Frequently Asked Questions
A UPS is a Power Conditioner with a battery that offers protection against power failures and black outs. more
Find out why our clients are thankful they installed a UPS to help protect their business. more
The following check list should ensure that you benefit from our experience and expertise. more
The power that your electrical provider directs into your home or office is susceptible to many disturbances. Without a UPS protecting your devices, computer files may be corrupted, data lost, hard drives can crash or the power fluctuation can even shut down your entire operation.
- Power Failure - Total loss of power caused by lightning strikes, downed power lines and accidents.
- Power Sag - Short term low voltage caused by the startup of large loads, utility switching, or utility equipment failure. AS well as crashes, sags can damage hardware.
- Power Surge - Short term (more than three nanoseconds) high voltage caused by heavy equipment being turned off or by utility switching. This too can damage computer hardware.
- Spike – a sudden increase in voltage lasting less than three nanoseconds. Spikes have the potential to cause catastrophic equipment failure.
- Constant high voltage – causes premature equipment failure.
- Constant low voltage – also known as a brownout, causes premature equipment failure particularly power supplies and electric motors.
- Switching transients – sudden, very high rises in voltage caused by the electrical supplier switching the source of your electricity from one part of the grid to another.
- Noise on the electrical waveform – also referred to as RFI (radio frequency interference) & EMI (electro-magnetic interference) can cause premature equipment failure, communication errors, data corruption etc.
There are three distinctly different UPS systems that you can purchase. They are the Back-Up (stand-by) system, the Line Interactive system and the True Online Double Conversion System.
- Backup or stand-by systems are the most basic type of UPS, they have no voltage regulation so must resort to the battery when the incoming voltage is too high or too low. QPP does not recommend the use of this type of UPS particularly where voltage regulation is an issue which is pretty much everywhere in Queensland, especially in rural or industrial environments.
- Line Interactive UPS's apply automatic voltage regulation (AVR) which bucks and boosts the electrical signal so that it maintains a standard of +/- 240 volts. This type of UPS can apply this AVR to an input variance of as much as 30 percent before sending it into battery backup. This means that it can manage dips and surges from 168 to 312 volts without the battery being employed. Once the voltage dips below or surges higher than this range, the battery will take over.
- The True Online Double Conversion UPS actually takes the AC current coming into the system, converts it to DC and then back to AC for the running of crucial electronic components. This True Online system is the best because it insures that the power entering your equipment is totally independent of the power that is entering the building. This is extremely important if information and reliability are crucial to the operation. This refers to businesses who trade online, medical equipment and crucial servers. The True Online Double Conversion UPS presents the highest degree of power filtration, because the rectifier and inverter run continuously the components and design parameters in this type of UPS must be of the highest quality, this is why an on-line UPS will always cost more than a line interactive or stand-by design. more
All electronic products that either require long initialisation times or must be accessible at all times would be better off with a UPS. This includes computers, medical equipment and routers for internet connections. Data projectors, home theatre systems, telephone an security systems can all benefit from the support of a UPS.
Yes – in the case of a stand-by or line interactive UPS it is a good idea to install an inexpensive plug-in surge filter like the Powersmart PS100 or Zapcatcher 33 in front of the UPS. The reason for this is that not only do most UPS’s only have a limited amount of in-built surge protection but more importantly they have no indication as to whether that surge protection is still operative. Because the active components in a surge filter are sacrificial they may well be exhausted if lightning strikes nearby or a number of smaller spikes or surges are experienced due to nearby industrial activity. Whilst surge protectors are also subject the foregoing scenarios they usually have one or more indicators to show whether their protection is still active. In the case of a true on-line UPS the installation of a good surge protector is also recommended but for different reasons. We have seen many instances of true on-line UPS’s being affected by lightning, the UPS does its job and protects the connected equipment but in the process it is severely damaged. The UPS protected the load but what protected the UPS?