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-   -   Recommend UPS for VCRs, TBCs? (https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-capture/12670-recommend-ups-vcrs.html)

vikinagy97 03-29-2022 06:54 AM

Recommend UPS for VCRs, TBCs?
 
https://amzn.to/384W4L3

CyberPower CP1500AVRLCD Intelligent LCD UPS System, 1500VA/900W, 12 Outlets, AVR, Mini-Tower

RobustReviews 03-29-2022 07:54 AM

No opinion on them per se, but that looks like a US/Canadian model - is that what you're looking for?

vikinagy97 03-29-2022 07:59 AM

Does it have a European version?

traal 03-29-2022 11:56 AM

A UPS that doesn't periodically test the battery and tell you when it needs to be replaced will someday fail as soon as the power goes out.

vikinagy97 03-29-2022 12:11 PM

Traal, and these are true about the Ups that I linked?

traal 03-29-2022 12:17 PM

I didn't see anything in the manual about the firmware periodically testing the battery, so it's up to you to pull the plug every once in a while and make sure the battery still holds a charge.

vikinagy97 03-29-2022 12:29 PM

Then which Cyberpower Ups would be the best in Hungary? Which model can test itself?

dpalomaki 03-29-2022 01:39 PM

I've no information on that UPS. Will offer the following thoughts.

1. - Read the reviews, especially the one- and two-star for possible common problem threads on this and similar units.
2. - I note that the percent distribution of 0ne- and five-star reviews runs 4% & 82% for the several similar APC and Cyberpower units.
3. - Given the similarities, what is not clear is whether or not they share the same internals just repackaged and rebranded. Also, quality controls may be different. However, the similar percentages may be an indicator.
4. - Evaluate availability of convenient service support if you think you might need it. Shipping half way around the world could be a non-starter.
5. - Try obtain a copy of the user manuals to evaluate its features and usability.
6. - Keep in mind that Amazon and other publications are driven in large part by advertising, so one will rarely read negative reviews.

latreche34 03-29-2022 02:06 PM

One important thing to keep in mind is to buy a pure sine wave not PWM one, PWM are noisy in terms of interference, degrade the batteries and electronic component quickly.

RobustReviews 03-29-2022 02:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34 (Post 83812)
One important thing to keep in mind is to buy a pure sine wave not PWM one, PWM are noisy in terms of interference, degrade the batteries and electronic component quickly.

Depends which 'noise' you're referring to, but they're both pretty horrendous in terms of broadband RF, which is the critical factor here.

SMPSs don't need 'clean' sinewaves, it doesn't make any electrical sense, which is something I have to keep reiterating on here. SMPS do they their own power filtering, they have to, they wouldn't work anywhere near effectively without it.

Power 'cleaning' is a bit of a marketing term, it doesn't mean much in the context its used on here. If somebody wants to explain the benefit of perfect sines using the schematic I posted please do.

Theogen 03-29-2022 03:57 PM

I use this on my computer
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00429N19W/
CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD PFC Sinewave UPS System, 1500VA/1000W, 12 Outlets, AVR, Mini Tower
I believe these are recommended for power supplies that use active PFC(which includes many newer models).

I had a power supply fail connected to this where the power supply became shorted.
The UPS tripped before the circuit breaker tripped.
The UPS was fine once I replaced the computers' power supply.

-Theogen

RobustReviews 03-29-2022 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Theogen (Post 83814)
I use this on my computer
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00429N19W/
CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD PFC Sinewave UPS System, 1500VA/1000W, 12 Outlets, AVR, Mini Tower
I believe these are recommended for power supplies that use active PFC(which includes many newer models).

I had a power supply fail connected to this where the power supply became shorted.
The UPS tripped before the circuit breaker tripped.
The UPS was fine once I replaced the computers' power supply.

-Theogen

That's the correct discrimination in automatic disconnection, if you imagine the topology of an active UPS there should have been no overcurrent condition on the UPS supply.

I don't know where you are in the world, but ADOS for the circuit can be rather slow to prevent nuisance tripping with small overloads, but that's conjecture without knowing your exact specifications.

The SMPS I imagine lunched itself anyway, guessing it was the primary that shorted?

Theogen 03-29-2022 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RobustReviews (Post 83815)
The SMPS I imagine lunched itself anyway, guessing it was the primary that shorted?

I believe it was the primary side. It was an EVGA SuperNOVA 850 T2, 80+ TITANIUM 850W
https://www.evga.com/products/produc...220-T2-0850-X1

When it blew there was a loud bang and sparks.

I measured from the line pin to ground after it was removed from the PC and measure about 2 Ohms.
I was able to send it back under Warranty so I don't have it any more.

-Theogen

lordsmurf 03-29-2022 04:26 PM

Cyberpower CP1500 is excellent, I use several myself.

Note: For video gear, PFC really isn't needed. The non-PFC are a bit less costly, also 1500 with LCD. The model in the first link is non-PFC.

Amazon reviews are often left by idiots, especially for certain products. UPS have max/avg/min loads, and people always gripe about unit "not lasting". Also be sure to sort by latest, not "popular", because people tend to overly like bad reviews. Sometimes reviews say more about the review leaver (the person behind the keyboard), not the item.

Again, as per another thread, APC is too touchy. For example, they'll fail with faults on power grids that use modern usage pings (aka, billing usage with a guy reading the meter with a clipboard). It's been a few years since I last bought an APC, but I don't trust them anymore. The units hard faulted and failed permanently after a few months of the pings.

@RobustReviews, you're too anti-UPS. However, most of us want to protect our gear investments, not gamble on the idea that the wall socket is "good enough". (It's not.)

RobustReviews 03-29-2022 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf (Post 83817)
Cyberpower CP1500 is excellent, I use several myself.

Note: For video gear, PFC really isn't needed. The non-PFC are a bit less costly, also 1500 with LCD. The model in the first link is non-PFC.

Amazon reviews are often left by idiots, especially for certain products. UPS have max/avg/min loads, and people always gripe about unit "not lasting". Also be sure to sort by latest, not "popular", because people tend to overly like bad reviews. Sometimes reviews say more about the review leaver (the person behind the keyboard), not the item.

Again, as per another thread, APC is too touchy. For example, they'll fail with faults on power grids that use modern usage pings (aka, billing usage with a guy reading the meter with a clipboard). It's been a few years since I last bought an APC, but I don't trust them anymore. The units hard faulted and failed permanently after a few months of the pings.

@RobustReviews, you're too anti-UPS. However, most of us want to protect our gear investments, not gamble on the idea that the wall socket is "good enough". (It's not.)

It's nothing to do with the 'wall socket', it's the reality that they just don't prove much in this application. I've read various reasons for using them, and bluntly few of them actually make any electrical sense when dealing with comparatively modern switch-mode supplies.

I've not discouraged anybody from buying one, I just think the cheap ones tend to spew RF noise, which is a demonstrable fact and why they're generally not used in anything using RF, I certainly wouldn't use them in a professional application without adequate sheilding.

If you've got issues which what I've described, please do sound them out and we'll try and work through them.

Taking PFC as 'Power Factor Correction it's wholly unwarranted in domestic applications, it's another deep topic and unless we all want to the weeds, you're right, it's not required. If you are billed in VAh potentially (I don't think many places in the world do this in domestic supplies), but then the additional cost of the unit will likely be absorbed in any savings anyway.

lordsmurf 03-29-2022 04:50 PM

As I've said before, I can only guess you've never lost a $$$$ piece of gear. And a UPS would have saved it.

Nobody here is advocating cheap UPS, off-brand UPS, etc.

There's nothing you can do, write, or say, to change the facts of electrical life for most of us. Power blinks (often violently), dips, surges, etc -- and with no storms, clear skies. It happens. When it happens, you can use a UPS, or risk losing $$$$ gear. It's really that simple.

UPS is insurance.

A PFC UPS is for desktop computers. These days, it's required.

Too much is made of mode switching, and is never as bad as people scream about. "OMG, the power dipped for 0.002 seconds!" 2ms. Really? Power events are a heck of a lot longer than that. I'll take 2ms any day, over the alternatives.

RobustReviews 03-29-2022 05:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf (Post 83820)
As I've said before, I can only guess you've never lost a $$$$ piece of gear. And a UPS would have saved it.

Nobody here is advocating cheap UPS, off-brand UPS, etc.

There's nothing you can do, write, or say, to change the facts of electrical life for most of us. Power blinks (often violently), dips, surges, etc -- and with no storms, clear skies. It happens. When it happens, you can use a UPS, or risk losing $$$$ gear. It's really that simple.

UPS is insurance.

A PFC UPS is for desktop computers. These days, it's required.

Too much is made of mode switching, and is never as bad as people scream about. "OMG, the power dipped for 0.002 seconds!" 2ms. Really? Power events are a heck of a lot longer than that. I'll take 2ms any day, over the alternatives.

There's no difference between a desktop computer and a VCR in terms of power supply, I'm not sure what that's about if we're taking PFC to mean 'Power Factor Correction', it's a commercial consideration for VA billing, it's nothing to do with the type of device. Unless I'm misunderstanding PFC. If you're not billed in VAh it means precisely nil. For commercial premises, absolutely, it's becoming mandatory, but for domestic properties, sorry, it means absolutely nothing.

It's reactive power correction, it's nothing to do with computers. Again, unless I'm misunderstanding what is meant by PFC. You can be running lagging or leading merrily on Wh billing as, well, you're measuring Watts.

Your power 'dips' every 0.16s Stateside anyway, so you're right, that means absolutely nothing.

There are manifold nonsense reasons given on here for using them, and most of them are completely incorrect or nonsensical. If you or others want to suggest them, at least pick the right reasons.

lordsmurf 03-30-2022 02:10 AM

Perhaps you do misunderstand? For this conversation, PFC = active PFC

https://www.cyberpower.com/global/en...inewave_gen._1
Quote:

The equipment with active power factor correction (PFC) design requires Pure Sine Wave source. The UPS provides pure sine wave to meet the requirement of the equipment, enhancing system efficiency and saving electricity costs.
Modern desktops require active PFC UPS, pure sine wave, not just any UPS. When I was spec'ing out my Skylake system in 2015, I learned of active PFC, having not built a computer since 2009. In those 6 years, there was a change in computer PSUs. It was just starting to become the dominant PSU in computers. It's now 7 years later, and I'd imagine almost all now require active PFC.

VCR PSU and computer PSU are vastly different.

Your continued comments on UPS seem to be an attempt to dissuade our members from using UPS to protect their gear, and that's really starting to piss me off. And that's not a place that you want to be. I'm not sure if that's you intention, but that's how it's coming across.

99% of the reason for have gear on UPS is protection from bad/unreliable power. Not clean (and usually unrealistic) cuts or dips in power, but the more common violent shudders of power going on/off/on/off/etc followed by a fail. That nukes our expensive gear, almost always. It's especially true of Panasonic decks, and often TBCs (which have zero power protections, simple PSUs, as those items were designed to be behind redundant power sources).

1% of the reason is sometimes it can clean bad power. Sometimes power noise is a simple issue of the voltage being too variable, such as a vacuum cleaner in another room drawing too much power from the board. AVR stops that spike/dip draw.

You may have an electrical background more advanced than my own, but I'm no dummy on using these devices. I can't build a UPS, but I definitely know how/when/why to use it.

RobustReviews 03-30-2022 06:58 AM

Yep. Power Factor Correction.

You're right when you say it's not required, what is alarming is that you don't actually seem to understand power-factor or its implications and then argue about power supply design? Power Factor is one of the first building blocks of AC power theory, it's like understanding the basic idea of a TBC in video capture.

Power Factor is a consideration for measuring energy usage (from the point of view of the user), it's absolutely nothing to do with anything here, so you're right, it is nothing to worry about, but despite what the marketing spiel tries to massage, it's just Active Power Factor Correction.

Luckily, in homes we generally don't need to care about Pf, also any modern PSU made in the last 10-15 years will have either its own APFC, or even reasonable passive PFC, which is not ideal but it'll correct to reasonable limits.

Those 'energy saving plugs' that blight various internet sites are simply passive Pf units (if you're lucky), so there's an argument they could theoretically cut down on reactive power, but as homes aren't billed in VA it's a sketchy argument.

Pf leads to weird situations where it can be more efficient to run a motor 'doing nothing' to correct capacitive reactance and save cash. It's a bit of a brain bender when you first encounter it.

It's a huge consideration now, but don't get hung up on it for domestic billing, you're only billed on Power (Watts). With reactive power you're (and this is crude) drawing power, doing nothing with it and handing it back to the grid sixty times a second. It's not helpful for the grid, and losses occur in the grid due to it, but your home energy meter almost certainly bills you for the stuff you consume, not the stuff you're just volleying backwards and forwards. It's heating up wires though, meaning that energy is being consumed in the grid, just you're not paying for it.

Commercial properties are billed for the whole lot (including the 'pointless' element) and here at least, companies will be fined for drawing excessive reactive power as it just loads the grid for no practical benefit. Lots of SMPSs lead to mad things with Pf.

But that's not the contention, but I hope that explains a little as to what it means at least. There's a lot of maths involved if you dig into it, as it's an effect of voltage/current phase relationships.

I'd love to hear your rationale behind why they're vastly different, they are both switching power supplies, they both have Pf considerations, they all work on the same core topology? Unless you've got a Sinclair Spectrum or something with a linear power supply? I can't accept that they're vastly different electronically, they certainly have vastly more in common than they differ.

Anyway, I stand by my comments (and the schematic), for this device, it's really not critical, it's broadly transient immune and the DC components are 100% isolated from the AC side, the schematic has been posted so if you want to explain where I'm wrong please do, but I can't help feeling like I'm being brushed aside here for actually using electrical theory, real-world practice and the schematic to explain how this works, and why plugging it directly into the mains has a non-zero, but an impossibly small likelihood of causing problems.

Remember this supply has a very robust input, I can model it if you like, but it's a pretty narrow window for the frequencies it will pass (imagine it as a passband-filter), anything far without the bounds of 50-60Hz won't make it past the LC arrangement, theory and practice. Without this, the thing becomes a collection of components on a board not doing much.

Voltage drops aren't really an issue with this topology, again we're applying the linear regulation practice to SMPS - you've got a wide window of AC voltages that will happily run this, as I keep stressing the AC and DC sides live in completely different worlds, the switching regulator will deal happily with this within the bounds of usual 'dips and surges' without any noticeable change on the DC output, this just is how these circuits work.

You can accept this or no, but you're arguing against fundamental electrical laws if you do, so come 'with receipts'.

The 'zero protections' thing, we've covered that - it's simply untrue. I just don't think you realise where the protection is rather than design issues. You've repeated many times that 'professional gear doesn't have protection' which is true nonsense.

I'm not sure why you believe this, I'm not sure where it comes from, but I can categorically say that yes, it does, usually to a far greater degree than domestic equipment as well. Over-current and continuity of supply are vastly different topics, a UPS does absolutely nothing to prevent an over-current condition should a fault arise.

Fire is quite a consideration in all equipment, which a UPS doesn't care about. No commercial products would meet any standard without over-current protection, stop repeating this, I don't know where you heard it, or why you think this, but it's 100% solid crap. No remotely competent commercial designer of any product would ignore basic supply disconnection strategies, because, well, the product simply catching fire under a fault condition is the most likely outcome. Any that exist are woefully subpar products and wouldn't meet any sort of international standard.

I think with little DC fed TBCs you forget the protection is in the PSU, which is a perfectly fine strategy, it doesn't have to be in the device for small DC products, although they often are fused anyway - if you're looking for a glass fuse you probably won't find one.

I'm not trying to piss you off, I wouldn't dedicate time out of my hectic days to do so, what I am trying (and it feels like I'm banging my head against a wall) to explain is some of the crooked thinking you have about this and then repeat as 'fact'. I do not think you're a dummy at all, I do believe you don't have a great understanding of AC power theory and power supplies, which is exactly the topic under discussion here.

As I've said before, you're justly incredibly well respected in this field, but some of the posts you've made on this topic are full of fundamental errors and demonstrate a misunderstanding in this field, some of the terms you've used are nonsensical, you have misidentified components or are malapportioned theory, it's not helpful and I would have imagined you'd rather be actually 'right' than insistent that categorically untrue statements are correct.

I can't help thinking you take 'switch mode' to mean it's able to operate on different world voltages, this is not what the switching refers to in the name. This is a common error and it's often assumed that 'switching mode' means that the device can operate on 110VAC/230VAC without adjustment. switching refers to the method of power regulation, very crudely the AC circuit is switched on and off in the kHz range to provide regulated output. This explains why they can operate on a range of voltages.

In summary;
  • Power factor isn't a consideration in domestic situations;
  • This PSU is unlikely to cause any damage to equipment in the vast majority of real-world transient situations;
  • 'Cleaning' power for SMPSs is a bit futile, they do a mighty fine job of it themselves, and they don't really care anyway;
  • Professional equipment has over-current protection;
  • Your electricity switches off and on 60 times a second, an SMPS switches on and off thousands of times a second.
I really do hope we've not fallen out, and that's truly not the intention, but some of the remarks you've made on this topic have been categorically wrong. If you were just 'some guy' I wouldn't make my remarks, but I know you would be unhappy at erroneous remarks about capture and would be happy to steer people to right thinking, I'm trying to do this with you on this topic.

My background means I'm cautious about using terms like 'always' or 'never' so don't think I'm being diversionary when I talk in terms of likelihood, it's not possible to account for all potential situations, very few things do not have an edge case and I'm always willing to consider this. That's the metrologist in me, we can only talk in terms of uncertainty, the cases for absolutes are very rare indeed.

Oh, and I just think demanding the use of a UPS is a bit overkill considering the design of this device, that's all - realistically the chances of issues are very low indeed.

dpalomaki 03-30-2022 07:47 AM

Lightning strikes are fast events. A standard test waveform reaches its peak in 10 microseconds and decays in another 30 microseconds. Protection has to act fast to beat that.

Power surges are much slower events, often caused by the sudden drop of a major load and driven by overall power system design and the distribution of connected loads.

Power line switching event's speeds are measured in cycles (e.g., 16.7 ms/cycle for 60 Hz).

Power factor correction for home appliances such as desktop PCs is a relatively new concern driven by the "green" movement. Unity power factor is more efficient use of power infrastructure and has lower transmission and other losses. Power factor correction has always been important for large load centers such as industrial plants and more recently major data centers.

Historically homes were largely unity power factor loads; e.g., incandescent lights and electric heating elements with a few small motors thrown in adding reactive load. More modern homes have many more reactive loads with A/C, large motor driven appliances, and other devices. For example, a 100 watt equivalent LED bulb (~18 watts) has a measured PF of about 0.9, a 40 watt florescent desk lamp 0.6. And I note the new meters installed will allow metering/billing reactive power as well should the power company decide to do so.

Standard practice for power supplies has evolved over the years. Designs today are difference from the 1980s. In the early days slight power interruptions caused crashes, literally destroying storage and data. Today's drives are far more "crash proof" but nothing is perfect. In any case unsaved date loss is still a fact with random shutdowns, and mechanical shocks may effect system components and tapes if motors sputter and stutter.

I had a camcorder perhaps 20 years ago. When using the A/C adapter to power it I had to be careful of routing the DC cord that ran from the power supply to the camcorder. If located to one side it would induce noise in the recorded video/audio. Part of knowing your gear and how it best functions. All wall wart power adapters are not the same.

The degree of protection to add is an individual, personal decision based on one's carefully evaluated (or not) tolerance for the risks involved. And the risks are driven by the gear, the environment, and power system specific to the individual user.


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