Back-up Power Supply

[graveleye]

Due to some road construction near my home, I am experiencing a rash of 1 second-long power outages.... just enough screw up the computers. I lost one because of a sudden power loss last week and had to rebuild it. Luckily, it wasnt my main PT machine, and by the time I power it up in the evening, they are done working. But if I was working during the day, it would be a nightmare.
I'm curious about these back-up power supplies though. Can having one of these prevent these small interuptions in power? Any suggestions as to what I should look for that would be safe with my gear?
Thanks in advance for your ideas.
Kev

[Keith Owens]

Kev, yeah get you a backup pwr supply asap. When the pwr goes out they kik on immediately with a low volume ring to let you know it's on battery backup.

[graveleye]

cool - just to make sure, can it kick on and off that quickly?

[Bastiaan]

Those boxes are made to give you time to properly power down your PC. Usually they are able to power your PC for 20 ~ 30 minutes or so on their own. I bet the time decreases when you als connect your video-monitors to it, but if its one sec....should work.

Usually these UPS's (uninteruptable power supply) come with a serial or usb cable to connect to your PC, and on your PC you can then install a little program that gives the proper powerdown command when power is cut. With your multiple little poweroutages you dont want that...so make sure you set it it up so it wont go down....

[lemix]

That is terrible, and so sorry to hear, GE.
Yep..UPS should tie you over
Just hoping the B&G won't be effected...we cannot afford the fridge to malfunction !!

[where02190]

A good UPS is worth it's weight in godl, and a must have for any studio. You can get a decent one for around $500 that will give you several minutes of run time, more than enough to save and shut down, or tide you voer during a quick outage.

[Rail Jon Rogut]

If you're using the UPS for audio equipment.. make sure you get one with a true sine wave output.

Rail

[albee1952]

FWIW, my $120 APC unit just saved the day as I was bouncing to disk and lost all power. The system finished its job like nothing happened and gave me plenty of time to save, close and shut down. And I have the computer, 2 monitors, Digi002, and Focusrite ISA428 all on it. As I am never far away from the system when its working, I figured 5-10 minutes would be fine. So far so good.