I’m wondering how many have thought of or ran into power disruption during a print job? I decided to pick up an UPS for my Form 1 to plugged into so if there is power loss during a long print, I can still keep going (unless it’s a prolonged outage…) My thinking is it’s not a matter of IF this is going to happen but WHEN will it.
-Will
I was thinking about doing this as well. I guess I’ll probably put my printer right next to my computer (which already has a UPS).
That make sense…I use a MacBook so the UPS thing is new in this setup. Thanks for chiming in…
I’ve got mine hooked up to a small battery backup as well. I get a lot of small power disruptions in my area, so a UPS is a must. Good tip! ^_^)b
Right! Small power disruptions / voltage fluctuations would also be another reason to use an UPS with the Form 1. Thanks for bringing that up -Tj-.
Great idea! A decent UPS costs ~$40-50, which is cheap insurance to prevent both surges and failed builds due to brown or blackouts.
Does anyone has a particular brand to recommend?
I see mainly APC and Cyberpower on amazon, but I’m not sure about the quality of the product for 50-100$ range nor their customer service.
Cheers
@Jason: cheap insurance it is 
@Damien: The one I got was on Amazon’s “Today’s Deal” about 5 days ago and thought it was a good deal at $52 but today it’s about $46.99. Fits the price range that Jason mentioned now but I got it mainly for the Form 1 since I run a MacBook. If you want more backup time, it will probably cost more, may have a LCD / fancy features. Haven’t done much with it yet as I’m waiting for my Resin so I’m hoping this does the trick. Your mileage may vary if you have other electronics connected to the UPS.
I got the one with the “Green Feature”: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004KPJYWQ/
Hope this helps in some way.
-Will
I have a CyberPower 625VA. I was a little hesitant to buy a non-APC UPS, but the CyberPower UPS has held up great so far with my desktop PC tower and monitor. The true test will be to see how it copes when the printer’s going, too.
Just a heads-up on some UPS setups… We had a commercial haunted house attraction last year and installed some cheap (~$40) UPSes from OfficeMax to run our emergency lighting. The only load they had on them was some LED lights-- maybe ~5-20W depending on the unit. Based on the wattage rating of the UPS and the light loads I assumed that we’d get close to an hour of backup lighting from them.
Surprisingly, all the backups would fail at almost exactly 20 minutes every time we removed the power. Some experimentation revealed that changing the load on the UPS didn’t affect that ‘maximum’ run time. Apparently they just turn off the backup power at 20 minutes to protect the battery regardless of the actual load on the outputs! Something to consider if you’re thinking about buying a “oversized” UPS to get a longer run time (say to complete a print during a prolonged outage). It might not work that way.
@Clay: Thanks for the heads up on this possible scenario!!! Even more of a reason I’ll be doing a test by connecting the battery to my lamp and timing it. One possible fix I hope is having it connect to a computer with the UPS software installed to “configure” it to drain all the way through but I’ll find this out on my “Green” UPS and report my findings here. -Will
Good info, Clay. I didn’t know that they limit running time no matter what, but it makes sense that it would to protect the battery from over-draining.
@Clay Hmm that doesn’t sound right. I’d look at the manual for your particular UPS unit and see if the battery meter needs calibration. Just as an example, take a look at APC’s runtime graph for the BackUPS 550VA, a cheap $50 unit near the top of the Amazon search results for “UPS”: https://www.apc.com/products/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BE550G&total_watts=200 This chart claims 60 watt load should run for ~45mins on calibrated fresh batteries.
Ok, an update to my findings…I had a lamp connected to the UPS and left it on for 25 minutes. Operation definitely surpassed my worry of a default 20 minute shutdown. Based on the battery capacity, if I can get my Form 1 out of the box to check power requirements, I should be able to calculate how long things can keep running (Resin arrives today and Form space almost ready so Form 1 still hibernating in shipping box). I may just connect the battery data cable to my computer and have the software tell me what it can.
-Will
FYI, Form 1’s specs say it draws 60 watts. I’m assuming that’s avg load during operation.
@Jason - I too would infer that the APC would run proportionally to current draw based on that graph. I don’t really recall what the brand we got from OfficeMax was… Could have been Belkin? (They’re in storage for the season, or I’d look.) There was no PC connected to the USB port either, so maybe that changes their behavior as well? I’d write it off as a slightly hinky one except that they all would turn off within ~30 seconds of each other-- regardless of different loads on them. It’s also possible that the current monitor in the UPS was expecting a more “PC” like load (amps vs. milli-amps) and the low power ~5-10W load simply doesn’t register and it shuts the inverter thinking there’s nothing plugged in?
I have a couple older APC units here (they might even be 550VA’s or an earlier model) with batteries that are toast. I keep meaning to buy a full size deep cycle marine battery and lash it up to the APC’s inverter and see if it’ll run “forever” with that setup. 