Friends, I had a thought.
With how expensive computer parts are and will be for years it's probably better to keep my computer safe in case of severe lightning and blackouts.
Would one of those batteries for puters be a bad idea?

@raccoon whatcs a blackout gonna do to your hardware? If you're just afraid of surges there's power conditioners or even extension cords with fuses

@raccoon imean idont think power outages r a real issue nowadays

@raccoon a UPS is not explicitly a surge suppressor although most of them have this feature

if you are thinking a battery will eat a surge, unless it is a double conversion UPS (none of them are) the actual grid is just relayed through the UPS directly until there is a power condition that warrants the relay clicking over to the batteries

so buy a surge suppressor, not a UPS, if that's your worry

@raccoon Most UPS's have equal levels of surge suppression than crappy surge-protected power strips.

Such level of surge protection will be able to absorb only a level of surge that a decent computer PSU doesn't care about - for a more severe surge, the "surge protector" will light on fire.

Expensive double-conversion UPS's may be slightly better, if the AC-DC circuitry is designed to sacrifice itself by shorting as much AC to ground as possible - but if the surge suppressor circuitry doesn't have a surge suppressor as large as a hockey puck, it won't be able to redirect enough of even a small lightning bolt to ground to not destroy everything attached.

For massive lighting bolts, sometimes the result is a massive EMP blast that fries everything - even computers that are unplugged in the packaging get fried.

The only thing that will protect against such EMP is a properly grounded faraday cage.


For handling blackouts, I would recommend modifying a used 24V server UPS with a metal case, built-in fan and decent circuit design - companies often give them away when the VRLA batteries split open after around ~3 years.

You'll need to cut a hole in the case, run the internal battery wires externally, and then crimp on a lug to such battery connectors, so the connection can be extended.

You then need 2 used sealed car batteries (which can take the abuse of a UPS much better than VRLA batteries) - batteries that crank poorly due to sulfation still work fine at a lower amp draw - or whatever sealed lead-acid deep cycle batteries.

You'll need to top up demineralised water every few months with unsealed batteries.

Each battery needs to be fused with a suitable sized fuse, wired up with a thick enough wire for the amps and length, bolted up tight onto the lug and then left to charge and overcharge-balanced for 18+hr.

Then you need to do a deep discharge test - the fan should turn on and the UPS should remain cool for the 2 hr+ runtime you'll get.

Once you're down to ~10.5V/battery, immediately recharge to avoid further sulfation (you have seconds to minutes to avoid more than negligible damage).

During the recharge, see if the UPS lights on fire and put it out and discard it if it does (some UPS's are garbage and limit the charge current with the internal resistance of small VRLA batteries, meaning that such circuit will catch on fire if used to charge big batteries with much lower internal resistance).

You'll then be able to enjoy unparalleled uptime (usually you get power loss for either 1 second or 8+ hours - no in-between).

@Suiseiseki @raccoon I have had lighting strike my house before, and it actually made outlets in my house explode like hand grenades.

@Mamako @raccoon Proprietary lightning is always close by.