Do you guys condition the power to your bench?

[apelly]

At risk of opening a can of worms:

I was having an informal chat with a couple of HAMs at the club this morning, one of whom is also a Men's Shed member. The subject of power conditioning came up in the context of the Men's Shed's new electronics lab; starting machinery in the other rooms already plays havoc with the lights apparently.

It seems like this'd be undesirable in the lab, and I thought I'd ask around here and see what you guys'd do about it.

Any thoughts?

[Freelander]

I use a couple of APC 2200 UPSs as conditioners and 'smoothers' as we get some real voltage changes here. The lights dim when the water pump kicks in 
The UPS does all I need and you can pick them up as cheap as chips if you look about. Usually just need new batteries which are not expensive these days. Even though the UPS is line interactive I have it set on very high sensitivity as the line interactive function is pretty useless if the voltage is dropping due to load (which is the issue here) as opposed to the supply itself fluctuating.
An online ups would be overkill and costs more to buy and to run.
All the main equipment runs off one UPS and the computers etc off another. The lights are all as per normal house wiring. My nas servers have their own small APC unit as the others big jobbies are off when the shack is not in use. The NAS is on all the time though.
Thoroughly recommended.

edit (the APC units are also used AS ups units too of course )

[james_s]

I don't do anything to condition the power, I just plug a power strip straight into the wall. My power is pretty clean and reliable to begin with.

[Someone]

I was having an informal chat with a couple of HAMs at the club this morning, one of whom is also a Men's Shed member. The subject of power conditioning came up in the context of the Men's Shed's new electronics lab; starting machinery in the other rooms already plays havoc with the lights apparently.

It seems like this'd be undesirable in the lab, and I thought I'd ask around here and see what you guys'd do about it.

There are good uses for power conditioning but its really case specific, it can make no difference at all to the problem if you apply in incorrectly/blindly. Do they have computers running there already? If the computers aren't rebooting then its unlikely to affect any hobbyist electronics projects and making the electronics work correctly though power disturbance events is a good learning experience if a little irritating when it happens.

[apelly]

I use a couple of APC 2200 UPSs as conditioners and 'smoothers'

Not familiar with that particular model, but a concern I had about the whole UPS thing was the shit waveform they produce.

[apelly]

making the electronics work correctly though power disturbance events is a good learning experience if a little irritating when it happens.

Valid point, but if it's affecting your repair or T&M gear, that's no fun.

[BradC]

I use a couple of APC 2200 UPSs as conditioners and 'smoothers'

Not familiar with that particular model, but a concern I had about the whole UPS thing was the shit waveform they produce.

As you say, you aren't familiar with that particular model. The line interactive APC ups units produce quite lovely sine waves. They have a _lot_ of iron in them. Oddly enough, I use an SU2200 for my stuff too, although if I am working on anything really valuable and want really clean power I have a couple of Liebert 3KVA on line units.

[Freelander]

I use a couple of APC 2200 UPSs as conditioners and 'smoothers'

Not familiar with that particular model, but a concern I had about the whole UPS thing was the shit waveform they produce.

APC 2200 is a workhorse, pure sine wave. Quality output. 
You must be thinking of some of the cheap crap 'modified sine wave'
Almost anything under 700 quid new can be pretty poor. The larger APC sine-wave units are excellent.
No worries at all even on HF. (I mainly use 80 and 20 Mtrs.)

http://www.apc.com/shop/uk/en/products/APC-Smart-UPS-2200VA-LCD-230V/P-SMT2200I

(my units are the non lcd ones but otherwise the same)

[calexanian]

No. I do not. Never really have thought about it for my place. Another shop I work in has dedicated circuits for test gear that is fed from a crazy old line regulator from the 60's and its still rock solid. 

[Freelander]

As you say, you aren't familiar with that particular model. The line interactive APC ups units produce quite lovely sine waves. They have a _lot_ of iron in them. Oddly enough, I use an SU2200 for my stuff too, although if I am working on anything really valuable and want really clean power I have a couple of Liebert 3KVA on line units.

A lot of Iron,  Tell me about it !. nearly 50 Kg EACH with the batteries - each main unit without batteries is over 25Kg 

It is all bleeding transformers  (two BFO (BIG EFF' OFF) units in EACH box!)

Had to make small trolleys with castors for them as I value my back too much .
Got the last 2.2KVA APC for 70 euros !!!!! from OLX (a sort of Portuguese 'craigs list') absolutely like new - just needed new batteries as usual. A grands worth of kit for less than 160 euros all in with all new batteries.


The Lieberts are sweet  - they are full online I presume ?

[GreyWoolfe]

I have an APC SmartUPS 1500 each for my workbench and network gear, company computer stuff and personal desk/ham shack.  Faulty, I mean Florida Power and Light can be pretty funny to watch with an analog meter plugged into a wall socket.

[Ampera]

I got a UPS for free
It broke

It's in a corner now, unplugged and unloved.

I'm not even sure, but I think my equipment was tripping the circuit breaker (or maybe even a fuse as it doesn't turn on anymore), so it was sort of useless to me if it didn't do anything to keep my machines running on the rare occasion we have a power outage (I'm talking 2 major outages in the last 10 years for the area, and a few 5 minute outages

Almost everything is a computer though, so it's normally accepting of not the cleanest power. My city's power, being some of the first in the world, is actually pretty rock solid. 120v, few fluctuations (I have never done a proper measure of it, just going off the occasional power meter).

[CopperCone]

I kinda wanted to put 10GHz TEMPEST filters on my home power, 1000$ though.

[NiHaoMike]

Just a few good quality power strips for most things. My main PC has a 12V battery input built in and the rest of my IT gear that is to stay running at all times runs on a 170V DC bus (rectified 120V) backed up from a 12.8V, 82Ah LiFePO4 battery through a DC/DC converter. There's a 100W solar panel supplying that through the BMS, along with some work being done on a 16.4V, 65Ah LiMn "smart" battery pack that supports interconnection with a built in DC/DC converter.

If I need to make an exceptionally clean AC line, I have a SurgeX filter box for that. It's very rare to find anything that can actually be improved by it, however. Even Homeplug adapters only get a small improvement when running on a line separated from the normal mains by the filter. (I did try putting the Homeplugs on opposite sides of the filter and they will connect, but very slowly. So not the best attenuation but plenty for anything I'm likely to encounter.)

[BradC]

A lot of Iron,  Tell me about it !. nearly 50 Kg EACH with the batteries - each main unit without batteries is over 25Kg 

It is all bleeding transformers  (two BFO (BIG EFF' OFF) units in EACH box!)

Yep. Simple and effective. Also easy to work on if things go wrong or they need a tickle up (I recently did the SU2200. Replaced some electros, new resistors in the high side FET drivers, new MOVs all round).

The Lieberts are sweet  - they are full online I presume ?

Yeah a couple of the GXT2U-3000. Older units, but still do a good job. I have a nice MGE Pulsar M2200 also but that needs some work (main bulk supply caps need replacing and they are worth almost as much as a set of batteries).

My favs are the APC though. My main server & stuff sit on an SUA3000 with an extra set of 55AH batteries. The house & workbench are on an SU2200 (again with extra 55AH batteries). I also have an SU1400RM and SUA750 for point loads (like when I want galvanic isolation), plus a handful of cheap and nasties from a "take all or none" when I picked up my SUA3000. I should sell some of this stuff, but it's not worth anything second hand and it gets enough use (just) to justify me keeping it around, and second hand units don't even get enough $$ to pay for the batteries.

[Gorp]

If you make electronics they should work under all "normal" line conditions, if not you end up like: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/profile/?area=showposts;u=139928

[VK5RC]

The whole house has under and over voltage cut outs, I don't know their parameters but no problems to date with mains voltage/spikes /brown outs in suburban Adelaide - IF there is any voltage at all! (Adelaide is the home of the 'black start events) HiHi.

[beanflying]

Depends on the quality of the power coming in. NZ surburbia should be similar to us.

Some of the old SWER lines still in use in country Victoria have been known to drop below 200V when pumps or dairies kick in along the way.

Generally in Surburban Oz I would have said in the past don't worry about it but as the cost of my T&M and the precision I am after I am going to invest in them mainly to keep the data logging going for short term power loss more than power issues.

In my shed I run a single high power 240V circuit. Power draws are a 3.8kW coffee roaster and a 3.2kW coffee machine (not run together) along with two large fridges and all the electronics gear. The Roaster is PWM controlled and the Coffee machine is hard switched, neither has caused issues in the past with any of the electronics and voltage drop off is 3-4Vac max because of the 4sq.mm cable run.

If your Men's shed includes welding in particular or 3 phase motors then you need to think about it I guess.

[David Hess]

I have horrible power but since my computer workstation is adjacent to my workbenches, I power all of my test instrumentation with the same online UPS which protects my workstation.

[Mr. Scram]

If you make electronics they should work under all "normal" line conditions, if not you end up like: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/profile/?area=showposts;u=139928

Sure, but it helps to have some control over the conditions being ideal or not. Typically, you try to get things to work under ideal conditions first, then throw shit at it to see what causes problems. Additionally, if you don't know what the conditions were when things broke down, you can't easily address the issues.

[duak]

I've found that a Ground Fault Current Interrupter (GFCI) is a handy, sort of line conditioner especially when working on opened equipment connected to the line.  I have one on my home bench and when I was repairing a Wavetek function generator, a scope probe ground got pulled off a test point, swung down and touched a PCB mounted line fuse.  Instead of a blue flash and a not so useful scope probe (or worse) there was a little 'tic' and the GFCI tripped.  No damage - thank you GFCI god!  I'll bet it'd also save the day if you forget to disconnect the AC line and dive in with a soldering iron...

Almost 40 years ago a similar thing happened to me with an expensive Single Board Computer.  I wasn't so lucky but I did repair it in the end.  A few burnt traces, some RS-232 chips and a 1K byte EPROM that I reprogrammed byte-by-byte from the firmware listing.

Just sayin',
 Cheers