120V/240V AC Output Quality Of Welders

This may be astupid question but what's a UPS

Uninteruptable Power Supply. Battery backup for a computer system in case of power failure.

Cheers Trevor Jones

1. Never a stupid question. It is smart to ask!

A UPS is "Un-interrupted Power Supply" - e.g. battery backup wall plug. The battery drives an inverter that then drives the load that is plugged in. It also has a high level of line interference and line hit protection.

I have two in this room that I sit in now. Two computers and two printers and two monitors.

The one on this system has 37 minutes it can handle the load and keep up. That also means that I have xx minutes or more to fire up a shaver, a radio whatever I want when the power is out. Mountain house so it happens here.

I have my TV, DVD, Tape deck, DVDBurner, PDA all plugged into a protected socket(s) - not battery backed up ones. They protect from voltage spiking that occurs on the power line almost every day - everywhere!

Martin

90 volts is about the low end. I had 90V here and my Compaq refused to boot. - The UPS refused actually. I didn't have a auto generate switcher in the UPS.

Power company fixed the temp patch in the substation and got us back on-line.

Mart>

Obviously something worth looking in to.

Thanks

Jimbo

Here is a link to a former employer you can learn more than you ever wanted to know about UPSs off their site.

Be warned there are a number of different designs for UPSs and most will not function from a DC output generator check with the manufacturer. Most will not function properly with a laser printer attached, the in rush is too high from the laser printer. UPSs are allot like welders there is a big difference between consumer and industrial products and you do get what you pay for.

Doug Hamilton

Or go to

Martin

These FAQ's are pretty good too.

thing I learned that left me feeling frustrated is that the protecting varistors wear out and most devices will provide no protection when they are gone so you never know if the one you have is doing any good or not.

These FAQs address my comments about getting what you pay for. Better products have built in diagnostics and alarms to warn you when components fail. The most important feature if you have concerns about power quality from your generator is to get an on-line or double conversion UPS. These units convert all incoming AC into DC then convert it back from DC to AC so you have complete isolation from the input to the output. Machines that are sold as "Off-line", "Stand-by" should be avoided unless cost is the most important factor, the protection is not much better than a surge suppresser power bar with the bonus of battery back up. "Line-interactive" machines are the middle ground providing a little more protection by basically conditioning the line power by suppressing the surges and boosting the sags and with varying degrees of filtering depending the quality of the machine for other line garbage. Line-interactive machines tend to get over worked when connected to a noisy generator or a generator that the frequency or voltage wanders allot, depending on the machine it may shut down, fail, or go to bypass none of these condition is desirable.

Doug Hamilt> These FAQ's are pretty good too.

varistors wear out and most devices

have is doing any good or not.