Hi all,
Just some follow-up general thoughts on UPS choice, inspired by both our UPS
design and Michael's point about remote shutdown. Here are a few questions
we grappled with as we were designing our system.
What kind of outage are you intending to buffer against? Up here in Madison
our UPS system primarily buffers against transient power interruptions, most
less than a second. These are outages which absolutely can take down an
experiment, but don't require a ton of battery capacity to protect against.
What other power redundancy is available? Our UPS units are backstopped by
a building generator which spins up within thirteen seconds of a serious
outage. This lets us get away with less UPS capacity than we would need
otherwise.
How many levels of redundancy do you need? Our BMPC2s have their own local
UPS units installed (courtesy Bruker) to ensure that the pumped magnets stay
cold even in a protracted power outage; so our consoles have two levels of
backup, but the BMPC2s have three.
What other utilities do you need to run a spectrometer? This came up with
our process chilled water system, which (as of time of writing) is not on
generator backup. If your cryoprobe helium compressor won't survive ten
seconds of a power outage, there's no sense in keeping your console up for
an hour. HVAC and compressed air or nitrogen are two other utilities which
may or may not need to be considered when speccing out a UPS.
What alarms are available to you? As Michael says, if you can reliably be
reached at 2 am to remotely power off a spectrometer that might mean you
need less UPS capacity (on the other hand, will your facility internet stay
up during a significant outage?).
Our conclusion at NMRFAM is that, in Wisconsin, our most significant and
frequent electrical risk is transient outages from remote grid damage (think
a transformer blowing or a pole being damaged); that, combined with our
building backup generator, leads us to target 20 minutes of uptime on our UPS.
All of our electrically sensitive equipment is on the UPS, so we don't notice
the several-times-a-year blips.
In the event of a prolonged outage affecting the building we will lose HVAC
and process chilled water, stopping most experiments. In the event of a
prolonged outage affecting all of campus we will lose compressed air,
definitely stopping all experiments (though local compressed air ballast
tanks will ensure a smooth landing for our SSNMR systems).
We are in the process of transitioning to generator-backed sources of compressed
air, nitrogen, and process chilled water, but transitioning the HVAC to
generator backup has proven impossible. Hence, most of our medium-term backup
choices are to ensure that samples survive a power outage, whether they're
in a cryoprobe or in a SSNMR probe.
Happy to discuss our experiences in detail off-list if anyone has any specific
questions about our choices.
Cheers,
Alex
Alex Paterson
The National Magnetic Resonance Facility at Madison (NMRFAM)
University of Wisconsin-Madison
alpaterson_at_wisc.edu
> From: main_at_ammrl.groups.io On Behalf Of Alex Paterson via groups.io
> Sent: Monday, February 10, 2025 11:08 AM
> To: main_at_ammrl.groups.io
> Subject: Re: [AMMRL] UPS options?
Hi Beth,
We run two 80 kVA Vertiv Liebert EXM UPS units to back up our facility. We've
been very happy with them, both from an operational standpoint and from a
customer service perspective.
Best,
Alex
Alex Paterson
The National Magnetic Resonance Facility at Madison (NMRFAM)
University of Wisconsin-Madison
alpaterson_at_wisc.edu
> From: main_at_ammrl.groups.io On Behalf Of Beth Moscato via groups.io
> Sent: Monday, February 10, 2025 10:59 AM
> To: main <main_at_ammrl.groups.io<mailto:main_at_ammrl.groups.io>>
> Subject: [AMMRL] UPS options?
Hi -
We are looking into installing an uninterrupted power supply for our labs
(three Bruker spectrometers). I've got a recommendation from Bruker, but I
wanted to offer management several options before we pick one.
What UPSes do you guys recommend? Are there any that people have found work
particularly well?
Thank you!
Beth Moscato
Temple University
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group.
View/Reply Online (#2023): https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://ammrl.groups=
.io/g/main/message/2023__;!!PvDODwlR4mBZyAb0!Vn8Cay9co_y2FQKpWbyIo1JXPMIV9c=
2OtwEvPYlepENAZpxiW6Z01QlMTGJTfwPqr8V7vIYLOhDxKz1IXR9wXB4pezmR$
Mute This Topic: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/mt/111105833=
/7559972__;!!PvDODwlR4mBZyAb0!Vn8Cay9co_y2FQKpWbyIo1JXPMIV9c2OtwEvPYlepENAZ=
pxiW6Z01QlMTGJTfwPqr8V7vIYLOhDxKz1IXR9wXCu4oEX_$
Group Owner: main+owner_at_ammrl.groups.io
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Received on Mon Feb 10 2025 - 13:16:44 MST