Need to protect my gear from brownouts

[rems]

Hi everyone!

I'm having a problem and need some help. The transformer that feeds the area where I live is currently having problems. The power goes out a lot in the area during windy days and storms. I'm having a lot of brownouts and sometimes blackouts in my studio due to this. While we wait for the electric company to fix it, I feel I need to protect my equipment. What type of equipment is out there that will protect my gear from these occasional brown/blackouts? I don't cmpletely trust my power strip (multiplug) for this.

Also, is a power conditioner a real need, especially in a case like this?

[kittonian]

I had the same problem a while back before we redid all the power in the place and the way I did it was after consulting with Furman, I took their suggestions and bought voltage regulators, balanced power systems, and power conditioners.

It's not a cheap or sexy purchase but it solved all of my issues and even with the new power we've got running it definitely lowered the noise floor considerably.

[Barish]

True Online type Uninterruptible Power Supply is the way to go.

M.

[rems]

Thanks for the responses!

The UPS solution would be used to keep the gear running with power for a short period of time, right?

I was looking at power conditioners last night, and there are quiet few. I will look into voltage regulators and rewiring my studio with an electrician, but for now I would need a conditioner to protect my gear (not alot, just 6-8 pieces of gear, my computer is on a UPS).

What do you recommend? Monster, Furman, etc.?

[Yago]

I thought a power conditioner would only protect against "spikes" and not brownouts ?
I had a quick look at some ups , and the ones I looked at also have filtering built in to protect against spikes too .
ups the way to go ?

[plexisys]

Even for the smallest home studio you will need a UPS rated at 5Kva or higher. The small units designed for home computers are usless for audio equipment. A 5Kva UPS is good for about 5 minutes of power for a "average" homestudio.

If you are using a lot of ooutboard gear you may want to look at 10Kva or more.

Last full commercial studio buildout I was involved in had a 50Kva UPS which provided about 8 minutes of power.

These units will also take care of the spikes.

Do an Ebay search under Computers -Network Power Protecion for Liebert, MGE, APC. Most will require 208v for input power.

This is a nice unit at a decent price:

APC MX5000XR MATRIX-UPS 5000 VA SMARTCELL-XR 208/240V - eBay (item 270272017876 end time Sep-08-08 06:57:44 PDT)

[Yago]

So the point is , you buy enough "time" to shut everything down safely ?

[plexisys]

A UPS will do several things. It stabilizes the voltage going to your equipment, it will eliminate short term voltage drops/spikes, will filter out large transients, will give you time to shut gear down.

Last studio I ran could stay on battery power about 8-10 minutes. First thing to do was to save every thing on the computers as soon as there was any type of power outage. After that our policy was that we would start shutting down everything after about 2 minutes. A typical computer takes about 1-2 minutes to completely save everything and shutdown.

Most people way underestimate the size of a UPS for their needs. As I said earlier, 5 KVA should be a minimum.

[mcguin]

Liebert online uninterruptible system - street power never hits your gear - for the money - without a doubt - the best you can do and be sure about your stuff. Check the GTX series - we have 30 amp units and 10 amp units all over the studio. We run Protools HD3 with multiple cinema displays on one system, Harrison series 12 on another, 2 X Radars and all the outboard on another and a whole mac pro 8 core final cut pro studio with multiple cinema displays on another. Don't even mess around with conditioners etc.
Look for the used on eBay or check UPSforless.com online - they often have refurbished Lieberts available very reasonably. These are what they use for server farms - every bit as critical as what we are using. Here in the Virgin Islands we have the most f'ed up electrical system anywhere!! Rolling blackouts, constant browns, all for the bargain price of over 50 cents per kwh!! In fact we are an inch away from going generator full time with the Lieberts ahead of the equipment/studio rooms. Contact me if you have any questions.


later

dan
ISW Studios, St. Thomas Virgin Islands

[plexisys]

I've found a single large unit is much better and easier to maintain than several smaller ones.

I own a data center with about 2,000 servers- 2x250Kva UPS and 2x500Kva generators. About 15% of our time is managing power loads.

[matt thomas]

remember you need an online UPS not an offline one. And one with a pure sinewave output

unless there is such a thing as high quality offline UPS that I don't know about..

narco

[mcguin]

Originally Posted by plexisys

I've found a single large unit is much better and easier to maintain than several smaller ones.

I own a data center with about 2,000 servers- 2x250Kva UPS and 2x500Kva generators. About 15% of our time is managing power loads.

Except when the large one goes down. Recently the Liebert running our Harrison Series 12 machine room went down. Everything else in the place kept running fine while that unit got serviced. Yes I agree that generally, less units is better, but it also makes sense to isolate systems so that everything does not go down at the same time.

dan
ISW Studios, St. Thomas Virgin Islands

[allencollins]

CVCF