Had a brief 1/2 second or so power outage recently that took out 1 of my 2 7.5 amp fast blow glass fuses between the TIU and rail feeds and scattered the MU settings in my DCS system. Now i am looking at UPS back up units from APC and Cyber Power.
I am running a single TIU 1 channel feeding 1 2rail and 1 3 rail loop approx 25 x 10 ft each. Any recommendations on a ups backup unit?
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I was kinda wondering the same thing? Be interested in hearing responses.
I work in the computer hosting field so we use a lot of UPS units. APC, TripLite and Cyberpower have lasted for us.
One thing to be aware of is the difference in type of UPS. Less expensive UPS units usually put out a modified sine wave or square sine wave. Some electronics have an issue with this. Most $100+ models put out a pure sine wave - the same as your AC from the wall.
A unit with AVR (Automatic Voltage Regulation) is a good bet as it will correct under / over voltage conditions. The larger the unit, the longer you can run your trains while the power is out... but even a really beefy unit won't run them long. I'd go for something that will handle outages of a few minutes and give you good protection.
Is a UPS unit over kill for train electronics? Wouldn't a good surge protector work?
Sounds like there was more than a mere outage: that what you perceived as an outage was preceded by a surge. Susan may be right, that a surge protector on the 120-volt feed to your transformer might do the job.
The TIU is said to have internal surge protectors on its circuits.
You ought to also post this on the DCS forum.
I've had one for my computer system for the last 14 years. Love it; great protection & has nothing to do with the name. (LOL)
Is a UPS unit over kill for train electronics? Wouldn't a good surge protector work?
The AC feed to your house can experience temporary voltage surges as well as temporary voltage dips. The surge protector only takes care of the surges and in doing so can blow the circuit breaker in the surge protector/power strip shutting down whatever is running from the power strip.
The UPS has the same built in surge protection but also can protect your electronics from temporary voltage dips and temporary power outages. I would add more but I would be repeating what Andy B said...
To the original poster, adding a TVS diode to each of your transformers outputs could have prevented the problems with your TIU but so would the surge protector/UPS.
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