[mythtv-users] OT: apc backup

[Gary Buhrmaster]

On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 5:13 PM, Mike Thomas <mt3 at pfw.demon.co.uk> wrote:
....
> Dear Mr. Buhrmaster,
>
> You seem to have looked into these matters more than I thought worth my
> while (why polish a turd).

It was an act of survival.  I ran into many of these issues
when understanding a couple of failure modes at the
location I was at (it had nothing to do with my actual
job, but I had sufficient background to understand the
details).  And I had access to labs with lots of test and
development equipment in addition the usual sources
of information of varying quality (i.e. the Internet).

> ... If you wouldn't mind, might you care to share your
> observations?

While I would be happy to share anything I knew, none
of it is sufficiently current for a decision on a new device.

I have not looked carefully at any of the recent lines
of UPS from any recent manufacturer to see what they have
turned into.  I suspect the lines went two directions (cheaper
and cheap consumer stuff that I would not use to protect
anything of importance, and much more expensive commercial
stuff targeted towards the OPM crowd).  The last time I was
(partially) involved with a major UPS eval was for an entire
Data Center "important infrastructure" revamp using multiple
mains sources and 500KW gensets and UPSs and
substantial electrical distribution system rework (it was a
very big project).  The real work was done by a firm with
expertice in the integration of numerous vendors products
for data center power and cooling (the source of chilled water
was off location, but if site power failed, you really wanted to
have a small chiller, for if you do not cool the DC, putting
power into it is not always in your interest...).  That is
a scale for which you always want to involve real
experts in multiple fields.

So, my observations are too old (at least one, and
perhaps two generations) for all the "medium" players
in the field (up to around 5-8KW) to be useful, and I no
longer have access to a sufficiently outfitted lab to run
any useful tests with even if I had samples of various
UPSs (and we tried to always test if we cared about
how the devices actually performed; specs are wonderful
things, but are just another type of lie), and no way to
legitimately exercise the call centers.