Cyberpower Cp1350avrlcd Intelligent Series Mini Tower Survey I work as a network technician and have used APC equipment for many years. Their high-end units have always done well for us. For many years, I also used their Smart-UPS brand for my home network needs. As they've become old and had problems, it became more economical to replace them, instead of fixing them, especially, since for my desktops, the industry was moving to USB for signaling, and away from serial ports. My rack still has older 1400 VA SU units using SNMP management cards, but I needed a new desktop solution. For the past three years, I stuck to APC's consumer products and have been very disappointed. They have more problems than the older units I've grown to love, and because they change models so often, it's harder to find a battery replacement. Plus, they just have a sort of cheapness about them. With my latest computer purchase, a dual quad Mac Pro, my older 800VA APC just couldn't handle it. So, I decided to try this Cyberpower 1500 and have been very pleased with it, using it for about 2 months so far. The signaling and reported time is more reliable than the APC I was using. Although it should be said, any consumer UPS will not guarantee exact runtimes, load measurements, etc. - For what you are paying for this amount of capacity, some sacrifice must be realized. If you do your calculations correctly, and use it as needed (surges, brown-outs and limited black-outs), these units will fulfill your needs. If you need super accurate measurements and reliable AC power generation, then you should consider a high end unit, such as what APC offers for data centers. The load reading for this unit, when measured with a Kill-A-Watt is pretty accurate. I like the soft blue lighting with auto-off. I connect my two, 24" LCDs to the APC 800VA unit, and the Cyberpower handles the Mac Pro with three, external FireWire drives with no problems. Testing it, by turning off the circuit breaker (shouldn't pull the cord from the wall), reports about 20 minutes of runtime, which seems about right. I've left it on battery power for about 10 minutes, and the readings remained fairly constant. I live out in the country at the end of our power grid, so I get a lot of "dirty" power. Brown-outs are common, and my larger UPS units have the ability to generate statistical logs each day of the power fluctuation. I feel pretty safe with this unit, and wouldn't hesitate to purchase another one. Lastly, the software both Cyberpower and APC provides for the Mac OS, is really bad! I prefer to just use the Mac's SysPrefs to configure the UPS settings and leave it at that. Both companies desperately need a re-write of their OS X software. I'm not quite ready to nominate it for MoMA's permanent collection, but the CyberPower CP1000AVRLCD does look a lot better than your average geekbox. In fact, it's the first UPS (uninterruptable power supply) I've ever owned that I can easily tolerate having on a corner of my desk, where it has now quietly buddied up with a stack of external LaCie drives (the drives and the UPS all have round blue power-on indicators). The CyberPower features a three-inch front-panel readout, backlit in (what else?) blue, that, with each consecutive push of the oversized display button, tells you in big digits what the current load is, the voltage it receives from the wall outlet, the estimated run time, the total load capacity, the battery capacity, even how many minutes remain after a blackout occurs and the battery is running down. The display turns itself off after 20 or 30 seconds, so it's not too distracting (actually, the user should have the option of keeping the display on, but I suppose you can't have everything). When a blackout strikes, the CyberPower unit intermittently beeps to signal that the battery has kicked in -- but unlike other UPS's I've used, you can switch off the annoying beep in acknowledgment. I deduct points for the nine outlets being so closely spaced together that any device powered by a wallwart will take up two or even three spaces. Cyberpower also shortchanges Mac users by not giving them full-featured power management software. You can control the behavior of the battery backup through the Energy Saver control panel in OSX, which recognizes the brand and model of the UPS and lets you decide
how you want to safely power down the computer and the other plugged-in devices in case of a blackout. So far so good. But the native Mac software won't let you instruct other applications to autosave and quit. That means unsaved documents will prevent applications from shutting down unless you're there to manage the process; and when the Cyberpower's battery depletes itself, the result will be the same as if you had no UPS to begin with -- the computer eventually shuts off as if you'd literally pulled the plug, and unsaved changes will be lost. Still, that's not a dealbreaker for me; long ago I've gotten into the habit of hitting command-S every couple of minutes when I'm working on a document. FWIW, the estimated battery run time of my configuration -- a 24-inch iMac with a 2. 4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo chip, plus three external drives -- is about 16 minutes. Oh yeah: the unit has a swappable battery and three-year warranty. Not too shabby. UPDATED, August 2012: It's still going strong. I just bought this product again, a second one, to plug in an extra computer and additional hard drives. Hope to have them for many more years -- ready to save my computer equipment from surges, blackouts, and brownouts at a fraction of a moment's notice. I've had this device for ~3 months and during that period the power has gone out twice for many hours and has "blinked" 5 or 6 times. Half the outlets in the back of the unit provide battery power and surge protection and the other half are just surge protection. I have my Dell XPS710 PC, 20" LCD, and two external USB drives connected to the battery power and my router, modem, speakers and printer connected to the surge protected outlets. It kept my machine running for over 25 mins. when the power went out. My XPS710 is a big gaming rig, so that is just fine. All I need is enough time to finish whatever I'm doing and shut down properly. My PC ran without a hiccup. Same with the power "blinks. " They do not affect my PC at all. Plus, it keeps track of all the outages. For a lesser PC, this unit would probably sustain power for much longer. I highly recommend it for protecting any important equipment. Also, the software will automatically shut down your PC at a pre-set time (i. e. , 5 mins of battery power left) in case you lose power when you are not home. Don't forget to download the latest version of the PowerPanel software at the CyberPower website. I have several APC and Belkin UPS units in my house, so this isn't my first whack at buying a UPS. And after reading reviews here and other places, I thought the CyberPower model looked like a decent way for me to save a few bucks. The first thing I noticed about it was how light it was for a UPS -- especially at 1000VA. For that capacity, I think this may be the lightest UPS I've used. I also liked the LCD display, but was a bit put off by the construction of the unit. The plastic is relatively flimsy (compared to other brands), but on the upside, there are a generous number of outlets. After charging the unit overnight, I decided to give it a test run. The display showed I had about 18 minutes of runtime, so I pulled the plug. Instantly, 18 minutes became 8. . . then 6. . . then 2. . . then. . . darkness. Alas, there was no graceful shutdown on my computer (despite it recognizing that the UPS was connected), and it kept my setup alive for all of five minutes, at best. For reference, the UPS had a last-gen MacPro, cable modem, router, and a 23" LCD connected. According to APC's configuration tool (which should be universal for any UPS), they recommended an My home and home office contain many sensitive electronic devices. We have several personal computers, a PC server, NAS drives, routers, switches, printers, cordless phones, security system, etc. All of these things (and more) plug into the AC mains and are therefore vulnerable to voltage sags or spikes and the occasional power outage. When a person invests a lot of money in electronic hardware, it only makes sense to do everything you can to protect it. That is why I always discourage people from plugging these sensitive devices directly into the wall. I currently have a total of 10 UPS systems and two line conditioners in my home, which protect my most valuable computer, security and A/V equipment. Over the years the cost of power conditioners and Uninterrupted Power Supplies has dropped drastically, and yet the overall reliability and performance of these have improved a great deal. A typical UPS used to be thought of as a simple battery backup device. But today the majority of UPS systems also help to condition the power, to a degree, using technologies such as AVR (Automatic Voltage Regulation). There are several
different types of UPS systems available, offering a wide range of output capacities and power conditioning capabilities. Of course the price goes up as your need of greater output and more sensitive voltage protection increases. But for some devices you can get by with a modest UPS system, to simply provide a moderate amount of power protection and battery backup time. This "modest" category is where the CyberPower CP850AVRLCD UPS fits in. Model numbers of these UPS systems can be a little confusing, as many people think that the model reflects the output level of the device in watts. The model number of most UPS systems actually reflects the volt-amp rating, whereas the continuous watt load the unit can handle is usually a fraction of that VA rating, in terms of AC output. Calculating the exact watt output the UPS can sustain, strictly based on the VA rating, can be a little tricky since the AC load is not usually in precise phase. However, if you look up the specs of a given UPS system, the manufacturer usually indicates the maximum watts that the device is meant to sustain. In the case of the CyberPower CP850AVRLCD, the VA rating is 850 but the watt output rating is 510. That is a 60% difference between the VA and Watt rating. This CyberPower UPS provides Automatic Voltage Regulation, shown by the letters "AVR" in the model number. This means that the UPS is capable of decreasing (Buck) or increasing (Boost) output voltage, slightly, in order to "clean" the power it is passing through to your electronic equipment. This is, or course, while the UPS is receiving AC power through your mains. If the voltage exceeds the minimum or maximum voltage tolerance, the system will automatically switch over to battery power, in order to protect your electronic equipment. The included PowerPanel Personal Edition software allows you a modest adjustment to these minimum and maximum voltage tolerance levels. The software also clearly displays the current status of the UPS, including voltage supplied, voltage condition, remaining battery capacity, battery status, remaining battery runtime and the current battery backed up load on the system. PowerPanel Personal Edition allows you to adjust the amount of time that your computer will remain running on battery power before shutting down. Of course you can choose to set the UPS to allow your computer to run as long as possible, but the UPS will still shut down your computer when it is down to only 5 minutes of remaining time. Therefore you will need to consider how much of a load your current equipment will put on the UPS, as too much load could cause the UPS to shutdown your computer almost immediately after an AC power failure. There is also a configuration screen for alert sounds, which allows you to enable or disable the beeping sounds this UPS would normally make during power events. There is not much more you can do with this software, which really limits its overall usefulness. Some of the most important technical specifications of this device are as follows: * UPS Topology: Line-Interactive * Voltage Input: 90Vac - 140Vac * Plug Style: Right Angle * Cord Length: 6 feet * Output: 850VA / 510 Watts * AVR: Yes * On Battery Voltage: 120Vac +/- 5% * On Battery Frequency: 60Hz * On Battery Waveform: Simulated Sine Wave * Battery & Surge Outlets: 5 * Surge-Only Outlets: 4 * Overload Protection: Internal Circuitry Limiting/Circuit Breaker * Transfers Time: 4ms * Runtime at Half Load: 7 min * Runtime at Full Load: 1 min * Battery Type: Sealed Lead Acid - 12V/8. 5Ah * Typical Recharge Time: 8 Hours * Surge Suppression: 1,080 Joules * Phone/Ethernet RJ11/RJ45: 1-In, 1-Out (combo plug) * Coax Protection (RG6): 1-In, 1-Out * Computer Interface: USB x1 - Serial x1 * Dimensions (in): 10 1/4" x 4 3/8" x 8 7/8" * Weight: 16 lbs. * Product Warranty: 3 Years Limited * Conne
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