Very true. I could be letting the nerd in me get in the way of just getting the job done. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest-IX http://www.midwest-ix.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Beecher" <beecher@beecher.cc> To: "Mike Hammett" <nanog@ics-il.net> Cc: "North American Network Operators Group" <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Sent: Sunday, April 6, 2025 5:16:54 PM Subject: Re: [NANOG] Re: Small Capacity UPS Also I think James' comment about efficiency is important to consider. Said you tossed a commercial UPS in there with 0% efficiency, and the draw was 100W instead of 50W. Assuming the average US electricity pricing of $0.16, that waste is costing around $70 a year.. Assuming this isn't an off-grid scenario where every W matters, is it really worth jumping through all these hoops for that? On Sun, Apr 6, 2025 at 5:12 PM Mike Hammett < nanog@ics-il.net > wrote: "If you have requirements that there aren't good existing commercial solutions for, make it yourself. How do you think all this was done in the beginning? " *nods* That's how I started my WISP >20 years ago. I mean, I didn't build anything from scratch, but I was selecting mini PCI cards, adapters, antennas, etc. "in a fairly small project box" Ya know, that might really be the solution. No one (well, few) is opening their electric breakers and criticizing the electrician's work or their alarm panels or... Put the mess behind a box. Same mess, but inside a pretty box. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest-IX http://www.midwest-ix.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Beecher" < beecher@beecher.cc > To: "North American Network Operators Group" < nanog@lists.nanog.org > Cc: "Mike Hammett" < nanog@ics-il.net > Sent: Sunday, April 6, 2025 4:05:51 PM Subject: Re: [NANOG] Re: Small Capacity UPS Sure, but I can't just drop that into a car wash, a pizza joint, a used car lot, etc. These aren't places that have battery rooms or even equipment racks. We may look at it and think it's cool and geek out on how the different (still COTS) components were assembled, wired, etc. A layperson will just call that a mess and question if I know what I'm doing. You should be able to put the electronics (rectifier, charge controller, RPi/NUC for mgmt ) in a fairly small project box, along with an appropriately sized battery, and have a nice, clean looking solution. If you have requirements that there aren't good existing commercial solutions for, make it yourself. How do you think all this was done in the beginning? On Sun, Apr 6, 2025 at 3:41 PM Mike Hammett via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org > wrote: Sure, but I can't just drop that into a car wash, a pizza joint, a used car lot, etc. These aren't places that have battery rooms or even equipment racks. We may look at it and think it's cool and geek out on how the different (still COTS) components were assembled, wired, etc. A layperson will just call that a mess and question if I know what I'm doing. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest-IX http://www.midwest-ix.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brandon Svec via NANOG" < nanog@lists.nanog.org > To: "North American Network Operators Group" < nanog@lists.nanog.org > Cc: "Brandon Svec" < bsvec@teamonesolutions.com > Sent: Sunday, April 6, 2025 2:18:54 PM Subject: [NANOG] Re: Small Capacity UPS You can buy a rectifier and batteries so it doesn't have to be a science project. Back in the day, all our large PBX installations had batteries and a rectifier. Sometimes isolated battery rooms adjacent to the switch room. There must be smaller, less expensive rectifiers. The catch is all the gear needs to support the DC power source. LaMarche has been around and was a common brand. I guess those portable, solar power banks are basically rectifiers too as long as they have some DC outputs to use. *Brandon Svec* On Sun, Apr 6, 2025 at 11:55 AM 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. :-)
----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com
Midwest-IX http://www.midwest-ix.com
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