[HamWAN PSDR] VOTE: $420 for a new Baldi UPS

[Bart Kus]

Hello,

We've known for a few months now that the UPS @ Baldi is bad.  It eats 
batteries at a high rate, so we don't wanna just buy another battery 
pack for it.  We also know that Baldi has many power events, even before 
this wind storm.  One of these outages was of just the right character 
to deadlock our server up there.  We had to physically go on site to 
reset it.  Yes, it locked up the iLO too! Another one of these outages 
(or surges) caused the death of Baldi-R1's power supply.  The site was 
dead until another physical trip replaced the router and its power supply.

The perfect fit for this problem is something called an On-Line UPS.  
Unlike a normal UPS that kicks in when it senses power is down, an 
On-Line UPS does continuous AC->DC conversion of incoming power to 
charge the battery bank, and continuous DC->AC conversion from the 
battery bank to run the load.  Any fast events that might confuse a 
traditional relay-switching UPS, and allow dirty power to get to the 
load, are eliminated with the On-Line UPS design, because everything 
hits the battery bank first.  These types of UPSes are slightly more 
expensive than normal UPSes, but I did some digging to find the best 
deal here.

The physical parts in this spending request are for a Tripp-Lite 2200VA 
UPS in new condition, a new set of batteries, and a network interface 
card.  I'm hesitant to post links to suppliers since the availability is 
limited.  The cost includes all shipping charges. The real price should 
be about $408.

--Bart