Choosing the UPS — is it worth an extra thousand?

People buy the UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) to achieve two goals: saving their work when (again) the power cuts off and to protect their precious equipment from nasty things often happening in the power line — spikes, surges and sags.

Let's see how two UPSes - one from the leading world manufacturer APC, and another one with obscure name, but available in many computer shops in Thailand, are designed to cope with these tasks.

APC BackUPS, from 2000 baht up		Cheap UPS, price around 2000 baht
Case and chassis: sheet metal. Provides good heat dissipation, prolonging the life of the battery. In case of the fire inside, gives some fire proofing.		Case is made of thick plastic. Poor heat dissipation leads to overheating, which damages the battery. Fire unsafe (plastic melts and burns). No common ground inside.


Printed circuit board as it should look like		No, that's not a damaged UPS - that's a soldering quality... Somebody forgot to remove the flux...


Classic filter and surge suppressor. MOV, 2 coil Inductors, hot-neutral capacitor and 2 capacitors to the ground. Relays disconnect both hot and neutral wires.		MOVs only? Relays missing? I wonder how did the developers know which wire is the hot one? What if the user reverse the plug with 2 pins? With this poor schematics MOVs will degrade quickly.


Simple Push-To-Reset circuit breaker on the back side

Data Recovery and Computer Services in Phuket, Thailand

Choosing the UPS — is it worth an extra thousand?

APC BackUPS, from 2000 baht up

Cheap UPS, price around 2000 baht

APC BackUPS,
from 2000 baht up

Cheap UPS,
price around 2000 baht