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Types Of Uninterruptible Power Supplies

February 28, 2010

While we all know that our daily requirements depend largely on energy sources provided by a single utility power, we must also be aware of the fact that this lone supplier may get overloaded and cut off its source for sometime. It is in such a situation that we need an UPS to provide us with an uninterrupted power supply.How do we know which one to choose and which one is good?

As is known, uninterruptible power supplies or UPS are a back up source of energy that provide emergency power to devices that are connected to it until the main utility source is restored or the equipment safely switched off. Places such as hospitals rely on an uninterrupted power supply to save lives. It deters serious situations by keeping the power supply on all the time.

But how can we tell which uninterruptible power supply is appropriate for us. The on-line and the line interactive UPS systems are the two primary kinds of uninterruptible power supplies. The double-conversion is utilised by the on-line uninterruptible power supply. This means it takes in the AC input that is available from the main utility source and then converts it into DC power. This is necessary for it to pass through the battery. Once this is done it converts it back to AC power which runs the connected equipment.

The line interactive uninterruptible power supplies have an internal or in-line inverter that transmits the DC power of the battery from the standard charging form to supplying energy during an emergency power failure. It is analogous to the stand by or off-line UPS except for the fact that it has a flexible electrical transformer that has the ability to increase or decrease the magnetic field and the produced voltage of the transformer. This has the ability to suffer Low voltage brownouts and high voltage surges without using up any stored energy.

An on-line UPS is perfect for situations where there are extreme voltage fluctuations and the equipment connected to it is highly sensitive. They are more expensive than the line-interactive and the stand by UPS and were earlier available only for larger consumption installations. They are available now however, in smaller consumer equipments. These use about 500 watts of power. Large industries that have vast numbers of noise-making equipment generally will use this as they are convenient to this type of environment. Apart from this they may require a back up generator to supply an uninterrupted power supply to these equipments.

Due to the fact that they have a powerful AC to DC converter and an advanced cooling system, they are more expensive than the other two types of UPS systems. They do however, provide efficient energy sources to your equipment. The on-line UPS require no power transmission switches as the converter moves out of the circuit when there is a power cut and moves back in to resume charging when the main power supply is restored.

You can decide which uninterruptible power supply system is best for you based on the two designs and functions. Uninterrupted power is an essential part of your environment if you want to be hassle free, as whether you are at home, in the office or work for a large organisation it will always provide you with an uninterrupted power supply.

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