OT: old ups new use

[GCC Consulting]

Do any of you or your clients have any older unused UPS' around?

Many times you or your clients will purchase a new UPS rather than just
replacing the battery. This is especially true as most of new UPS' connect
via USB cables rather than the older serial cables. Most of the time my
clients did not know what to do with the unit which was being replaced. Most
of them offered them to me, and I took them.

I have put a few of these older UPS' to good use at home. I have purchased
new batteries for these older units and connected my flat-panel televisions,
cable boxes, and any other electronics that these items use.

I have FIOS which comes with its own battery backup. However here in
Maryland, we seem to have a lot of problems with the loss of electricity
after storms so I added an external UPS to increase the amount of runtime
that my phones will have.

One incident which occurred earlier this year, was when we had a power loss
at about midnight. I have been working in my office downstairs when the
power went out and shut down my computer. I went upstairs and told my wife
that the power was off.  She said "the power can't be off the television is
still on". I had to remind her that the only reason it was on was that it
was working on battery. She was able to watch for about 30 minutes more and
luckily the power came back on just before the backup battery was about to
run out of power.

What most of us forget, is that the flat-panel TVs are actually computers
with monitors attached. The cable boxes are also computers. That is why I
like connecting the systems to a good UPS. All the ones that I am using are
APC smart ups. Not only do these offer battery backup but voltage
regulation.

Just something to think about and maybe a good way to recycle some older
electronics rather than putting them into a landfill.


Richard Kreiss
GCC Consulting

Office: 410-653-2813