So thought... Daisy chain UPS units??

Grimlakin

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Is it wise or even something to consider to daisy chain UPS units? Asking uhhh... for a friend? (consumer grade UPS units.)
 
No. Get a bigger unit. Don’t daisy chain - they don’t tend to like it.

when the power is good, they tend to just pass that through, and only pick up if the power quality starts to get bad. So since daisy chained units are all looking at the same passed through power, they all tend to try to go online at the same time, and if one is feeding the other you can get them into loops chain cycling on and off
 
Yea I could see that if they both get drained. That makes sense.

I'm where we will be dealing with rolling power outages and my modem/router are not on a UPS but my PC is and I was thinking about UPS's hence the question.
 
My work laptop is here. and I use it sparingly for work. Where my computer was before all pieces were on UPS. I really need a different UPS for the modem and Router and that would be solid for now.
 
It's pointless to have the modem on an ups, if power goes, the repeaters on the street / building go too, so you won't have internet anyway.
 
MadMummy76 said:
It's pointless to have the modem on an ups, if power goes, the repeaters on the street / building go too, so you won't have internet anyway.
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So, wrong?

Cable internet circuits have easily stayed up through power outages that affected residences in my area. Like, that's the actual norm.

Ergo, work has been able to continue by using wifi that was supported by battery backup during outages.
 
LazyGamer said:
So, wrong?

Cable internet circuits have easily stayed up through power outages that affected residences in my area. Like, that's the actual norm.

Ergo, work has been able to continue by using wifi that was supported by battery backup during outages.
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In my area all the cable equipment is fed from the same power line as the residences. If the power goes down, the internet goes down, even if I provide power to the modem. The cable box on the street doesn't get any power. And this was consistent through multiple providers.

I used a mobile 4G backup instead when having internet was that important through a blackout.
 
MadMummy76 said:
In my area all the cable equipment is fed from the same power line as the residences. If the power goes down, the internet goes down, even if I provide power to the modem. The cable box on the street doesn't get any power. And this was consistent through multiple providers.

I used a mobile 4G backup instead when having internet was that important through a blackout.
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Yea I might be standing up a hotspot or tethering my phone to my desktop for internet access if the power go's out completely. But my desktop cooks too much juice to run for long so probably just shut it down to spare it a hard power loss shutdown. Use phone as a hot spot and internet/work through that.

Also bought a 20k map power brick to recharge the house hold phones and other devices during the power outage if needed.
 
MadMummy76 said:
It's pointless to have the modem on an ups, if power goes, the repeaters on the street / building go too, so you won't have internet anyway.
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I'm on DSL, it stays on even with the power out. It may still suck, but it works. Nice thing about a FCC regulated telecom - they have to meet reliability standards. Even cellular has a blackout provision, required for them to maintain 911 accecss.

Can't speak to cable - yeah that could be. I'd imagine if they are selling VOIP the repeaters/networking would require emergency backup, but if they don't, then yeah, no requirement for the ISP.

Texas, welcome to California.
 
Brian_B said:
Can't speak to cable - yeah that could be. I'd imagine if they are selling VOIP the repeaters/networking would require emergency backup, but if they don't, then yeah, no requirement for the ISP.
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I'll venture to guess that that's why ours has stayed up, because the cable company is also a phone company. It's Spectrum, so still definitely evil though.
 
Yea my spectrum has been rock freaking solid... then again I haven't lost power yet here in East Plano TX so knocking on wood there. (Benefit to power regulations when the community was built maybe? Dunno.
 
Grimlakin said:
Yea my spectrum has been rock freaking solid... then again I haven't lost power yet here in East Plano TX so knocking on wood there. (Benefit to power regulations when the community was built maybe? Dunno.
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Same out here east of Dallas. It was also solid (though apparently a different subcompany of the same company with the same name...) in San Antonio while I worked there a year back.

But they're a cable company, and the only reason we're getting 'unlimited' internet right now is because they wanted a merger a while back and that provision was included in the requirements. For a period of time.

They're still evil.


(also, I'd pay them for more bandwidth, but uploads top out at 35mbit, and I'd pay them for static IPs and more than one, but I have to negotiate a 'business line', so they can keep what they're taking for now)
 
Yea I tried to get a quote for business fiber from ATT here but that was a no go. I could have whatever company took over verizon fios but no thank you. My friends on that service have had their internet down all weekend.
 
Grimlakin said:
Is it wise or even something to consider to daisy chain UPS units? Asking uhhh... for a friend? (consumer grade UPS units.)
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Its unwise for reasons listed and also causes more wasted energy and more heat.
If your UPS are each 90% efficient, putting a single appliance through 2 UPS will cost 21% extra power instead of 10%.
 
Here in NY, if power goes out, so does my Optimum connection. We've got a generator to power the whole house in the event of an outage, and my internet connection doesn't come back until power on the poles comes back.
 
Grimlakin said:
Is it wise or even something to consider to daisy chain UPS units? Asking uhhh... for a friend? (consumer grade UPS units.)
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For starters, consumer grade UPS units are not designed to last for long. You'll be lucky if the ups lasts 15 min tops while it powers a PC.

you can put the modem on a dedicated ups and since it doesn't pull much power, it could last for a couple of hours.

But as many have said it will depend on your ISP wether you'll have internet service after a power outage.
For example in our office we have 3 different ISPs; cable, dsl and fiber, when power goes down cable goes down, but DSL and fiber continue to work with a UPS.
 
Just one little bit of advice for your modem as well. If it has a battery option, don't use it. I've seen issues where the battery will prevent it from doing proper restarts should the provider send an update to it. Use a UPS instead. I use Comcast at home and my job and even the techs have told me they're phasing out the enterprise modems that had them because of that. Latest upgrade we did, they even provided a UPS for it.

Other than that I wholly agree buckle down with the biggest, best UPS you can get but be aware if your power has enough routine issues than the battery could get toasted within around a year or so. I've seen it happen with one of our rural offices. For awhile I was having to replace 'em every 12-18 months until we moved into a building with better circuits.
 
Grimlakin said:
Is it wise or even something to consider to daisy chain UPS units? Asking uhhh... for a friend? (consumer grade UPS units.)
Click to expand...

It won't work. A UPS has a total power output rating. For most 1500VA units its about 900w. Some are 850w and some go upwards of 950w. That output is not just from battery sources but all sources. If you start daisy chaining units together you'll just overtax the first one and they'll all switch to battery backup in sequence until they all fail.
 
Dan_D said:
It won't work. A UPS has a total power output rating. For most 1500VA units its about 900w. Some are 850w and some go upwards of 950w. That output is not just from battery sources but all sources. If you start daisy chaining units together you'll just overtax the first one and they'll all switch to battery backup in sequence until they all fail.
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But if I put them in a closed loop and put popcorn in the middle I'll create a new element like tony stark right?! :)

Now I want someone to do this and see what it looks like. How long does it take for them to actually discharge.
 
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