Joe’s Tech

We got a new UPS for our server room today.  The smallest UPS on our rack is now officially over-capacity, so we have to keep an unimportant machine or two turned off until we can swap the old UPS out for the new one.  Since I’m doing this work, I want to review a few bits about electricity that are important for people to remember.

1. Power Corrupts; absolute power is even more fun.
2. Individual machines generally measure power in watts.  Computer rooms measure power in kilowatts and volt-amps.
3. Don’t assume that the kind of power going into your UPS is the same as the kind going out.
4. Pay attention to the kind of connector on your power products.

The last one is important because our new UPS has a NEMA L5-30 plug.  Even though we have another Smart-UPS 3000, we weren’t expecting that, because we thought we had ordered a model with a standard (5-20) plug.  Oops.  Turns out, we got the wrong kind.

Basically, although I’m trying not to say that we made a stupid mistake, we did.

Ultimately, it’ll turn out to be a good thing.  These heavy-duty circuits like to use heavy-duty locking receptacle because they’ll stay in and don’t fall apart.  They’re ‘robust’.

For those of you not familiar, here’s what we got instead of what we wanted, and the receptacles for both.  The obvious difference is we wanted the straight plugs and got the round locking plugs.