UPS's in laboratories

[Anonymous user]

Does anyone use UPS's in scientific laboratories?

[EZ_Button_apc]

I can't say I've used them personally in that situation, but I may have a few suggestions that could help you.

There may be a few things to account for if you plan on choosing a UPS.
1) How much power (in watts) would your device(s) need, and would you want a centralized solution or 1 unit per device. This will help to determine the size of the UPS('s) needed.
2) Would these Lab Devices be sensitive to a Step-Approximated Sine Wave. If so, then you will need to choose a unit that outputs a pure sine wave (aka a Smart-UPS or Symmetra unit)
3) Will the lab devices be senstive to a "transfer time" to on battery mode. Our basic Smart-UPS have a 2-4 millisecond transfer time to battery. If the equipment would "Power Cycle" or "Reboot" due this amount of power loss, then we do have Smart-UPS RT models and Symmetra units that have 0 transfer time to battery.
4) And of course, how much runtime are you looking for? Certain units you can add battery packs or modules in order to extend runtime ect.

[Anonymous user]

Does anyone use UPS's in scientific laboratories?

[cmarler_apc · Accepted solution]

Absolutely. Scientific labs and Sensitive Laboratory Instruments need UPS just as much as computer equipment, if not more. Depending on the type and style of the equipment, you can get erroneous results from the measurements if power variances, fluctuations, frequency drift, brown-outs, etc cause problems at the power supply or for (god forbid) some reason the problems get through to the control circuitry.

Some tests take a long time to run too, and you don't want to have to repeat a test because of a power blip.

I'm down at the National Institutes of Health and FDA all the time, and we routinely put scientific lab instruments and medical testing equipment on UPS power for those reasons, so the answer is YES.

Another good reason to put it on UPS is for grounding. At NASA, they had a problem with noisy ground and their testing results were giving them fits. We outfitted them with a 208V UPS and an isolation step down transformer on the output, and it was like heaven after that. Stars in their eyes...

Please forgive the pun, I just couldn't help myself 🙂