Pull the plug on my macbook and it just continues on battery power.
Pull the plug on the desk top duo core and it shuts off ! Yes, it is protected with a 'power surge' plug unit so no damage there but I just wondered if there was some sort of battery back-up unit I could buy so when mains electric fails then it continues on battery power. Is there such a device ?

Cheers

JBL

 

Yes, it is called a UPS. Uninterruptible Power Supply.

The most known brand is probably APC.

Sizing depends on how long you want it to last and the equipment you will be plugging into it.

 

That's good then, thanks for that.

All we will need is a few minutes to shut down properly, the mac is an Imac 20 DuoCore, no peripherals to worry about.

Any advice on how to find the size of the UPS that I will need ?

Cheers

JBL

 

I have various sizes of UPS.

They are measued in VA. A 1500 ish would power you average machine and flat panel monitor for around 20 to 30 minutes and costs about £200.

You don't really need one this big if all you are doing is shutting down. A 500VA one or slightly more should be fine for your application. A lot of them have value add features like a usb connection which the pc can monitor and could automatically shut itself down in the event of mains utility failure.

The APC website does have a runtime calculator on. But beware that VA is not that accurate in regards to runtime, that is just its output capacity/load. It shouldn't really matter that much for you though.

 

Thanks again, that helps and gives me something to go on.

JBL