I have a friend with a 550VA UPS . He has his 19" TV, Computer, and stereo hooked up to it. Pretty much anything will work on a UPS except for a microwave and electric chainsaw. Btw hooking up the dsl/cable modem a must!
Don't be a complete retard and plug all your gadgets into your UPS when there is a power failure. If the power goes down, the only things you need to plug in is your 1 main trading station, and your router/dsl. Everything else does not need to be plugged in. If you use a laptop, it is even better, only plug in the router/dsl in the UPS and use the laptop battery. DSL works on backup power. And get a commercial grade UPS, those are heavy duty and last a long time.
If run time is what you are looking for, buy large car batteries and hook up in parallel with the UPS. Just make sure to put the batteries in plastic boxes to prevent acid damage to carpet and etc.
would this be as easy as getting an extra 12v battery and connecting the + of the new battery to the + of the ups battery and - of the new battery to the - of the ups battery?
Yes, that is parallel circuit. You could just use a 12V car battery in place of the UPS battery or as many car batteries as you like connected in parallel to give the run time needed. One thing to keep in mind is the UPS power rating must be sufficient to power the equipment plugged into the UPS. A larger battery capacity will increase the run time but not the power rating of the UPS.
I run my broker software on a dedicated laptop. I onlY run my modem and router off the UPS which gives me about an hour. No need to run the laptop on UPS as it has a three hour battery life. Main trading station goes down but at least I have plenty of time to exit trades. Runningbear
good god. Buy a generator. Keep all your plugs on surge protectors (I'm sure you've done that). You then only have to pull the surge protectors and plug, say, two lines into the generator. You're UPS will keep you up for only fifteen minutes or so.. Close out your trades. Hook the generator up, and boot back up. That way, if the outage is 2 or 3 hours, you're in business. All you need is 1kw or up to run your computers. but you might as well get a bigger one. Pain in the ass, but that's life.
Please do not forget, some of us poor folks have to live in condominiums, where the use of generators are prohibited. Unless, of course, it is a medical emergency. Schaefer