used store for $30… which is what the replacement battery for my old UPS would have cost! A couple days after I installed it, our power went out… it kept 3 PCs and a shelf of networking gear running for almost 15 minutes without going into “battery nearly drained” panic mode.