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Answering questions with questions --

What would you like to protect against: Brownouts,  surges/spikes (or other 'dirtiness'), momentary power drops, or sustained power loss, or a combination?

What would you be protecting: The instruments themselves, or experiments/analysis in progress during a power loss in addition to the instruments?

I have UPS systems for my confocals, set up to smooth over brownouts and momentary power drops, i.e. relatively short battery runtimes. I'm protecting the instruments, and not user specimens (e.g., stagetop incubators are not on UPS). The backup system cannot contend with sustained power outages, in which case the UPS batteries will drain and then all downstream instruments will lose power. For my instruments, an abrupt but clean power loss is preferable to a transient; none of my instruments are connected to our backup generator. If an extended power outage is expected (hurricane, blizzard), I will preemptively power down the instruments. 

For sizing the UPS, consider how the load (your MS) is normally powered. Is it running on 120VAC, or a higher voltage? Does it require multiple circuits? Do you have a measurement of how many amps it draws under normal use, or what its max amp draw could be? This will give you some idea of what wattage/VA rating the UPS should have. Battery runtime is a separate parameter, and the UPS would need to be able to connect extended batteries if the proposed drive to campus is not short. This will also increase the cost of the UPS, of course. Also, if someone will ride to the rescue, the UPS will need to be able to send alarms (usually a network connection is required). 

You didn't mention which UPS systems you've looked at so far. We have direct experience with APC and Eaton, and a little exposure to XPC. Have you been dealing directly with the UPS makers, or with partners/distributors?

Happy to dive deeper into specifics with additional information on your power loads...

Hello Anthony

We have a QE Plus connected to a 6 kVA UPS, and this is connected to a 208-volt line with a 50-amp power breaker, with the possibility of using auxiliary power in the case of a power outage. According to the voltage and ampere of the mass spectrometer, even using a large UPS (10 kVA for example), you will never be able to keep the equipment running for more than 10-15 min. The solution that we found is to have a voltage line with a 50-amp power breaker that is at the same time connected to a line coming from an auxiliary electricity generator. Using the UPS not only allows you to manage the lack of power for a time but also protects the LC and the MS from going back between the regular power and that coming from the generator.

If you would like to discuss our configuration more in details, let me know.

Regards,

Eduardo