errantember (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
errantember) wrote2006-07-26 03:31 am
errantember) wrote2006-07-26 03:31 am
I'm very excited!
...to have fixed my Dad's uninterruptible power supply!
Basically a big battery with an inverter on it to power your computer when the electicity goes out, the IBM UPS was at least 5 years old. Most UPSes like this use a 12V lead-acid battery similar to those used in cars. Now, UPSes are much cheaper now than they used to be, so for the $25 it would cost to replace the dead battery, I could have bought a newer (though possibly not as nice) one. Although the technology is common, there are about a million different sizes of this kind of battery, and it was one of the proudest moments of my geekery career when I realized I PROBABLY ALREADY HAD ONE THAT FIT! I bought it to add rope lights to my already completely insane Flipside performance setup where I was fire spinning 13 foot meteors on stilts. I ended up omitting the lights from the costume, because it was *so* dangerous already. The battery has been sitting around doing nothing since! I went and found it while talking to Belinda on the phone, and sure enough, it fit! What are the odds? After I put de-soldered the leads from the old project and attached the wires, the UPS powered up on the first try!
Let's hear it for geekery!
Basically a big battery with an inverter on it to power your computer when the electicity goes out, the IBM UPS was at least 5 years old. Most UPSes like this use a 12V lead-acid battery similar to those used in cars. Now, UPSes are much cheaper now than they used to be, so for the $25 it would cost to replace the dead battery, I could have bought a newer (though possibly not as nice) one. Although the technology is common, there are about a million different sizes of this kind of battery, and it was one of the proudest moments of my geekery career when I realized I PROBABLY ALREADY HAD ONE THAT FIT! I bought it to add rope lights to my already completely insane Flipside performance setup where I was fire spinning 13 foot meteors on stilts. I ended up omitting the lights from the costume, because it was *so* dangerous already. The battery has been sitting around doing nothing since! I went and found it while talking to Belinda on the phone, and sure enough, it fit! What are the odds? After I put de-soldered the leads from the old project and attached the wires, the UPS powered up on the first try!
Let's hear it for geekery!