need...more...power

[cellio]

When I came home from work on erev Sukkot I was greeted by the plaintive wail of a UPS that had lost its will to live (thank you thank you thank you for not doing that 12 hours later!). There was nothing to be done then but unplug things. After Shabbat I replaced it; while I briefly considered just ordering a new battery, I noted that I was using all outlets on the UPS and all the wall outlets and was still resorting to a power squid, and on a recent power outage the UPS hadn't really held up very long. I was asking it to do too much; time for a bigger one. (And anyway, I didn't want my equipment to be unprotected for the several more days it would take for a new battery to arrive.)

This is as orderly as these things get:

Comments

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

I like the labels.

[cellio]

It's either that or trace wires when I need to know what's what. Labels are easier. (Everything is labelled, though you can't see them all.) And taped to the side of the UPS is the best place for the receipt while it's in warranty.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

The labels are very sensible indeed. :)

...compulsion...too...strong...resistance...is...useless....

[dragonazure.livejournal.com]

But, Cap'n I canna' give ye any more power.

OK. Now I feel better. 8^P

How much current is all that stuff pulling? You've got the classic fire hazard in a crate look going on there.

Re: ...compulsion...too...strong...resistance...is...useless....

[cellio]

I am using the provided outlets, with no overloading, for the types of equipment for which UPSs are sold. If that's a fire hazard waiting to happen, then are UPSs with more than some magic number of outlets inherently unsafe in household settings?

(Three of the ten have battery backup; the rest are just surge-protected.)

Several of those plugs are for devices that are usually off or sleeping -- printer, scanner, one external hard drive, legacy PC. I hope the network hub, USB hub, and speakers are drawing fairly small amounts of power. That leaves a Mac Mini, an LCD monitor, and one external hard drive (Time Machine) that are usually more active.

All that said, I always put my UPS on a milk crate (or some such) instead of on the floor, partly for better air circulation and partly to keep it out of range of easy cat outputs.

Re: ...compulsion...too...strong...resistance...is...useless....

[dragonazure.livejournal.com]

It just looks scary in the picture. If things are mostly on standby, its probably OK. I was considering all the fire safety lectures we get every holiday season about overloading the circuits with too many lights--but I think that was from the days when light strings were made of incandescent bulbs....

Offhand, I can't quote you what is considered "safe". It has to do with the current your household wiring is rated for, and that is going to be based on the age of your house and the electrical codes (if any) that were in place when it was built or last renovated.

Getting the UPS up off the floor is a great idea.

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

That photo scares me. ;-)

[cellio]

I'm not overloading any outlets; the UPS came with 10, which I am exactly using. I would hope that the device would be up to powering the outlets it provides, but I've had misplaced hope before. :-) (The only other thing plugged into the wall is a seldom-used lamp.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

Oh, I meant that the tangle of cables scares me. It looks like a Gordinian knot.

[cellio]

They're actually about as untangled as I can make them. These things tend to degrade over time, but since I was replacing the UPS anyway I unplugged everything, laid out all the cords, and then plugged them in as best I could while getting the important ones into the battery-protected slots. I just have too many powered devices on my desk. :-)

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

At a previous job I took a black sharpie (for light colored backgrounds) and a silver sharpie (for dark) and wrote some kind of label directly onto every plug that went into the UPS or my CPU, printer, scanner, etc (e.g. cables that could be unplugged at both ends got both ends labeled). This was very useful later when things had to be disassembled for moving or replacement.

Labels on cables

[tc-tick.livejournal.com]

Instead of "flag" labels, better to put the labels flat along the cables as these don't get caught and torn-off as easily when extracting a cable.

Re: Labels on cables

[cellio]

That's a good idea. Having just tested it, I need to get some wider tape for it to stick. (I need to use most of the width/height of the tape for the writing; a cord-width isn't big enough for me to read.)