3.0 Installation
3.6 Connecting equipment to the PowerCell
To ensure that your computer equipment will be protected during a utility failure and that you receive expected run time, it is important that you determine the total power needs of the equipment you wish to protect with the PowerCell. The power requirements of your equipment should be less than or equal to the capacity of the PowerCell. The capacity rating of your PowerCell, in both Volt- Amperes (VA) and Watts (W), is given in the Specifications section of this manual.
The power demands of your equipment can be read from the Run Time Verses Load (section9.0) chart or may be deduced from the equipment name plates. The Run Time Versus Load chart gives equipment power requirements (load) in VA for computer systems common in the office environment today. If your equip- ment is not listed in the chart, the following instructions will help you to determine their power needs.
3.6.1Computer equipment manufacturers must provide a load rating for their products. Usually, the rating is written on a name plate or label near the power input to the device. The rating may be given in units of Amps (A or Amax), Volt- Amperes (VA) or Watts (W). Jot down the load rating of all the equipment you wish to protect.
3.6.2All noted load ratings should be converted to
3.6.3If load ratings are given in Watts (W), convert to an estimate of power requirements in VA by multiplying the value in Watts by 1.4.
3.6.4If load ratings are given in Amps (A or Amax), convert to an estimate of power requirements in VA by multiplying the value in Amps by 120. Unfortu- nately, many computer manufacturers overrate the power requirements of their equipment in order to be conservative and to cover the extra power demand of user added expansion boards. If the VA requirement that you have computed seems high or is already greater than the capacity of the UPS, don’t worry. The next section describes a test that you can perform to determine whether or not your equipment and the PowerCell are compatible, even if the computed power
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