Re: Grand Apagon - Electricity (not) in Spain

On 2025-05-08 23:32, Don Y wrote:

I don't think I've ever (regardless of where I've lived) experienced
a deliberate power cut.  A drunk may take out a telephone pole or
a branch may fall on some high tension wires but no one has ever
said "sorry, we're turning the lights out" (for whatever reason)

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Not the same, but past Monday someone stole the signalling cable in the high speed railway to Andalussia, leaving the entire line OOS. I heard that trains were authorized to run at 40 Km/h, so that they could see the other train in time and tail it. Not sure it worked.
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The authorities talked of sabotage. The price of the cable when new is not even a thousand euros, but the damage to thousands of people is huge.

 There are places where copper products (wire, plumbing) are stolen
for their "recycle value".  The solution, so far, has been to
require recyclers to get and record identification of people
bringing in such items.

Not enough, apparently.
The hut they vandalized has a notice board that says all the cables are aluminum.

 A friend had the copper stripped from the roof-mounted cooling unit at
his business.  Landlord held *him* responsible for its repair/replacement.
 

Uff.

I think there have been cases of people trying to steal the wiring in
outside lighting systems -- and not taking adequate provisions to
protect against electrocution!

Yeah, here too. They even tried to rip the railway catenary at some place. Some of those died on the spot.

 I would like to make some backlit copper lighted displays for the house
(AZ is The Copper State) but am afraid its oxidized color would attract
some thief eager to make a few dollars off it.

Sigh.
Some places have copper roofs.

 

Yup.  They have a rationalization, though -- they are trying to provide the
highest availability.  Else, how much availability do you sacrifice to
maximize battery life?  Do you then start specifying battery life as a
primary selection criteria?
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[Most SOHO users buy a UPS -- thinking they are being "professional" -- and
then discard it when the battery needs replacing and they discover the
costs charged by the UPS manufacturer -- or local "battery stores"]

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25€. A 9Ah item, high discharge rate.

 Different grades exist, here.  If you buy from an electronics supplier
(e.g., Digikey), you will likely get a "fairer" price (value for money)
than a local battery store (which may be 50% higher).  UPS manufacturers
typically charge about double what a reasonable price might be (though
the usually assemble the batteries into the requisite "packs"...
a trivial exercise for even 48V units).

Let me check. The computer place here offers:
Phasak PHB 1209 Batería SAI/UPS 9Ah 12V 29,17€
Salicru UBT 12/9 Batería para SAI/UPS 9aH 12v 18,98€ (was 20,63€)
So the brand name battery replacement for my UPS is actually cheaper than what I paid. Surprise!

Digikey used to have a policy of free shipping for prepaid (cash)
orders.  I would buy batteries in lots of 10 and send prepayment.
Shipping charges can be a significant fraction of a battery's
cost.  They now exclude batteries from this policy (when I last
checked).

Right, they are very heavy. Yep, the place above charges 5.25€ for shipping.

 

I suspect the problem (rationalized by the manufacturers) is trying to
bring the battery back to full charge ASAP -- as well as keeping the
highest state of charge that the battery can support.

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Which taken to extremes is very bad for battery life.

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Of course.  But, they are in the PRIMARY business of selling batteries,
not UPSs!

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Ugh.
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And having disgruntled customers.

 Think about it.  If the *UPS* (hardware) failed at 3 year intervals,
no one would buy them!  They'd be seen as poor quality.
 But, no one is surprised that BATTERIES need replacement!
 

With the exception of multi-user servers, individual workstations
usually have auto-backup provisions *in* the key applications.
And, in the event of an outage (even if the machine stays up),
the user is usually distracted by the rest of the house/office
going black; is ~15 minutes of uptime going to be enough if the
user isn't AT the machine when power fails?

>
You need software monitoring to hibernate or power off the machine.

 I have every workstation set to hibernate after ~20 minutes
of inactivity.  This gives me time to get a cup of tea, go to
the bathroom, answer the door/phone, etc. without the workstation
cycling off and on.
 As "activity"  is defined by user interactions, this means I
have to deliberately start an application that disables "sleep"
if I won't be interacting with the machine and want to prevent
it from sleeping.  E.g., an SSH session with a remote host that
will be busy for a while; if the workstation sleeps, the SSH
session terminates and the shell on the remote is killed off.
 <frown>

Right.

 

No one has yet to address the market where TCO is the driving
criteria.
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--
Cheers, Carlos.