[ale] current pulled by computer power supply

[Jeff Hubbs]

If memory serves me right (apologies to Chairman Kaga), there's a place
right off of Northside Drive on Deering Rd. (?) called ACK Electronics.
Think of a "Radio Shack for non-dummies."  They have "real stuff."  If you
forsee yourself making these kinds of determinations on anything even
remotely like a regular basis, go ahead and get a good digital multimeter
and pick up attachments as necessary.  I bought a Fluke 73 (?) right after I
started working in '86 and I use the thing nearly every week.  I don't have
an AC current clamp for it, but I got a thermocouple module with two probes,
which proved to be more useful than I could have imagined.  Not only can I
do things like troubleshoot clothes dryers but at one point a few years ago,
I had what was probably the only "instrumented" compost heap east of Athens
(up to 165F inside!!).

The APC Smart-UPS units along with the Powerchute software have a depletion
test mode that will intentionally go on battery, time how long it takes for
the battery to get down to some low percentage, and then use that time for
actual outage situations.  That's a useful feature if one of your objectives
is to try to "ride out" outages.

- Jeff

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob's ALE Mail [mailto:transam at cavu.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2000 7:54 PM
> To: critter at wizvax.net
> Cc: ale at ale.org
> Subject: Re: [ale] current pulled by computer power supply
> 
> 
> ... or even buy an AC ammeter.  Mine cost me $30 at Radio Shack but
> they probably have discontinued it by now.  Try Tech America or an
> electrician's supply house.
> 
> If you can physically isolate one of the power wires you will not even
> need to break the circuit.
> 
> 
> An alternative solution for those that just want to know how 
> long a UPS
> will power their computers is to do a "shutdown" or 
> ctrl-alt-del on them
> so that they are at the boot prompt or otherwise not running 
> a worthwhile
> OS.  This is to avoid risk of file system damage from an inadvertant
> abrupt power down.
> 
> Then start your stopwatch and pull the plug on the UPS and 
> wait for power
> to the computers to stop.  (Remember that the idle power of a computer
> does not differ substantially from that of one that is not 
> too busy or even
> one that has a lot of disk activity.  Use the ammeter to verify this.)
> 
> Bob Toxen
> bob at cavu.com
> http://www.cavu.com
> Fly-By-Day Consulting, Inc.       "Don't go with a 
> fly-by-night outfit!"
> Quality Linux & UNIX security and software consulting since 1990.
> 
> Failure is not an option!
> It comes bundled with all Microsoft products (in my opinion).
> "Linux, a better way to go!"
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