So I got home, and noticed that it was eerily silent in my office. Hushpad was off, and so was everything else computer related. It turns out that, after nine years, my TrippLite 450 "BC Internet" has decided to die with honor.
I quickly grabbed the crappy APC SmartUPS 420 that's powering my entertainment center and re-allocated it to the computer equipment, and finally got things powered on, after much annoyance re-routing and cleaning up cable clutter amidst dust bunnies that would probably scare my cat.
I acquired this TrippLite UPS back in 1996, back when frequent power outages were annoying the hell out of me. I'm not sure why the model number has "Internet" in the name, as it has absolutely nothing to do with networking in any way. It was my first UPS ever.
In 1999, its internal battery died, so I went to Batteries Plus and purchased the monstrosity pictured on the left. I connected this sucker to the UPS through a hole in the side, and this extended my run-time from around 15 minutes to nearly two hours.
Unfortunately, this failure doesn't seem battery-related. The UPS doesn't notice it's plugged in, and only seems able to run off of battery. No fuses seem to be blown and the circuit breaker is fine, so I'm not sure why or how it failed. I was tempted to repair it, but after giving me nine years of good service, I'm a bit worried any repairs may increase the likelyhood of fire. Given that this thing runs unattended for over 10 hours of every day, that's not a good thing.
Oh well, maybe it saved my equipment from a hideous power surge. If it did, thank you Tripplite!
I must now replace it, as this APC SmartUPS 420 is inadequate for the load and I don't really trust APC. The only UPS I've ever seen catch fire was an APC, and they also have a tendancy to do strange things to loads when the batteries are near the end of their life, such as randomly power-cycle them instead of just reporting the low battery condition as they should. "SmartUPS" is definitely a misnomer; I would actually prefer their cheaper "BackUPS" line if I HAD to buy APC.
i remember
in sys, where that apc was power cycling the load at like 50 times a second, scary stuff.
good job on that ups hack, just try taking it through airport security ;)