My Server Project... APC Portable Power?!?!

Well,

I put off some major photography purchases for a computer server project I am building for my home/office. I am getting a full size rack and a few supermicro servers which will total 5000 Gigs of part of a DAS server.

I found a KILLER deal on some batteries being sold in my part of town by some TIs.

Basically to make a very long story short, and keep it related to photography, I picked up 6 APC 1000VA – 1500VA batteries. All of them have Sine Wave clean power and are good to about 1000 watts of continuous power.

I decided to take one of them, hook it up to all three of my alien bees, and it ran all of them just fine. This saved me a ton of cash from buying a Vagabon 300 AB portable power.

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very cool, so those UPSs will run without being plugged into anything? what model is it and how much did you pay?

smoothage....real nice!

deadpass wrote in post #3130504
very cool, so those UPSs will run without being plugged into anything? what model is it and how much did you pay?

Unfortunately they are not cheap brand new...
http://www.newegg.com …aspx?Item=N82E1​6842101130

I bought them from a company going out of business, and my killer deal was $100 / each.... I made a deal with the owner I could not pass up so I bought everyone they had in stock.

I bought them to run my servers and computers, but its nice to know I can use them with my ABs if I had to...

deadpass wrote in post #3130504
very cool, so those UPSs will run without being plugged into anything? what model is it and how much did you pay?

I think the feature you are looking for them to run without being plugged in is called a cold start. I'm not sure if every UPS does this but I've heard it called that before.

UnlnvlslblE wrote in post #3130798
I think the feature you are looking for them to run without being plugged in is called a cold start. I'm not sure if every UPS does this but I've heard it called that before.

It is called a cold start or cold boot. Most UPS units do that feature now adays, atleast ones I obtained sure have that feature.

As long as this unit has a charge it can be turned on and the power can be restored (even w/o being plugged in) It really was designed as a device to keep computers running if the power dies, and to shut the computer down automatically (graceful shutdown) should be battery no longer be able to sustain the system w/o AC power.

I am sure the use with strobes was never in the scope of design, but I just wanted to let you guys know it works, because someone might have an old one laying around they can use instead of buying a Vagabon.

Inside every UPS is a 6 or 12 volt battery. Take the old battery out of a UPS and wire in (it doesn't have to sit inside the case) another battery of a similar voltage. The battery meters aren't very accurate and should really be ignored. I have an old UPS with an alarm that sounds when the voltage drops to a certain level which is when one must cease operations. As I bought it solely as a backup to give me vital minutes to save everything and shutdown, a battery meter was unimportant.

The other battery could be a much larger capacity, giving lots of time for use before the alarm sounds.

StealthLude your a legend... I asked at about ten different computer stores if this was possible and they all said no.

So how long do they run for?
How many flashes could you get out of them?
Does the power continually drop or does it only drop when you actually fire the flash?

This is huge!

REIGN180 wrote in post #3135483
StealthLude your a legend... I asked at about ten different computer stores if this was possible and they all said no.

So how long do they run for?
How many flashes could you get out of them?
Does the power continually drop or does it only drop when you actually fire the flash?

This is huge!

I don't think computer stores would know the answer to your questions since they are.... computer stores. I’ve been told by someone that it won't work because the current draw might be too much for the UPS...(might be true for the smaller units)

One key thing that gave me the idea to try it out, was that when you look at AB Vagabon and the Tronix Explorer portable power is that the unit outputs Sine Wave power.... Most UPS computer units don’t do this.

Its only until you get into APC Smart UPS units that provide conditioned clean Sine Wave power... So I said what the hell, and tried it out. And it worked.

I still dont know if its bad for the unit, but so far so good... I haven’t done too much testing, but with all three AB units connected @ full power, and after like 15-20 shots, the power bar didn’t even move... I assume it can take care of at least a solid 1/2 day worth of shooting...

I bought these units for my computers, and not to use with my ABs. Since I paid 100/each I wasnt too worried about it so I gave it a shot. If you look at the cost of a new unit, it might be worth your while just buying a vagabon.