Caught In the Dark...

Utility power drops during the middle of the workday; the situation is all too common. It could be a thunderstorm; it could be the on-going construction next door. All you know is the internal phone system is down. Computers are down. Fax machine is down. Your business is flying blind and your customers can't reach you. This is usually the time when business owners consider purchasing an auxiliary power source or what's commonly referred to as "battery backup". The only catch is, you can't call anyone to discuss it because the phones are down!

In a nutshell, there are 9 different power problems that equipment can face:

  1. Power Failure (Blackout) - Total loss of utility power
  2. Power Sag - Short-term low voltage
  3. Power Surge (Spike) - Short-term high voltage above 110% of nominal
  4. Undervoltage (Brownout) - Reduced line voltage for extended period of a few minutes to a few days
  5. Overvoltage - Increased line voltage for extended period of a few minutes to a few days
  6. Line Noise - High frequency waveform caused by EMI (electro-magnetic) or RFI (radio frequency) interference
  7. Frequency Variation - A change in frequency stability
  8. Switching Transient - Instantaneous undervoltage (notch) in the range of nanoseconds
  9. Harmonic Distortion - Distortion of the normal waveform generally transmitted by non-linear loads

Of course a little forethought and planning can help you avoid costly downtime and potential equipment damage. Think of it as a form of "power insurance".

Series 3 - The Essential Solution: Protection from First Three Power Problems

Series 3 UPS's primarily protect against three of the nine most common power problems. This basic, cost-effective, protection is necessary in order to prevent damage such as data loss, file corruption, flickering lights, hardware damage, and equipment shutoff. For example, if your utility fails, you could lose all work in progress. Series 3 UPS's offer a degree of protection against the remaining power problems and are most commonly used to protect single workstations and point-of-sale equipment.

Series 5 - The Intermediate Solution: Protection from First Five Power Problems

Series 5 UPS's are most effective against five of the nine most common power problems and offer a degree of protection against other power problems. Some of the damage you risk by not using a Series 5 UPS include premature hardware failure, data loss and corruption, data error, keyboard lockup, storage loss, and system lockup. Series 5 UPS's are recommended for small network systems - all the way up to enterprise networking environments.

Series 9 - The Complete Solution: Protection from All Nine Power Problems

Series 9 UPS's protect against all nine of the most common power problems. Our comprehensive protection minimizes the opportunity for component stress, burned circuit boards, data crashes, and program failures. Series 9 UPS's offer the highest level of power protection available and are always recommended for mission-critical applications such as high-end servers, hospitals, and VoIP.

Which UPS is right for you?

To determine the level of protection you require from a UPS, consider the following criteria:

  • How critical is the application you need to protect?
  • Do you need complete or partial protection?
  • What size UPS is required? VA, watts, sizing calculations?
  • Is battery runtime required in minutes? In hours?
  • What software and network considerations are there? Operating Systems, SNMP, remote monitoring, etc.?

Eaton Electrical's UPS Selector can also help. Click here.
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