Want a pure sine wave UPS for 550W active PFC computer power supply

[lights from bredock]

I want a pure sine wave UPS with line interactive or online technology for my 550W active PFC computer power supply.
The computer I will use them with is a Dell Inspiron 545MT mini desktop tower.

Are there any good reputed brands in India who provide pure sine wave UPS with line interactive
or online technology for home/office and home desktop computer use.
I want a pure sine wave UPS between the price of $166 and $333
is it plossible to get one in India, Mumbai. Thank You.

[DaveLembke]

Curious as to why a standard UPS wont work for you since this is just what looks like a normal off the shelf consumer computer?

I buy mainly APC UPS Battery Backups. APC is to me one of the best out there for quality and protection.

http://www.apc.com/site/products/index.cfm

The only time I ever had to get a specific UPS Battery backup model was when I needed to specify the low voltage threshold for when the UPS was to enable with point of sale equipment in which we had some ingenico credit card terminals that were very sensitive to low voltage and their 120VAC power supplies that make 12VDC would run around 10.5VDC when the grid feeding our store locations were running between 100 and 105 VAC instead of normally around 115VAC. This happened on hot summer days when too many people had the AC units on as well as the area around the store developed and the grid supplying all the homes, businesses, and new large hospital was struggling to maintain it all. I bought a specific APC UPS model that allowed me to go in with Windows software and a cable from the USB port of the computer to the UPS and specify for the UPS to intervene and run off of battery at a higher voltage than lower voltage, so the dips in power that would occur the UPS would kick in even though there still was line power but it was low voltage and the credit card system wouldnt have terminals crashing when people are making purchases. After programming the UPS to the different voltage thresholds I was able to place them under each of the registers, all 43 of them at a cost of about $130 per register USD. The model was a Smart-UPS vs the standard off the shelf UPS which has less features and they were 500VA units, and this was about 7 years ago.

[lights from bredock]

 Since my computer power supply has Active PFC.（PF>0.95 at Full Load） I herd people saying on videos that if your computer power supply has active PFC and when the main AC power goes out and you have a older type of UPS, UPS which provides Stepped approximation to a sinewave, square wave your computer will imediately shut down. I also read that these regular older, square wave, Stepped approximation to a sinewave UPS suytems connected to computers with active PFC power suplies make the computer restart when the mains AC power goes out. Every year where I live there are a few black outs or a situation where there is a compleate loss of mains AC power and the power that I get from the AC is also dirty. So I just dont want to take a chance.

And your apc link does not work. In fact that was the first place I landed at when wanting to buy a UPS and have gone there a number of times before figuring out all this. Thanks.
 

[Geek-9pm]

I agree with DaveLembke.
Most users of personal computers have little need for a high performance commercial UPS. You can get a solution using parts that are available in the current marketplace.

Look over the products available. a good PFC us desirable, but the the most important for your use. Thee are UPS devices that very fast response time.

Also, if you like to build your own, you can make a custom system with zero response time. You put batteries inside your desktop case to provide transient power.

[camerongray]

As said above, there is no real need for a fancy pure sine wave UPS for a PC - The only stuff I can see about issues with non-pure sine wave ones are random posts on forums, no actual evidence.

The fact is that pretty much any good quality, modern PSU will be Active PFC, companies will not sell UPSs that cannot power a regular, modern PC.  Just focus on getting a good UPS from a reputable manufacturer, if it does not work you can always return it as it is clearly not fit for purpose.

[lights from bredock]

Thanks

[DaveLembke]

 Todays UPS's are really good and the higher end Smart and Online Models give you features that you can configure to set the thresholds etc. Unless you really need this for super sensitive to voltage dip electronics, I'd give a good quality consumer base model UPS a test. I have used base model UPS's for almost 20 years and never had any problems with systems rebooting or shutting down with them, unless the battery in them has died after 5 years and when the switch over happens in milliseconds the battery which is dead is unable to take on the load. The good thing is that modern UPS's will give you error conditions letting you know that a battery is junk inside so you dont have to find out the hard way when there is a power outage. Which reminds me I have 2 UPS's that I need to find replacement batteries for which both died at 4 and 5 years of use as i sharpie markered the installation dates on them to keep track of age    Expect to have to replace this about once every 3 to 6 years. They seem to last longer actually in environments where the power has problems and they drain and charge frequently, while environments where the batteries are constantly topped off, the batteries build memory and go stale and die sooner than later. Since you have power concerns a UPS in your home or business should cycle through a drain and charge cycle and hopefully last you. Buying a good brand like APC will also ensure that the life of the UPS is 3 to 6 years vs dying sooner due to low quality lead acid gel batteries used.

The good name brand UPS's come with warranties that protect equipment that are properly connected to them from lightning etc.

More info here at this link which shows various types of UPS protection and design. The better ones allow for you to specify threshold of when to intervene with battery power etc, but they come at a premium and may have to be special ordered. I'd get a basic UPS and start with that to save money.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninterruptible_power_supply#Double-conversion_.2F_online

Lastly .... be sure to make sure the battery is connected inside of the unit before use. Most come with the batteries disconnected requiring you to connect them to activate them, If you want to test it, you can plug in a lamp that is less than 100 watts into the battery backup side of the UPS after the UPS has been given about 8 hrs to charge and turn lamp on, and then unplug the UPS from the wall and the lamp will remain lit if the UPS is working correctly. Its very rare that they dont when purchased, and most models will give a tone or other warning indication if you have failed to connect the battery to the UPS because without the connection there is no backup power available.

[Geek-9pm]

For what it is worth... here is a link to a discussion  about a PSU with integrated battery backup. Yes, there is such thing.
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=826441
But it is not very effective  and/or very hard to do.

[lights from bredock]

I have already red this same UPS wekepedia articale and I went to your link arstechnica.com from there I went to dansdata.com the DIY article. It is nice and informative. Thanks. 

[lights from bredock]

 I went to http://www.dansdata.com/diyups.htm the DIY article. It is nice and informative. Thanks.  the DIY article. It is nice and informative. Thanks. 

[Geek-9pm]

FYI: Sine wive is NOT recommended for modern PC power supplies.
I think this post is credible and agrees with the general theory of electronics power supplies.

Some PSUs with Active PFC will not work properly with a UPS that outputs a simulated sine wave when operating on battery power. The UPS will usually fail to switch over to battery operation or it will make a bunch of audible squeals then report an overload or error condition and shut itself down. There's no way of telling if your specific power supply will cause this type of behavior unless you know of someone who has the same power supply as you and has tested it with a simulated sine wave UPS. There are the rare PSU test reviews that will actually test the PSU with a simulated sine wave UPS.

From a post on Tom's Hardware.
 

[lights from bredock]

 Actually the real problem is with the 230VAC regions. GO here check this thread out it is an eye opner http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3964. Thanks.

[camerongray]

Actually the real problem is with the 230VAC regions. GO here check this thread out it is an eye opner http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3964. Thanks.

You are seriously overthinking this.  I don't see any definitive answer in your thread.  Almost all good power supplies nowadays are ActivePFC, wouldn't you think that that means that almost all UPSs are now designed to be able to run them without issues?

Just go out and buy a good quality UPS, if it doesn't work for whatever reason, return it since if it can't power an average PC, it's not fit for purpose!

[lights from bredock]

You should go and read the whole thread properly I provided in the link. Then you will understand the real problem. It is a eleven page thread you should atleast read eight pages from it.

[camerongray]

Exactly is is an 11 page thread, I do not have time to read all of it!  From what I can see in it however it does not seem to explain that this is an actual issue.  If you can find a post in that thread that properly backs up your argument that an average UPS is not capable of powering an Active PFC power supply then I would gladly read it.  I have certainly not heard of people having issues with average UPSs powering Active PFC PSUs.

What you are basically saying is that most modern UPSs are not capable of powering the majority of modern PCs - Surely common sense would dictate that companies that build UPSs would design them to power Active PFC PSUs.

ActivePFC is not a super rare feature that only your PSU and a few others have, pretty much any good power supply on the market today is ActivePFC!

I'm really not sure what all the fuss is about here, if you really feel as though you need a "pure sine wave UPS with line interactive or online technology" then buy one!