Power cuts

[Bigbusiness]

Just had short power cut here. There aren't many of them but if I was trading at the time it would be a pain.

I did read about someone using a back up power supply for PC's but can't find the information. Can anyone recommend one?

 

[wysinawyg]

Well one option is to have a laptop on standby. This not only covers you against power failures but also against your main computer going down for some reason.

The other alternative is a UPS/Battery Backup such as one of these:

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...9kdWN0U2VhcmNoUmVzdWx0cw==&order_col=cat_desc

which you'll see are pretty pricey.

wysi

 

[Henry]

Personally I use a little APC BackUPS personal UPS. Despite having a three phase supply to my house, the overhead powerlines in this rural area make electricity a real lottery, and even as I write this the UPS is clicking away between battery and mains every few seconds as the power dips. You can run a phone line through it for the modem too in case of lightning strike (a neighbour recently had three modems blow up within a month!).

Have a look at dabs.com or microwarehouse.co.uk - shouldn't cost more than about £50 or so.

H.

 

[JonnyT]

Hi H,

A £50 UPS won't last long with complete power failure. For trading buy the biggest and best you can afford.

JonnyT

 

[Henry]

Hi JT, it's currently telling me I'll get 10 mins out of it, which is enough time to close any open trades
Agreed it's worth getting the best you can afford when trading.

H.

 

[Sledgehammer]

My wife works in the utility industry and has seen a report that forecasts that in Oct & Nov we will need the interconnector from France to satisfy peak demand, and that from Dec to Mar 04, even with the interconnector, we do not have the capacity for peak demand. There will be regional rotational outages.

She is insisting that we get a, say, 2kW generator.

 

[Henry]

That could be interesting - here in France they are having to switch off power stations because due to the extreme heat they cant cool them! They've already bent the rules about dumping hot water back into the rivers. Still, forcast is for it to start cooling down in October.

H.

 

[oatman]

There you go .http://www.quadpower.co.uk/gen950.html
Nice little one, run the cable thru your window......

 

[JonnyT]

The latest I saw is that France has been buying Electricity from the UK and not the other way round of late...

JonnyT

 

[Bigbusiness]

Thanks for the replies. 10 minutes is usually enough for me . I might go for a Belkin Universal Ups 800va. It costs £90 and can power a PC and a 17" monitor for 45 minutes.

Will have a good look over the weekend.

 

[Scripophilist]

I've been building up a secure and tolerant system at home. Would be interested in what rating generator I would need to run my systems. I have no perception of rating I need. Any advice would be welcome.

I will probably go for a UPS so it buys me some time before I need to switch to a generator.

 

[Scripophilist]

Just found something here.

http://www.ishop.co.uk/ishop/1006/shopscr2.html

 

[JonnyT]

A PC will typically take 600 Watts+

Therefor a 800VA UPU would last < 30 minutes.

The use of TFTP screens increases this time as does a Laptop with a pucker mobile processor.

If you intend to trade seriously then I think a 3000VA beast is the minimum requirement.

JonnyT