UPS for my system (1 Viewer)

[SteveKeller]

OK, so now that I have all this fun HT gear, I'm supposed to protect it, right? I've used Panamax equipment on my regular stereo/tv equipment, but I think I should get some sort of UPS for my JVC D-ILA television. There is a fan that needs to run for a while after shutdown, to properly cool the bulb.

Does anyone have any experience or thoughts on the Monster HT UPS 1000, or the Belkin AP30800-10, or the (pricey) APC S10 products? Is there something else that I'm overlooking?

Thanks

 

[Chu Gai]

Possibly. As I understand it, you're looking to protect your projector from the point of view of providing power to the unit so that when it's playing and you have an unexpected power outage, you, yourself, can shut the unit down gracefully so that the fan can run for a period of time. This way, you'll extend the lifetime of the bulbs.

While you can certainly buy an audiophile type unit, and that gets pricey, it seems to me that you should just be able to calculate the power draw of your projector (should be in the spec sheets somewhere) and use that information, along with how long you want the unit to run for after a power outage and go to APC's, TrippLite's, Belkin's, Best's, anyone else's website and source out a UPS that'll meet your requirements. If you find it confusing for some reason, most of these places have toll free numbers that you can call and speak to an applications person. Choosing from units that are made for the PC industry ought to keep your costs down.

 

[SteveKeller]

Yes, That's essentially the idea. It just seems that if I were to buy a UPS for the projector, I could (should?) run everything else through it. The UPS would also offer surge/spike protection, along with voltage regulation. That's where the questions pop up. I think I understand that "audiophile" power conditioners offer some sort of pure sine-wave power that pc grade units don't offer. This seems to be the case whether it's surge protection, power regulation, backup power, or any combination of these. It hardly seems worthwile to buy a $500 - $1200 "Home Theater Grade" UPS to try to (possibly) extend the life of a $300 lamp, but if the unit also protected my equipment from spikes/surges/brownouts/whatever, then it may be money well spent...

 

[Chu Gai]

Well you could run everything through it but I don't think that's all that great of an idea, Steve. I've got a post at the top of Tweaks on surge suppressors. Take some time and give it a read. I think it lays things out fairly objectively and might help you narrow your buying decision.

Some of the problems with just using a UPS for everything is...
1)it won't stop any truly deadly surges like from lighting. For that matter, neither will the various plug-in devices from anyplace else. Lightning, that has travelled miles of non-conductive air and possibly miles of ground, will not be deterred by a box no matter how nice it looks.
2)all incoming cables to your system need to be surge protected. How are you going to do that for the incoming cable or satellite?
3)they don't have all that much in the way of a joule rating. Let's say it's 600. Well, realistically, it's at best 200, since the 600 joules is spread out over L-N, N-G, and L-G on your electrical wire. In fact, it's even less than 200 since since earth ground is far away so maybe effectively it's more like 120 or so. As the joule rating goes up, the lifetime of the MOV's goes up exponentially which directly leads to longer lifetimes.
4)your projector may not be proximal to the rest of your components which means that you'll be looking at long power cords. That's just a mess and an additional expense.

As far as sine wave output goes, you'll have to contact the various manufacturers and ask for their THD numbers and confirm that it's an actual sine wave and not some kind of saw tooth. Further, consider that UPS's, when not in a battery back-up mode, are simply passing the current straight through. Hence, even if it's running off the batteries and the AC is a bit noisy, so what? The only thing you're concerned with is that you want to just use the power to shut down your projector. It's not like you're going to be sitting down and watching critically, right? You'll find all sorts of PC, computer grade, or instrumental grade UPS's. Some have outstanding AC regeneration quality when in battery mode.

Give some thought to how your equipment is layed out. If you own your own house, then go with a whole house setup as the primary means. Since an electrician is going to install it anyways (unless you're comfortable around electricity), they can also run a couple of dedicated outlets to your HT area and this way you won't have to worry about anything else on the line gunking things up. What do you think?

 

[SteveKeller]

Makes sense. I'll call Craig tonight (he's the electrician that I use) and talk to him about the whole house deal. He's already run the dedicated lines for me, so protecting them should be easy enough.

Many thanks, Steve

 

[Lee Bailey]

APC is coming out with their UPS units for HT. Though a bit pricey. They offer voltage regulation and filtering as well. I'm opting for the non-UPS version just for the voltage regulation.
APC AV

 

[Chu Gai]

It's good to see competition for these types of units seeing as it hopefully will drive the prices down for these high profit boxes.

 

[Grant B]

During the CA Brownouts a few years back, I noticed a few times my preamp would loose synch on the digital input stream.
I also noticed that my lights which were on X-10 would come on at strange times. (Power dropping and coming back up looks like an X-10 pulse)
I thought the voltage levels were instabile and I picked up an UPS for most of my complex electronics.
Never had another problem.
It won't kepp your theater going through a blackout but it will stabilize the voltage if it's dirty

 

[Chu Gai]

take it up with Enron