# Costco sale items



## MangoTango (Feb 8, 2020)

Hopefully this brings a smile to your face.

I have this habit of revisiting an item I am interested in at Costco visit after visit hoping it will go on sale.
I even get a little theatrical at times playing to the overhead camera.
I point at the item, give it a thumbs up etc.

Well - it worked again today ! I have been eyeing a nice surge protector/UPS and it it now on sale online.

We are in the rainy season now and most every night we have electrical storms. We have maybe burned out at least 6 nice modem/routers over the years.
We have gotten in the habit of unplugging our electronics when we head to bed.
I'd prefer to not have to do that.

Edit : Oh well - even with the sale price it is cheaper on Amazon Mexico


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## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

I've bought at least a half dozen of these over the years, so I'll give you my advice even though you didn't ask for it. 

I don't think there's any use worrying about run time under battery. You won't be able to afford more than five minutes, and that's enough to save work and shut down, which is all you really need. Just make sure you get one with enough amps or VAC to power everything so it's not overloaded. For some things (like a printer) you don't need battery backup at all, but you still want surge suppression, so spec out your needs and buy accordingly.

My recommendation is to either get a pretty cheap basic one and expect to throw it away after about 3-5 years, or get a middling expensive one that has a replaceable battery and expect to replace the battery after 3-4 years. The expensive ones have software that keeps track of how long the battery has been in service and they start complaining (with beeps) after exactly 3 years. You can shut it up and stretch the battery to maybe 4 years, eventually the software will declare the battery too far off spec and refuse to use it. You'll likely be able to make the expensive one last ten or a dozen years replacing the battery twice, and that used to come out ahead cost-wise of the cheaper ones.

I've never bought one in Mexico, so I don't know what's available here w.r.t. brands or replacement batteries. I have always bought APC brand, they got taken over by Schneider Electric but they didn't drop the brand. The ones with replaceable batteries have cheaper Chinese batteries available on Amazon US as well as official APC replacement batteries. The batteries (alone) are about the size and weight of a clay brick, so you probably don't want to pay international shipping.

I have never had one get toasted by a lightning strike, so I can't attest to the protection, but I've never had anything protected by one get fried either. If you register the warranty you get (at least in the US) some insurance against fried protected devices.


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

I thought about getting one at Costco but then I looked into it a little more. It turns out, that they are not all equal. Some of them put out a square wave instead of the sine wave that regular electricity is delivered with. It is easier to generate a square wave that a true sine wave. The trouble with the square wave is that the abrupt change in voltage is hard on some electronics. You can read a little more detail about it here:




__





The differences between sine wave UPS and square wave UPS


There are three main waveform types produced by UPS: pure sine wave,square wave and modified square wave.



www.kstar.com


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## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

That is a very very deep rabbit hole you've opened up! The more you read the less satisfied you'll be with anything that you can afford. 

Just stay away from the cheapest stuff.


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## MangoTango (Feb 8, 2020)

Ok - so this is the UPS I am considering.
Smartbitt - No-Break Interactivo, Regulador y Supresor de Picos - UPS Ideal para apagones y Cortes de energía - Batería de Respaldo - ***** (1200 Va, Hogar y Oficina): Amazon.com.mx: Electrónicos
(I never purchase the extended warranties but I was thinking I would this time).

It looks like all 8 connections are the same and provide surge protection as well as (up to 45 minutes of) battery backup.
Most of our power interruptions are 30 seconds or so - that is all I am really looking for in terms of the battery backup.
It is probably overkill (1200VA / 600W ) for the 6 or 7 devices I would like to plug into it, which include :

the Arris TG2482A fiber modem provided by my ISP (maybe 7w ?)
The Linksys E4200 router running my Mexico network (maybe 6.5w ?)
The Netgear R7000 router running my VPN (maybe 45w ?)
My MagicJack phone adapter
My AT&T internet phone (attached to the magic jack)
My Epson L355 inkjet printer (maybe 11w ?)
AND if possible my Ademco Vista 20P security panel (not at all sure about this one). It already has a decent battery backup of its own. Maybe I would just use a good power strip with it.

All these devices have a myriad of electrical adapters. I'm not even sure I could configure them into the 8 connectors.
Are there extenders that can be used between a UPS and a device's adapter without losing protection ?


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## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

For my mom's computer I plugged a six outlet power strip into one of the UPS outlets because of the wall-wart collision problem. Probably not recommended by the UPS manufacturer! But I expect it would be fine, especially for your low-wattage things. I didn't fully load up the power strip, I only put like 3 wall warts on it. The configuration of outlets on that unit is pretty much as bad as possible from a wall-wart configuration perspective.


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## MangoTango (Feb 8, 2020)

Thanks - I did a little research today. Yes - it is ok to plug in a power strip into the UPS but it should not be one with surge protection capabilities. And of course you still have to be sure to not overload the UPS.

The other thing I realized today - sure I can put MY devices under UPS but that says nothing about my ISP's junction box 1/4 mile or so from our house or the rest of their network infrastructure. If it goes down I am out of luck. BUT - I do have a range extender which has a ring doorbell accessing it. If I can simply keep that connection up it will make my life a lot easier. If the router / extender / doorbell connection is broken I need to pull the doorbell and reintroduce it to the network. That is a pain. (I just re-read that - the extender would not be under the UPS... but at least we would be able to not have to pull all the electronics and if there were no outage overnight we would be better off).

edit : but of course with this UPS at least my devices should not get fried. This whole setup what with custom firmware on the routers etc is also a bear to recreate.


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