UPS and surge protection for LCD TV
 

"Wes Newell" wrote in message
news:[email protected]
On Mon, 03 Jul 2006 18:57:19 -0700, Howard wrote:

Anyone have any experience or knowledge of Uninterruptable Power Supplies
and surge protectors for large screen projection TV's?

It doesn't matter what's plugged into it, you just want clean regulated
power from a UPS. I've bought several hundred over the years. I've got 3
in the house now.

I have a Hitachi 60" LCD projection TV and I'm considering a UPS/Surge
protection device. There are specific "home theater" units with
additional
features as well as standard UPS units for computer protection. The
computer
types are of course cheaper. Can they also be used for simple backup with
my
TV?

I sure hope so since I've been using them for that for years.:-)

What size power rating and joule capacity should I look for?

That depends on how much power everything you are going to hook to it
uses. If you're only going to put the TV on, check the max wattage in the
TV specs.

I'm also considering the Monster HTUPS 500. Anybody familiar with this
product? What do you think of it?

I've seen the OEM version of this somewhere for about half that price. At
that price, I didn't even waste my time reading the specs.

There are regulated and unregulated UPS's. Regulated with surge protection
constanly runs on conditioned power. Crap like APC Back-Ups are
unregulated and run on wall power til it drops below whatever you set it
for (the one good feature this unit has). So you want a regulated UPS.
Other important things are how easy the battery/batteries is to change,
and the size of the battery. Battery cost vary greatly depending on size.
Some smaller ones cost more than more widely used larger ones. And the
battery will need to be changed about every 2 years. I've had a great
little Powercom 650VA unit I've been using for many years, but changing
the batteries (it has 2) is a real pita. Avoid units like this if you can.
The last UPS I bought was a Belkin F6C625-SER. I've had it several years
and it's been very reliable. The battery was easy to change although the
last time the battery needed replacing I hooked up a much larger battery
outside the case for a longer run time. I didn't want to spend 4 times as
much for a larger UPS when all I really wanted was a longer run time. if
you aren't a cheap sob like me then just get a 1500VA unit and it'll
probably give you at least an hour of runtime on you TV asssuming your Tv
draws about 300W.

Wouldn't touch the Monster unit or an APC Back-Ups unit, and the APC
Smart units are way overpriced IMO. Belkin and Powercom offer good value.
And there's probably a few other good choices. Just make sure it has
regulated power and you should be fine.


I wouldn't say that APC is "crap" as I use an APC BACK-UPS 1200VA 120V and I
am very happy with its performance and features. Since I am running a plasma
TV and DVR, plus a surround sound receiver, D-VHS desk, and DVD player, I
needed at least the 1200VA/780W power capability of this unit to prevent
overloading and give me time to shut things down in case of an extended
outage. I was primarily interested in having the uninterrupted power for my
LG LST3410A DVR so that I could continue recording during power hits or full
outages. It has nice features, including "Automatically corrects low and
high voltage conditions, allowing you to work through brownouts and
overvoltages without discharging the battery. This saves battery life,
increases uptime, and improves your productivity."Bought it at Office Depot
and it didn't cost a fortune either.

http://www.apcc.com/resource/include...ase_sku=BR1200

Phil