[rescue] UPS rescue, now what?

[James Lockwood]

On Wed, 31 Jul 2002, Tim H. wrote:

> well, how much do you use the stove?  A full electric stove/oven can
> approach circuit limit if you light up all the burners and the oven at
> once.  Of course most people seldom do that.  And the UPS will most
> likely not approach its maximum under normal circumstances, that maximum
> has to be rated for full load plus full charge, and hopefully it will
> never be charging.  It is completely out of code to hang something off a

If you have a UPS, you are predicting a potential power failure.  If you
have a power failure, you are going to start charging when power comes
back.  Some modern units are "nice" about tapering off their current draw
for charging as the batteries come close to fully charged, but many units
will draw up to 50% of their total rated output just for the charging
circuit.

Even if you only have 100VA of goodies hanging off of a 2000VA UPS, you
will pull more than 100VA after a power failure.  In some cases, much
more.

I've seen mention of the outlet VA, but not the UPS rated capacity.  What
is it?  I've seen 240V units as low as 400VA and the sky's the limit.
Typical electric range outlets in the USA are 240V/50A though I imagine
you could find lower amperage outlets in older construction for smaller
kitchens.

-James