ic, Alas, although some of these units advertise this capability, they don’t reliably operate this way. I’ve tried several brands as solar-charged UPSes at remote radio antenna sites, and all eventually failed within just a couple months of the batteries didn’t make it through a long gray spell.
In my experience, they may initially work as a UPS for a few power outage cycles, but then suddenly fail permanently with burned components. Some vendors actually say operating as a UPS — drawing power while charging — voids the warranty, despite appearing to work. For mission-critical operations, it’s best to use a name-brand self-contained UPS designed for the purpose. In a small space you won’t get more than an hour or two of runtime, but that’s the physics we’re stuck with at this time. -mel via cell > On Apr 8, 2025, at 5:30 AM, ic via NANOG <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi, > >> On 6 Apr 2025, at 20:55, Mike Hammett via NANOG <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> I'm trying to find something that keeps my customer's network gear online >> for a meaningful amount of time. The challenge is that an ONT, firewall, >> switch, AP, and some IP phones doesn't add up to be very much load. Most >> normal UPSes get terribly inefficient at lower load ratings. Add up all of >> the network devices a customer may have and we rarely break 50 watts of >> load. Normal, small UPSes are lucky to break 50% efficiency at those loads >> whereas they may be 95% efficient at say 100 or 200 watts. Get a bigger unit >> with a bigger battery and now you're even less efficient. Get a big enough >> unit to have extendable batteries and now you're spending thousands of >> dollars for such a small request. >> >> I've gone asking, but haven't really gotten anywhere. The best technical >> solution was from some electronics parts nerds that was basically to build >> my own small rectifier and battery system. Great. I can achieve high >> efficiencies with small loads, letting me have say 4 or 8 hours of battery. >> However, I've got a science project, not something I can deploy at a >> customer. >> >> I'm hoping one of you has the magic bullet in what product a service >> provider should use in this scenario. >> >> Oh, and of course, being able to centrally manage them from my own iron >> would be great too. :-) > > For places which are not proper IT cabinets, I’d go with something like > https://us.ecoflow.com/ - most (if not all) support charging while output is > on, and you get the extra benefit of being able to add a solar panel if you > want to. > > Not sure about the efficiency though. > > BR, ic > > _______________________________________________ > NANOG mailing list > https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/[email protected]/message/HSXYBNXQYRSDQXQSXEOAEC2VJQRISP2E/ _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/[email protected]/message/TLTIGR224VSY73UCGVION526TWS564WG/
