Recommended UPS and/or power conditioner for two 44" printers

[Roscolo]

I run an ipf8300 44" and an HP z3100 44". Right now I just have them plugged into a good surge protector. I would like to find a UPS to plug both printers into. I never run both printers at the same time, and I'm not looking for a UPS with enough power to print from, just something that will give me enough time to stop printing and shut the printer down properly in the event of a power outage.

For those in a similar situation, what specific brand / model of UPS would you recommend?

Tx

[howardm]

I've had good success w/ APC 'Smart UPS' or Cyberpower.  The important thing is pure sine wave output as the cheap UPSs take shortcuts and often produce stepped sine wave approximations.

Figure out what the power draw and how long you need to run the device for.  How do you plan on 'shutting it down properly'?

[Roscolo]

I've had good success w/ APC 'Smart UPS' or Cyberpower.  The important thing is pure sine wave output as the cheap UPSs take shortcuts and often produce stepped sine wave approximations.

Figure out what the power draw and how long you need to run the device for.  How do you plan on 'shutting it down properly'?

Thanks. Shutting it down properly: stop the printing process from the front panel and turn the power off from the front panel.

[howardm]

how can you be assured you'll be available & in front of the machine?

Don't forget that *likely* that the computer will still be sending data to the printer right up to near the end so hopefully, you have the computer & router protected too.

[Roscolo]

how can you be assured you'll be available & in front of the machine?

Don't forget that *likely* that the computer will still be sending data to the printer right up to near the end so hopefully, you have the computer & router protected too.

When I'm printing, I'm available and near the machine. I just need the UPS to buy me a few minutes to properly shut down the printer. I probably really only need a power conditioner for the printers, but I'm assuming that a conditioner is built into a good quality UPS. Every piece of equipment is already protected by surge protectors. The printers are the only motorized pieces of equipment, and I just want an extra layer of protection for the printers. Replacing a power supply and motherboard in my PC is cheap, fast and easy compared to the time and expense of replacing a mainboard in the ipf8300 or the z3100.

[Paul2660]

I run an ipf8300 44" and an HP z3100 44". Right now I just have them plugged into a good surge protector. I would like to find a UPS to plug both printers into. I never run both printers at the same time, and I'm not looking for a UPS with enough power to print from, just something that will give me enough time to stop printing and shut the printer down properly in the event of a power outage.

For those in a similar situation, what specific brand / model of UPS would you recommend?

Tx

I have had very good luck with the Cyperpower 1500AVR, I am sure they have a newer model now.  I run my 9900 on one, 7800 on one, and produciton PC on a 3rd.  You can easily run a 9900 for 20 minutes on this as long it's the only product on the UPS.   We get brown outs here all the time especially summer and with APC, I would get just enough break to kill a print job.  I had the 1500 APC"s also.  The batteries on the APC, units I had were terrible, lasted about 1.5 years.  As you know it's more expensive to replace the battery than buy a new UPS.  The Cyberpower units are all running very well, just had a test (not intended) last week, and was able to both complete the 40 inch print and shut everything down. 

Of course these will not help much against lightening, as really not much will besides unplugging the printer which is what I do.

Paul Caldwell

[hugowolf]

When I'm printing, I'm available and near the machine. I just need the UPS to buy me a few minutes to properly shut down the printer. I probably really only need a power conditioner for the printers, but I'm assuming that a conditioner is built into a good quality UPS. Every piece of equipment is already protected by surge protectors. The printers are the only motorized pieces of equipment, and I just want an extra layer of protection for the printers. Replacing a power supply and motherboard in my PC is cheap, fast and easy compared to the time and expense of replacing a mainboard in the ipf8300 or the z3100.

You still need the computer (and router/switch if the printers are connected via Ethernet) connected through the UPS. Imagine being 7/8 way through a 44" print when the power goes down. That is a lot of wasted paper and ink and it is now stuck in the printer. In those few vital UPS minutes you are now going to have to manually feed the paper and cut it before shutting down.
There really isn't much point in an UPS if the computer isn't connected.

With the ipf8350, the image data is in the printer. With a laser print, the printer stores pages of data. But not so with the ipf8300; data is sent one print head width at a time.

Brian A

[Roscolo]

You still need the computer (and router/switch if the printers are connected via Ethernet) connected through the UPS. Imagine being 7/8 way through a 44" print when the power goes down. That is a lot of wasted paper and ink and it is now stuck in the printer. In those few vital UPS minutes you are now going to have to manually feed the paper and cut it before shutting down.
There really isn't much point in an UPS if the computer isn't connected.

With the ipf8350, the image data is in the printer. With a laser print, the printer stores pages of data. But not so with the ipf8300; data is sent one print head width at a time.

Brian A

That is not the case. You can send your print to the ipf8300 and you can even watch the progress in the Windows printer dialog. It WILL start printing before all the data is sent, but once all the data is sent, you can shut down your PC or just disconnect it from the network and the print will complete. You can easily test this. If yours doesn't complete, it's something with your setup.

[Jim Kasson]

I've had good success w/ APC 'Smart UPS' or Cyberpower.  The important thing is pure sine wave output as the cheap UPSs take shortcuts and often produce stepped sine wave approximations.

Figure out what the power draw and how long you need to run the device for.  How do you plan on 'shutting it down properly'?

Most UPS's are not rated by how much power they can put out, but by how many amps they can put out at rated voltage multiplied by that voltage. regardless of the phase angle between the two. You can tell it's not power if the rating is in volt-amps and not watts.

Conversely, most devices that you'd want to connect to a UPS are rated in terms of the power that they draw.

How to sort that out?

If you knew the power factor of each device, you could do sorting out with a little math, but it is quite rare for a device to specify its power factor. So you have to guess. It's fairly safe that a 1000 va UPS can drive a load of 700w. It's quite safe that it can drive a 600 w load. You can scale those numbers for other UPS ratings. But there are no guarantees, and YMMV.

Another thing to watch out for in inrush current when you first turn a device on or bring it out of sleep state, but that is not usually a problem with inkjet printers. It is a major problem with electrophotographic -- aka laser -- printers.

Jim

[howardm]

I think 'these days', most UPS spec's have both VA & W numbers specified by the mfgr.

I think this is the one I got (Amazon) to replace my old (13 years - 2 battery changes) APC 1400 SmartUPS.

http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/products/ups-systems/pfc-sinewave-series/CP1500PFCLCD.html

[Roscolo]

I think 'these days', most UPS spec's have both VA & W numbers specified by the mfgr.

I think this is the one I got (Amazon) to replace my old (13 years - 2 battery changes) APC 1400 SmartUPS.

http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/products/ups-systems/pfc-sinewave-series/CP1500PFCLCD.html

Thanks, Howard. And that one looks to be easy on the budget as well.

[Jim Kasson]

I think 'these days', most UPS spec's have both VA & W numbers specified by the mfgr.

If they have both, then the load is out of spec if either the va or the w rating is exceeded. You can overload a UPS while drawing almost no power at all if you hang a highly capacitive or an inductive load across the output.

Jim

[howardm]

I really doubt a printer falls into that kind of reactive load category.

Look at the printer spec's for the power it consumes, add a 30% fudge factor and get that size (in watts) UPS.

[Jim Kasson]

I really doubt a printer falls into that kind of reactive load category.

Look at the printer spec's for the power it consumes, add a 30% fudge factor and get that size (in watts) UPS.

I agree. That's pretty much what I said above, except I said add a 66% fudge factor and get that size in va.

Jim

[dwswager]

I run an ipf8300 44" and an HP z3100 44". Right now I just have them plugged into a good surge protector. I would like to find a UPS to plug both printers into. I never run both printers at the same time, and I'm not looking for a UPS with enough power to print from, just something that will give me enough time to stop printing and shut the printer down properly in the event of a power outage.

For those in a similar situation, what specific brand / model of UPS would you recommend?

Tx

Thinking this is being made way more complicated than necessary.  Every manufacturer has a calculator that can tell you how much stored energy is necessary based on the loads for the computer and printers attached.  Add about a 25% margin is a good idea.  But then, most loads won't be max during the entire run time.

Unless your power is reallly spotty, then I question the need for UPS for printers.  Power conditioning can be beneficial, but electronics these days are not near as susseptible as they used to be to this type of failure.  Passive filtering, of course, degrades in normal use and needs to be replaced on a regular basis.  And none of these devices are going to save you from a spike like a lightning strike which is going to find the easiest path to ground.  That used to be out through a modem.

 If your equipment really benefits, then something like Klean-Line is the way to go.

[acktdi]

I'm using this Cyberpower 825AVR, mainly for conditioning the power - brownouts and overvoltage.  We hardly ever have power failures in Las Vegas.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E08PF2/ref=pe_175190_21431760_M3T1_ST1_dp_1

I also have a 685AVR model for my computers.

The Cyberpowers seem to be a better value compared to APC and they have the same level of protection.