# Is it okay to use a UPS for my home theater?



## warpdrive (May 6, 2007)

I bought a new Tripplite Battery backup to help protect my critical components from suffering brownouts and add some surge protection. It has a Voltage Regulator which should keep the voltage stable. I plugged my PVR into it. It's rated 500W so I decided to plug my LCD TV into it to help protect it against surges and brownouts (my TV consumes 280W)

http://www.tripplite.com/products/product.cfm?productID=3071

But I see that this UPS outputs only a stepped sine wave. Is it safe to keep my TV plugged into it? I intend to power down my TV immediately if the power does go out, but is this a good idea? Am I better off letting my TV be at the mercy of short term power drops than feed it a stepped sine wave?


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## Bruce Fisher (Nov 24, 2007)

I'm curious to see the answers... but I did as you did... I have UPS's on my PVR (Sage PC) and my flat panel screens. I figure it's got to be better to turn it off properly than to have it just get the power interrupted...


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## salvasol (Oct 31, 2006)

warpdrive said:


> ...But I see that this UPS outputs only a stepped sine wave. Is it safe to keep my TV plugged into it? I intend to power down my TV immediately if the power does go out, but is this a good idea? Am I better off letting my TV be at the mercy of short term power drops than feed it a stepped sine wave?


Can you explain how this sine wave affects the HT???:scratch::scratch:

I have the same UPS (got it at Costco) and I have my TV, AMP, DVD,DVR and VCR connected for more than a year and I never had any problem with it ... :yes::yes::yes:


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## warpdrive (May 6, 2007)

A stepped sine wave isn't a smooth sine wave, so effectively, if the UPS kicks in, your equipment is running on dirty power. 

Computer equipment isn't affected but there is supposedly some equipment which doesn't like stepped sine waves.

So that's why I'm asking this....will this damage my expensive TV if it runs off the UPS? My feeling is no, but I wanted to ask if anybody knows for sure.


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## lcaillo (May 2, 2006)

It is unlikey that it will damage your sets. Some sets will not run properly on really noisy UPSs if they have zero crossing detector circuits that are affected by the imperfect sine wave. This is very rare, but I have seen a couple of instances of this. 

I recommend skipping the UPS in favor of good basic surge suppression that covers all lines into the system and verifying the integrity of the system grounding. We rarely use UPSs on our systems, but always use good surge suppression. Even in the most lightning prone area of the USA we never have surge nor lightning damage on the systems that are installed properly, without the use of a UPS.


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## warpdrive (May 6, 2007)

thanks for the info. Since I have the UPS already, I might as well continue using it.


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## Captain Crunch (Apr 2, 2007)

warpdrive said:


> thanks for the info. Since I have the UPS already, I might as well continue using it.


I'm running a UPS on my computer and tv, dvd, etc. also.
I'm sure it wont hurt and it's a lot better than plugging into the wall.


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## Sonnie (Apr 11, 2006)

We had a big screen TV that got hit with lightning and a relay on our fridge go out because of constant power drop outs. While our homeowners took care of the TV, the relay and service call ended up costing us $180... to low to even meet our insurance deductible. Supposedly we had a bad transformer along the line somewhere causing excessive drop outs. We would come home and find the power had gone out almost every day. The power company finally fixed it. 

We still opted to have a whole house surge protection on our electric meter for $4 per month. Not sure how well it is suppose to work, but we've had it for a while. It only covers up to $1000 per item... and it covers damage from drop outs as well as surges. We also have surge protection on just about everything over $1000 via protectors we purchased from the power company and which they warranty directly for up to $5000 on some and up to $25000 on others. 

What we do with our TV and satellite receiver is plug both of them into an Energizer ER-PRO1000 UPS. Then we plug it into one of the surge protectors. It works very well for the occasional drop out that we still get as well as the short power outages of about 10 minutes or less. If we are at home during a power outage, we'll turn everything off ... otherwise the TV is usually already off and the UPS only has to maintain the satellite receiver standby power. 

The Energizer battery will last about 3-4 years and then we have to buy a replacement for $18 + $10 shipping.


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## lcaillo (May 2, 2006)

Just be sure that you have all the signal lines into the system protected in addition to the a.c.


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## MatrixDweller (Jul 24, 2007)

The UPS should be fine with your LCD panel. It will have it's own step down transformer inside for the electronic components and a PWM sine wave shouldn't hurt the ballasts for the CFL backlight. A lot of people have computer LCD monitors plugged into similar UPSs.

The non sine wave output can be hard on some transformers and capacitors and depending on the wave form can cause noticeable difference in operation. Cheaper components power supplies are highly affected. 

I wouldn't recommend using anything other than sine wave on your valuable HT electronics. It could put undue stress on the power supplies and cause them to prematurely fail.

The sudden power off should not hurt anything except unit which need a lot of cooling, like projectors. What can be damaging though is when the power comes back on it could have a momentary surge that's too small/short for the breaker to trip but large enough to play havoc with your components. A power conditioner or UPS (sine wave) with AVR is the solution in that case.


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## warpdrive (May 6, 2007)

hey Matrix, thanks for the second opinion. I only have the PVR and LCD TV plugged into it, everything else is going through the surge only outlets.


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## mike in ca (May 15, 2013)

For the last 8 years I used a Tripplite combo UPS and Surge protector from my wall outlet. Then from the UPS, I go to the Large Panamax power conditioner ( the $750 one) from that to all the equipment in my Home Theater System. It has worked very well. I decided that since my UPS was 8 years old and did not have user changablle batteries, i would get a new one. So I got an APC BR1000G which had AVC (automatic Voltage Control). It was a much larger capacity unit than my old Tripplite, but was considerably more complicated with green energy, AVC and setable trigger points. It lasted a whole 12 days before it blew something inside and shut down everything intantly. It gave an error code which I looked up and it said "not user servicable". SO the one thing you pay for in a UPS is the one thing it did not do! Keep my system from crashing. So now with all these UPS backups being so much more complicated with all these electronic features, I am at a loss as to what to buy to replace it. I looked up UPS backups made for home theater, but they are outragously expensive. I have a LED 60" TV, HD DVR Satellite box, Blu-ray DVD, Sherwood 960R Receiver, Laser disc player, Nakamichi Tape deck and a VCR that really never gets turned on. For the most part, the TV and DVR are 90% of what is turned on. Only if we watch a DVD or Laser disc are they turned on or the Sherwood. So the load is pretty small most of the time. We have really unreliable power where i live and have brown outs at least once a week. So having a UPS is kind of important. Can anyone recommend a UPS/surge protector that will handle the load of the home theater system and work with the Panamax conditoner plugged into it; and is NOT in the $500 and up range? I would like to find out what others are using before i plop down more money on a UPS that can not handle Home theater equipment.

Thanks for any help

Mike


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## tba (Jun 10, 2013)

I my "wonderful " country, still some powercuts. With a 3KVA UPS, sinus wave output, I solved everything. It supports 20 min for reasonable use but the real target is that I can safely switch off the audio-video system. Other neighbors are claiming damages but not me. I am running the UPS through an Furman power conditioner.
Despite debates, I definitely recommend it.
tba


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## mike in ca (May 15, 2013)

I guess you missed the part about NOT being in the $500 and up range. A 3KVA UPS is not only way too large for my needs, but is in the $2,300 - $3,700 price range. Not exactly relivent for a small home theater system. I am looking for one under $400. I am only interested in a small UPS to run my TV, DVR and and stereo for just long enough to shut them down gracefully in case of a power outage and prevent brown outs from hurting the equipment. As I said, 90% of the time or more, the only things turned on are my TV and DVR.


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## tba (Jun 10, 2013)

in fact it was ca 400$

http://www.braungroup.ro/ups-online-hf-lcd-3kva-battery-tower-type


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Mike, forget the UPS just get one of these Ethereal power managers and be happy you did not spend a tone of money on something decent.


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## Destructobrat (Jul 4, 2013)

mike in ca said:


> I guess you missed the part about NOT being in the $500 and up range. A 3KVA UPS is not only way too large for my needs, but is in the $2,300 - $3,700 price range. Not exactly relivent for a small home theater system. I am looking for one under $400. I am only interested in a small UPS to run my TV, DVR and and stereo for just long enough to shut them down gracefully in case of a power outage and prevent brown outs from hurting the equipment. As I said, 90% of the time or more, the only things turned on are my TV and DVR.


Have you checked out the APC J35B? It's a battery backup / power conditioner with automatic voltage regulation capabilities. If you don't need the avr feature, check out the J25B.


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## fschris (Oct 31, 2009)

what about something like this ? I am also in the market for a UPS for my Plasma, HTPC, AMP.... I want this more for the occasionally blip and lightning storm which are frequent in the summer.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842102133

or do I need something bigger ? 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842102134

I have one of these on my pc and server for a couple years and it has worked well.


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## Destructobrat (Jul 4, 2013)

fschris said:


> what about something like this ? I am also in the market for a UPS for my Plasma, HTPC, AMP.... I want this more for the occasionally blip and lightning storm which are frequent in the summer.
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842102133
> 
> ...


I think that basic protection is better than none at all. I myself use an APC SmartUPS 1500 alongside an APC C2 power filter.


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