Testing UPS Output Waveforms

(lttlabs.com)

13 points | by LabsLucas 1 hour ago

3 comments

  • teraflop 19 minutes ago
    Cool graphs.

    > Our previous reticence to measure UPSs was centered around the connection of our very nice $50,000 Rohde & Schwarz MXO58 oscilloscope directly to mains power. [...] What we do have is a Chroma 61507, a programmable AC power source, capable of generating its own isolated Alternating Current(AC) signal. The AC signal created by the Chroma 61507 is galvanically isolated from the "earth"/ground, providing a floating source.

    This too seems to be a pretty expensive piece of gear (the price I found with a quick Google was >$28,000) so I think it's worth mentioning that the same job could be done with an isolation transformer, which costs maybe a couple hundred bucks.

  • zokier 21 minutes ago
    its a shame that we don't have mainstream dc ups standards (telcos are their own niche). its kinda silly to generate fancy sinewave, manage transitions, and maintain phase of ac just to get immediately converted to dc.
  • LabsLucas 1 hour ago
    Testing the output of some UPSs from around the office. Checking out the results and finding avenues for further exploration.
    • exmadscientist 1 minute ago
      Please just buy a pair of mains voltage diff probes. They're not expensive (around $500 each new, much less used) and they will eliminate the crazy connection scheme and give you true input -> output fidelity.