horn@rt5.cs.wisc.edu (Mark Horn) (04/07/90)
In article <4491@cbnewsj.ATT.COM> gnome@cbnewsj.ATT.COM (ronald.l.fletcher) writes: >Some of both I guess. The reference manual claims the MAX power >for the UNIXPC is 400 Watts. I ran an energy audit on my house >last weekend to see what is costing me so much money and found >the UNIXPC to be drawing .86 Amps (@120V). This was with heavy disk >activity and the screen at full bright, 2 fans running on low. >With the screen off and the disk idle the current went down to >about .77. I didnt have the time to disconnect any fans to >check for a difference. This machine is configured with a 1MB >mother board, a 40MB HH Microscience drive, 1/2Meg combo board, >1/2 MB RAM card and a VoicePower Board. All the ports and the VP were >idle during the measurements. I wonder what you have to load these >up with to reach the MAX. I could ask someone around here what this means but perhaps an explanation will be of general benefit to many people. Given the above results and someone who wanted to get away with a cheap UPS, what kind of numbers should I look for? I think Boyd Ostroff said that his power supply was 386 Watts (?). Well, then if the UNIXPC draws .86 Amps, what does this translate into for a reasonable UPS? Say I want one that will last XX minutes, how do I translate .86 Amps into XX minutes? I assume that the rating on the power supply has everything to do with it. Sorry if this is so obvious that everyone under the sun knows this, but I don't Thanks for the help... - sparkie -- ___ ___ ___ ___ _ _ _ ___ / __\| . \/ . \| . \| |/ /|_|| _ | "Mothers Against Skunks Driving... \___\| __/| || _ /| < | || _[ ...because stinking and driving don't mix" \___/|_| |_|_||_|\\|_|\_\|_||___| - heard on a madison radio station ARPA: harier!sparkie@cs.wisc.edu, sparkie@uhura.cs.wisc.edu UUCP: ...{harvard|rutgers|ucbvax}!uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!madnix!harier!sparkie
ostroff@Oswego.EDU (Boyd Ostroff) (04/10/90)
In article <4623@daffy.cs.wisc.edu> horn@rt5.cs.wisc.edu (Mark Horn) writes: >In article <4491@cbnewsj.ATT.COM> gnome@cbnewsj.ATT.COM (ronald.l.fletcher) writes: >I think Boyd Ostroff said that his power supply was 386 Watts (?). Well, then >if the UNIXPC draws .86 Amps, what does this translate into for a reasonable >UPS? Say I want one that will last XX minutes, how do I translate .86 Amps into >XX minutes? I assume that the rating on the power supply has everything to do >with it. Actually it's 325 watts. The duration that you get has nothing to do with the wattage rating, though. The wattage (or volt-amps) just tells you how big a load you can plug into it without blowing the inverter. It would be wasteful to buy a unit with a higher wattage rating than you need; actually you're interested in battery capacity (amp-hours). Find out the amp-hour rating of the battery and divide it by the current draw of your equipment. Tripp-Lite makes another series which come without batteries and you supply your own (or buy one of theirs). If you need capacity, you might check these out - get your own cheap car (or boat) battery and hide it under your desk. I bought mine mainly on price. I circled all the appropriate items on one of those magazine "reader service cards" before I bought my UPS and got tons of catalogs and spec sheets back in the mail (including a newsletter from some company that I still receive showing monster installations at radio stations, etc :-). These spec sheets will tell you everything you want to know (and more) about battery capacity, transfer time, waveform, etc. ||| Boyd Ostroff - Tech Director - Dept of Theatre - SUNY Oswego ||| Sys Admin - "The CallBoard" - (315) 947-6414 - 1200/2400 baud ||| ostroff@oswego.oswego.edu - cboard!ostroff@oswego.oswego.edu