On 4/8/25 14:29, ic via NANOG wrote:
Hi,
On 6 Apr 2025, at 20:55, Mike Hammett via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
I'm trying to find something that keeps my customer's network gear online for a meaningful amount of time. The challenge is that an ONT, firewall, switch, AP, and some IP phones doesn't add up to be very much load. Most normal UPSes get terribly inefficient at lower load ratings. Add up all of the network devices a customer may have and we rarely break 50 watts of load. Normal, small UPSes are lucky to break 50% efficiency at those loads whereas they may be 95% efficient at say 100 or 200 watts. Get a bigger unit with a bigger battery and now you're even less efficient. Get a big enough unit to have extendable batteries and now you're spending thousands of dollars for such a small request.
I've gone asking, but haven't really gotten anywhere. The best technical solution was from some electronics parts nerds that was basically to build my own small rectifier and battery system. Great. I can achieve high efficiencies with small loads, letting me have say 4 or 8 hours of battery. However, I've got a science project, not something I can deploy at a customer.
I'm hoping one of you has the magic bullet in what product a service provider should use in this scenario.
Oh, and of course, being able to centrally manage them from my own iron would be great too. :-) For places which are not proper IT cabinets, I’d go with something like https://us.ecoflow.com/ - most (if not all) support charging while output is on, and you get the extra benefit of being able to add a solar panel if you want to.
I recall spending some time reviewing the Ecoflow Delta 2, which was about US$799 a year ago, but now seems to be going for US$479 today. Not bad for a solar-supported, pre-built 1.2kWh LFP battery system: https://us.ecoflow.com/products/delta-2-smart-extra-battery?variant=40573812...
Not sure about the efficiency though.
Not very good, from a number of reports I found of people who bought it. Numbers are in the range of 83% @ 200W to 90% @ 1kW. Not very good numbers. Worse if you have a lower load, because feedback is that this unit has an operating overhead of 41W, which is super high. That said, may just be what the OP is looking for. Mark.