[ale] help providing stable power to pc's to ride through storms

[Ron Frazier (ALE)]

Hi guys,

I need some electrical power advice. It's possible you will give me the answer and I won't be able to afford it, but I'd like to know what you think.

I fairly recently got almost all my PC's running NTP, whether they're running Linux or Windows. One PC, which has a gps attached, is the time server for the others. Whenever I crank the PC's, I like to get certain application windows up and running and positioned in certain ways. This includes NTP loopstats graphs when I'm running Windows or terminal screens with ntpq when I'm running Linux. I like to have certain Firefox windows open on each system and things like weather radar and pandora on one system. I also like to verify that the gps is working and that it's machine is serving time to all the others.

Counting my wife's machine, my computer table has 4 laptops, 1 desktop, 2 monitors, and miscellaneous hubs, speakers, phones, etc. Too shut down everything and restart it and get it the way I want it running again takes 30 - 60 minutes. The problem is, that in the spring and summer, I end up shutting everything down almost every night due to electrical storms. I have a small UPS / surge protector that provides about 10 minutes of run time, but I don't trust that enough to leave the systems on during a lightning storm.

I would like to find a way to provide stable safe power even though storms are in the area, so I want to isolate the electronics from the main house power supply. Total power drain with everything running is about 350 W. I want the system to be unbothered by surges and brownouts and short black outs less than 20 minutes or so. As long as the house power is mostly on, I want to be able to run right through. I could do a minimal amount of that with my UPS, but my bigger concern is surges, spikes, and brownouts. 

I essentially don't want to be shutting down unless I'm physically having to run to the basement for cover.

Best case scenario: be able to run with house power continually out for 2 - 3 hours.
Next best case scenario: be able to run with house power essentially on but fluttering and flickering for 2 - 3 hours.

I had the following thoughts.

A) Have a MUCH bigger, as in 20 X bigger, UPS. It would have to trip quickly on at the first hint of a brownout, or run in continuous UPS mode, and would have to have really beefy surge protection. I don't want it to even blink during a lightning strike to ground 1/2 mile from my house. Of course, I know that if lightning hits right near the house, on the house, or right on my power line, all bets are off.

B) Have a 500W - 1000W motor generator set. The house power runs the motor, and the generator runs the electronics. There is total electrical isolation between the two electrical systems. A smaller UPS between the generator and the electronics could handle shorter brownouts and blackouts. A long blackout would shut me down, but the UPS could give me time to terminate everything.

What do you guys think would be a good way to handle it? Please don't say shut down and leave home for 3 hours. I already thought of that.

Sincerely,

Ron


--

Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and K-9 Mail.
Please excuse my potential brevity.

(To whom it may concern. My email address has changed. Replying to former
messages prior to 03/31/12 with my personal address will go to the wrong
address. Please send all personal correspondence to the new address.)

(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
call on the phone. I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
mailing lists and such. I don't always see new email messages very quickly.)

Ron Frazier
770-205-9422 (O) Leave a message.
linuxdude AT techstarship.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20120521/03ff12f2/attachment.html