(OT) Generators & Computers?
 

I'm on the verge of buying a 2.8KVa or 3.0KVa Petrol Generator and was
wondering whether anyone had any experience with using these as a backup
in case the domestic supply fails? Forinstance, although I have the
computer plugged into a surge protection socket, are generators more
prone to spikes and the like?

I beleive that you can plug these directly into your ring main (switch
off the main incomer) and will effectively power up ALL the house
circuits. (Obviously if you turn on the water heater, cooker and
electric fire you're pushing your luck).

Any thoughts would be welcome

Many thanks
--
Keith (Southend)
http://www.southendweather.net

(OT) Generators & Computers?
 

"Keith (Southend)" wrote in message
...
I'm on the verge of buying a 2.8KVa or 3.0KVa Petrol Generator and was
wondering whether anyone had any experience with using these as a backup
in case the domestic supply fails? Forinstance, although I have the
computer plugged into a surge protection socket, are generators more prone
to spikes and the like?

I beleive that you can plug these directly into your ring main (switch off
the main incomer) and will effectively power up ALL the house circuits.
(Obviously if you turn on the water heater, cooker and electric fire
you're pushing your luck).

Any thoughts would be welcome

Many thanks
--
Keith (Southend)
http://www.southendweather.net

Blimey not you as well Keith. Are'nt you taking the ukmo 'Shot in the Dark'
forecast too seriously?

Anyone out there prepared to barter some Squirrel skins fork candles?

(OT) Generators & Computers?
 

Lawrence Jenkins wrote:

Blimey not you as well Keith. Are'nt you taking the ukmo 'Shot in the Dark'
forecast too seriously?

Anyone out there prepared to barter some Squirrel skins fork candles?


It's not so much the ukmo forecast it's more of the state I beleive that
the UK and Global resources are currently in. It wouldn't take much to
tip it over the balance.
Look how the gas price has gone up, most of our electricity generation
is gas fired generators.
We also now rely on a lot of gas imports, coming from the continent and
further.

Just imagine a freezing week running upto Christmas, then all the
cookers go on Christmas morning. I don't want to be caught 'cold turkey'
grin

I guess it's also a bit of an insurance policy.
--
Keith (Southend)
http://www.southendweather.net

(OT) Generators & Computers?
 

Keith (Southend) wrote:
I'm on the verge of buying a 2.8KVa or 3.0KVa Petrol Generator and was
wondering whether anyone had any experience with using these as a backup
in case the domestic supply fails? Forinstance, although I have the
computer plugged into a surge protection socket, are generators more
prone to spikes and the like?

I beleive that you can plug these directly into your ring main (switch
off the main incomer) and will effectively power up ALL the house
circuits. (Obviously if you turn on the water heater, cooker and
electric fire you're pushing your luck).

Any thoughts would be welcome

Many thanks


An antisurge socket should be fine but put a small ups on your PC as
they clean up noisy mains, dropouts, power surges, etc really well.

Trust do one at a very reasonable price - i've got my server hanging off
an energy protector 650 - which also comes with a telephone line filter,
not that i use it as i have cable. This will keep your PC running whilst
you start your generator up.

3KVa is approximately 3Kw into a resistive load which should be enough
to power your lighting, a small kettle (handy for boiling eggs) and your PC.
==
There is an element of government manipulation about this - they've
brought up nuclear power again - the Daily Mail stated that companies
like RWE and E-on were going to stop exporting gas to the UK. Not that
you would want to believe the daily mail says... but considering that
they both own 100% of npower and powergen respectively would be a very
good case for not allowing foreign ownership of british utility
companies. And of course London is lit up by EDF - electricity de france
and British Gas is, in reality, French Gas.
==
Wembley Stadium will be lit up by the Germans. Could be bad news for the
next time England are beating Germany at Wembley when all the lights
mysteriously go out. England Fans Discuss. Scottish, Welsh and Irish
fans smile at the thought :)

les

--
Les Crossan,
Wallsend, Tyne & Wear
54.95N 1.5W
Home of the Wallsend StormCam and the Backup USW FAQ -
www.uksevereweather.org.uk

(OT) Generators & Computers?
 

'Keith (Southend)" wrote in message
...
Lawrence Jenkins wrote:

Blimey not you as well Keith. Are'nt you taking the ukmo 'Shot in the
Dark' forecast too seriously?

Anyone out there prepared to barter some Squirrel skins fork candles?

It's not so much the ukmo forecast it's more of the state I beleive that
the UK and Global resources are currently in. It wouldn't take much to tip
it over the balance.
Look how the gas price has gone up, most of our electricity generation is
gas fired generators.
We also now rely on a lot of gas imports, coming from the continent and
further.

Just imagine a freezing week running upto Christmas, then all the cookers
go on Christmas morning. I don't want to be caught 'cold turkey' grin

I guess it's also a bit of an insurance policy.
--
Keith (Southend)
http://www.southendweather.net

**cease lurking**

Keith

I have a 3.5KVa Honda generator as backup. The house has a manual transfer
switch (which isolates the mains and selects the generator as power source)
fitted 'upstream' of the consumer unit (fitted professionally before we
bought the house). I simply start the generator, 'plug it in' to the
transfer switch, turn the circuit breaker on (on the generator) and throw
the transfer switch.

We find that this happily runs the house, and importantly, runs the pump to
provide us with drinking water from our well. The house heating is gas. The
PC (and in fact all electrical equipment) works fine. Obviously, if I try
using an electric kettle, it throws the circuit breaker on the genertor
UNLESS I turn off every other appliance and light.

I hope this answers your question,

--
Henry.
Clyst Valley
Exeter
20m asl

Turn up the heat to reply.

(OT) Generators & Computers?
 

On Wed, 23 Nov 2005 20:33:15 +0000, Keith (Southend) wrote:

... are generators more prone to spikes and the like?

They will sag and surge something rotten when loads are applied or
removed. Things with motors, like the fridge or freezer may well give
a generator a serious headache for a moment or two. Maybe long enough
to cause a computer to reboot or blow a fuse. I'd not connect
"sensitive" kit until I knew how that particular generator behaved as
loads came on and off.

I beleive that you can plug these directly into your ring main
(switch off the main incomer) and will effectively power up ALL the
house circuits.

ARGH! not plug as in a 13A plug on the end of the generator cable
PLEASE. Not only would the plug be LETHAL, potentially live exposed
pins when not connected, but there are issues regarding the
installation earth and Neutral/Earth bonding and the incoming supply
etc. There is no "one size fits all" solution as there are several
different ways of supplying mains power in the UK and each require
different treatment when connecting a generator.

You can fit a proper break before make changeover switch and fed the
generator side of that from a proper 16 or 32A CEE connecter. They
don't come cheap, though couple of hundred quid, plus fitting. You
can't legaly DIY this sort of stuff now.

The simplest and safest approach (if you are sensible about cable
routing...) is to have enough, suitably rated, extension cables to
feed the required kit direct from the genny and forget any interface
with the house wiring.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

(OT) Generators & Computers?
 

Les Crossan wrote:

An antisurge socket should be fine but put a small ups on your PC as
they clean up noisy mains, dropouts, power surges, etc really well.

Trust do one at a very reasonable price - i've got my server hanging off
an energy protector 650 - which also comes with a telephone line filter,
not that i use it as i have cable. This will keep your PC running whilst
you start your generator up.

http://www.infotechshop.co.uk/produc...?recnumber=208

Good idea Les. A sudden power off won't do the PC or anything else (adsl
router / Weather Monitor etc) much good.

Can you just clarify something from your sentence, are you saying the
'energy protector 650' is one item (UPS) and the 'Trust' anti-surge
socket is another? I'm having trouble locating one of the latter. So you
plug the anti-surge socket lead into the UPS, and subsequently all you
equipment.

Thanks
--
Keith (Southend)
http://www.southendweather.net

(OT) Generators & Computers?
 

Dave Liquorice wrote:

Thanks Dave and everyone else for your very useful tips regarding
generators.

--
Keith (Southend)
http://www.southendweather.net

(OT) Generators & Computers?
 

On 23/11/05 8:33 pm, in article ,
"Keith (Southend)" wrote:

I'm on the verge of buying a 2.8KVa or 3.0KVa Petrol Generator and was
wondering whether anyone had any experience with using these as a backup
in case the domestic supply fails? Forinstance, although I have the
computer plugged into a surge protection socket, are generators more
prone to spikes and the like?

I beleive that you can plug these directly into your ring main (switch
off the main incomer) and will effectively power up ALL the house
circuits. (Obviously if you turn on the water heater, cooker and
electric fire you're pushing your luck).

Any thoughts would be welcome

Many thanks

Hi Keith

I've had a 4.5 kVA petrol generator for about 15 years now, and have used it
every winter. If your budget can run to something about this power, you will
see benefits. If the genny is running well within capacity, then the voltage
tends to be better regulated, in my experience. It will handle the electric
kettle or microwave comfortably.

While you CAN connect it directly into a ring circuit, it is not terribly
good practice, and the electricity supplier would take a very dim view. In
the early years, when I did it this way, I would pull out the main fuse for
the duration.

A more elegant solution is to have an extra consumer unit (fuse box)
installed, to which you would connect your light circuits, plus a ring
circuit supplying fridges, freezers and any other "must have" items. Splash
out on a changeover switch ( I paid about £60) to connect your new fusebox
either to the mains or the generator. Sorted!

(OT) Generators & Computers?
 

Keith (Southend) ha scritto:
Good idea Les. A sudden power off won't do the PC or anything else (adsl
router / Weather Monitor etc) much good.


How would you recommend turning off an adsl router?
A sudden power off (turning off the switch) is the only method on the
models I have seen.

I agree that a power outtage can leave bits of files on a hard drive
(and loss of unsaved data) but it is easy to tidy up.


--
Gianna Stefani

www.buchan-meteo.org.uk
www.buchan-nature.org.uk

(OT) Generators & Computers?
 

Can you just clarify something from your sentence, are you saying the
'energy protector 650' is one item (UPS) and the 'Trust' anti-surge
socket is another? I'm having trouble locating one of the latter. So you
plug the anti-surge socket lead into the UPS, and subsequently all you
equipment.

Thanks
No the UPS is called a Trust Energy Protector 650 and it has an anti
surge modem socket built in.

Les.


--
Les Crossan,
Wallsend, Tyne & Wear
54.95N 1.5W
Home of the Wallsend StormCam and the Backup USW FAQ -
www.uksevereweather.org.uk

(OT) Generators & Computers?
 

He http://www.trust.com/products/produc...WER-PROTECTION

Most computer shops and online stores do Trust, if you know what I mean.

Les

Keith (Southend) wrote:
Les Crossan wrote:

(OT) Generators & Computers?
 

Felly sgrifennodd Gianna :
How would you recommend turning off an adsl router?
A sudden power off (turning off the switch) is the only method on the
models I have seen.

It shouldn't do it any harm; I haven't seen one with a hard disc in before
(and that's the thing that usually causes a problem with sudedn power
outages), even though my modem/router is running Linux :) Hey that makes
four Linux PCs in oue house :) :)

I agree that a power outtage can leave bits of files on a hard drive
(and loss of unsaved data) but it is easy to tidy up.

If you're really unlucky. The power supply can actually send an interrupt
to the CPU to tell it that the power has been cut, and if the CPU can act
quick enough (in the microseconds it has), it should be able to put things
in a safe state. That's the theory anyway; I don't know how Or how often)
this is implemented.

Adrian

--
Adrian Shaw ais@
Adran Cyfrifiadureg, Prifysgol Cymru, aber.
Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Cymru ac.
http://users.aber.ac.uk/ais uk

(OT) Generators & Computers?
 

Keith (Southend) wrote:
Les Crossan wrote:

An antisurge socket should be fine but put a small ups on your PC as
they clean up noisy mains, dropouts, power surges, etc really well.


-----mains-----anti surge plug-----UPS-----equipment

All I have hanging off mine is my main server and it's display monitor,
so I can shut it down gracefully before I run out of power but there's
nobody stopping you from adding more.

I've had it go off on me before in thunderstorms, it's generally not too
much grief on a workstation if it dies but i've got a couple of RAID
arrays that have to regenerate if it goes off disgracefully for any
reason. The last major ts we had here in August killed the psu and
motherboard and it took me the best part of a day to recover everything
after replacing these parts. A ups stops mains overvoltages and spikes
as well as undervolts and is good protection for a workstation
especially if it's on all the time. And vital for a server which does a
lot more and has a lot more open files.

I don't know if a modem filter would interfere with dsl. You would have
to try it and see.

Les
--
Les Crossan,
Wallsend, Tyne & Wear
54.95N 1.5W
Home of the Wallsend StormCam and the Backup USW FAQ -
www.uksevereweather.org.uk

(OT) Generators & Computers?
 

On 23 Nov 2005 23:45:11 -0000, Adrian D. Shaw wrote:

The power supply can actually send an interrupt to the CPU to tell
it that the power has been cut, and if the CPU can act quick enough
(in the microseconds it has), it should be able to put things in a
safe state. That's the theory anyway; I don't know how Or how often)
this is implemented.

I doubt there is enough time to close files and update the discs
index...

Better to have a UPS. A decent one will come with a serial lead to
connect to the PC which runs a bit of software that gracefully shuts
the PC down when the power fails. Small UPSs don't get you much time,
think a few minutes, but ample to close everything down and switch off
if you are there. The software should be configurable to shutdown on
power fail or when the UPS battery is about to run flat.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

(OT) Generators & Computers?
 

In article ,
Les Crossan wrote:

-----mains-----anti surge plug-----UPS-----equipment

All I have hanging off mine is my main server and it's display monitor,
so I can shut it down gracefully before I run out of power but there's
nobody stopping you from adding more.

I can confirm that the Trust UPS referred to by Les is very good and
excellent value. I also run servers here and power the main Linux box
and the ADSL router via the UPS.

--
Bob Cox. Stoke Gifford, near Bristol, UK.
(very near http://www.meto.gov.uk/weather/europ...bs/filton.html )