Question:
I have a home office with multiple PCs that generate a lot of heat.
To help with this situation, I bought a portable a/c unit to help keep
the room cool (at least while I am in there).
It works very well. However, when it kicks on it really drops the
voltage in the room. I have not yet had a problem as all my PCs are
plugged into UPSs that compensate for this sort of thing, however, I
am afraid that my circuit breaker might trip one day when I'm in the
middle of work.
So I'm wondering if there is a device that can be plugged in between the
wall and the a/c unit to feed it the juice it needs when the motor
starts and prevent voltage dips? And if so can someone point me to a web site
or tell me where to get it?
I know the best solution is to run a separate circuit but my office will
eventually be moving to another room.
Answer:
Get a power conditioner for about 100 bucks from tiger direct or costco.
I run my computer on one.
When the power drops out or there is a glitch the computer never sees the
voltage drop
The PCU starts whistling and flashing lights to tell me to turn the computer
off in an orderly manner.
But I can finish what I am working on before I do.
My small unit will run my computer and accessories for about 20 minutes on
it's internal battery
Plugging in between the wall and the A/C unit won't help unless it is a
very expensive power storage device. A power conditioner will just make
sure the A/C unit gets full voltage (which it doesn't exactly need at that
instant), and really will just dim your lights (and voltage to computers)
even more. It still has to suck power out of your circuit. A rather
massive UPS for the A/C unit would work, but it's going to need to be
rated for the starting current, which could be several times the normal
running current (we're talking 2 to 10 kVA costing $1000 to $6000).
A power conditioner on the computers would be better. But keep in mind
that boosting a low voltage increases the current and thus increases the
chance of tripping the circuit. If your computers have a lot less load
than their power supplies are rated for (such as 50 watts on a 300 watt
P/S) then they should handle those low voltage dips fairly well even
without the UPS. If your UPSes are correcting voltage (not all do),
then you really having nothing to worry about but the circuit breaker
tripping out. And keeping you loads lower helps (including _not_ trying
to boost the voltage).
