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Thread: Running entire system through UPS.

  1. #1
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    Default Running entire system through UPS.

    Hmm very unexpected result. I had some issue with shaky galvos. I was thinking that they are going bad but since I'm running everything through UPS it's smooth and steady. Also of cuz when breaker is blown (usual thing) I'm still up.
    I hired an Italian guy to do my wires. Now they look like spaghetti!

  2. #2
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    Cool

    Bad ground in the building, maybe?

    Adam

  3. #3
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    If I remember correctly, MechEng was doing the same thing at SELEM.
    Hmmm...maybe something to consider!!
    RR

    Metrologic HeNe 3.3mw Modulated laser, 2 Radio Shack motors, and a broken mirror.
    1979.
    Sweet.....

  4. #4
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    Cool

    Good thing he was, too! On one of the outlets at SELEM we had over 50 volts floating on ground! (That is, 50 volts A/C between neutral and ground - even with a load applied...)

    I had the unfortunate pleasure of being connected to that outlet for the first couple hours on Friday during setup. We had all sorts of noise on our audio as a result. I solved the problem temporarily by lifting the ground on the feeder to my power strip.

    Later we figured out that only that one circuit was bad, so we switched things around so only my fog machine was on that line, and the computers, projectors, and sound equipment were on another circuit. Everything was pretty good after that, but in general the grounds in that building weren't the best. (And don't even get me started on the problems with the lighting fixture in the dressing room that Steve Roberts found!)

    Adam

  5. #5
    soforene's Avatar
    soforene is offline The Troll formerly known as Herbert Von Poople-Futtocks
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    Thumbs up

    Quote Originally Posted by buffo View Post
    ...And don't even get me started on the problems with the lighting fixture in the dressing room that Steve Roberts found ...
    Dressing room?
    You get dressed up for your meets?
    I guess the DVD footage was taken at the informal part of the meeting then.

  6. #6
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    Smile

    The venue for SELEM is an auditorum. We have full run of the entire place for the weekend, including the backstage area - which has separate male and female dressing rooms.

    Steve was working in one of them and noticed that one of the light bars was making a strange noise every once in a while. To him it sounded like something was arcing inside. He checked around, and discovered that the metal frame around one of the light bars was intermittently showing voltage relative to ground. (Serious shock hazard!) The venue manager agreed to get an electrician in the next week to inspect the lighting fixture. (We could have fixed it ourselves, but we didn't discover the problem until very late in the day on Sunday when we were getting ready to pack up.)

    Adam

  7. #7
    soforene's Avatar
    soforene is offline The Troll formerly known as Herbert Von Poople-Futtocks
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    Talking

    Only yanking ya chain, Adam.

    And diverting the thread slightly for which I apologise (far too much of that going on these days).

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    Cool

    Yeah, I know - but for clarity's sake I explained it anyway. And thread drift happens. It's not always a bad thing.

    Back on topic: A UPS (especially one that completely isolates the load from line power - that is the load is running on the inverter all the time) is a good way to clean up bad power.

    Adam

  9. #9
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    mixedgas is offline Creaky Old Award Winning Bastard Technologist
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    Steve lost his graphics card hooked to a monitor on another floating ground, and when he got it torn down he found it did a number on the processor card in his 19" rack case, that card was plugged into a backplane, and so I'm now looking for another pentium two processor card to plug into the backplane. It looks like the Quadmod survived, but we didn't have my laseoff competition at SELEM as a result. :-( I didnt want to tell Buffo all the details at the time as we had such a good conf. and he was quite happy.

    I broke my own rule of not using a UPS in the field or checking the venue wiring, a 6$ outlet tester from the gnome depot would have prevented a painful loss. I had one in the toolkit. Some things you have to relearn the hard way every once in a while.

    One does say that a true sine wave UPS is the proper way to go.

    Steve
    Last edited by mixedgas; 10-24-2008 at 09:02.

  10. #10
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    Question

    Nice idea, any suggestions on a decent UPS for the job? Should the PC and projector be on the same UPS?
    Love, peace, and grease,

    allthat... aka: aaron@pangolin

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