Re: Grand Apagon - Electricity (not) in Spain

On 2025-05-08 01:01, Don Y wrote:

Much like me having carrier doesn't tell me the extent of
my "reach", here.

>
Well, the power outage was "total". :-D

>
Yeah, but you don't know which services (up the chain) may
have their own *local*/private backup systems.  E.g., I doubt
your hospitals were without power (?)  The extent of backup
beyond that would be something you'd have to know, in advance.

>
If the fibre goes direct to the exchange, they had backup power. However, if the distance is great and they have to reconstruct the signal with some kind of optical amplifier, then I don't know. The distance is about 2.5 Km.

 But where can exchange traffic go?  See what I mean?  Anyone that
you want to contact (and everyone along the way) must be "up".

Whatsapp worked, Google (search) did not. Browsing a news site was very slow.

 

My mobile phone worked all the day, I could send and receive whatsapp messages.

 Are those processed "locally"?

No. I don't know if they have centralized server or distributed.

 

I have a small computer doing server things, and it tried to email me as soon as the UPS said it was running on battery. That email did not reach me till the power came back; this could be that the fibre went OOS, or that the UPS at my router went down instantly. I do not know.

 Doesn't your UPS deliver log messages (to a syslog server or data
dumps to an FTP service)?

The one on the server did, yes, but the one on the router doesn't have that facility.

 I have each of mine configured to give me summaries of power consumption
and line conditions each minute.  And, use a syslogd on that same server.

I don't think any of mine can report power usage.

 

I'm considering replacing the UPS at my router. Some UPS "destroy" the battery too fast.

 Yes.  Rather than spend time investigating it, I've taken the approach
of just rescuing batteries to replace those that have been "cooked".
 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.

And trickle charge continuously.

 Charging at a slower rate and to a lower float voltage would
compromise the UPS's availability -- but provide less maintenance costs
(of course, the manufacturer wants to sell you batteries, so you
can see where their priorities will lie!)

Indeed.
I saw in an Eaton model they mentioned two strategies - translated from Spanish:
UPS Topology: Standby (Offline) or Standby (Offline)
Eaton Ellipse ECO 650 IEC SAI Offline 650VA 400W
Eaton P/N: EL650IEC
I still have not investigated.
--
Cheers, Carlos.