Re: Grand Apagon - Electricity (not) in Spain

On 5/11/2025 6:04 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2025-05-10 18:13, Don Y wrote:

On 5/10/2025 7:04 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2025-05-10 04:37, Don Y wrote:

Yes, of course. Around here we have many flat roofed houses. Many of those use aluminum foil with asphalt. If well done, it could hold a pool.

>
Sadly, organic debris accumulates on them.  Then, water gets trapped
in the debris -- and slowly rots the roof in that location.  Drainage
being important and hard to accomplish with low pitch.

>
The intense sun dries it up soon :-)

>
Not with pine needles in a corner of the roof shaded by said tree!

 Ok...

Most frontier style roofs, here, have a wall that surrounds the
roof (three sides) above the roof level.  So, there is always a
dead spot where debris accumulates (you can see it swirl in these
little pockets as the wind blows).
And, depending on the season, the sun may be lower in the sky
thus creating a permanent shadow near that wall.
We have one "bad spot" where I regularly "harvest" 20-30 cubic
feet of pine needles, several times each year.  I use a "snow
shovel" to lift them up over that wall and down onto the ground,
below, where I can later rake them up and discard them.
Pine needles acidify the "solution" formed when wet.

ONE set of batteries to replace (let the other three "slaves"
complain that they are missing batteries... who cares?!)

>
Why not remove those three UPS, and connect the loads direct to the main UPS?  :-?

>
Because the power cords of the UPSs are longer than the power cords of
each of the workstations AND THEIR ASSOCIATED PERIPHERALS.

 I'd just use a cable extender.

You need to have multiple receptacles on the load end as there
are multiple loads to be plugged to each UPS.  I.e., use an
outlet strip.  Hey! A UPS can act as an outlet strip!  :>
The UPS per workstation was a handy approach as it let me power down
(or up) everything that the workstation would typically need,
beyond just the "CPU".  E.g., scanners, digitizing tablets,
external drives, etc.

Additionally, the UPS lets me monitor the power consumed by the
attached loads so I can figure out how much I can tax the
upstream UPS (when using multiple workstations)

 Ok, that's a powerful reason :-)