*BANG* *BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP*

[Midorikawa]

So, I really thought about calling in to work today. I really should have.

I sit down at my desk, after greeting Captain Useless (I've posted about him before.) when I hear a *BANG* *BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP...*

Me: Uh oh. That wasn't a good noise.
Captain Useless: No it wasn't. UPS** is beeping next door.
Me: Uh hunh.

Both of us get up and check the 2 AC units cooling our data center, and both are still running. The second UPS covering 90% of the data center is also running fine.

We call building management, and they come over and have a look. Apparently the giant old UPS that runs a small portion of our data center shat itself and died.

Cast:
BM: building management
Me: Ohai.

BM: So, We need to replace some parts. It SHOULDN'T cause interruption, but it may. We don't know what all is on this UPS exactly, so it may cause interruption in various manners.
Me: Great. Go ahead. I'll triage if stuff goes horribly wrong.
BM: Figures too. Our electrician just went on vacation in Israel yesterday.
Me: We have great timing like that.
BM: Yep. We'll see what we can do. You're currently running directly off the power grid, so if power dies, you lose servers. We'll get it fixed ASAP.

As of right now, I can hear them talking next door where the UPS room is, and it doesn't sound good. This UPS is as old as I am, and has a nice 8" green and black CRT screen right on front showing current power usage.

**UPS: Uninterruptible power supply. You can buy them for home use, although a data center's UPS is a fair bit bigger. This one is 7 feet tall, about 12 feet wide, and is handling 200kW of power at the moment. Ours are only designed to run until the generator kicks in to keep things powered for up to 10 days.

[Andara Bledin]

I sit down at my desk, after greeting Captain Useless (I've posted about him before.) when I hear a *BANG* *BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP...*

"That's not a good sound..."
/Dr. Horrible

^-.-^

[Der Cute]

Huh. A DC I worked at had a ROOM...imagine 2 classic classrooms, end to end, FULL of batteries.

The idea was if Grid Power died, the Batteries would keep the load up and not let a brownout happen, while the 2 Cement truck sized generators in the back fired up. (not kidding on those generators, imagine a cement truck mix tank. THAT BIG)

Guess your DC is a bit older. who's responsible for TESTING the thing? Or does that not exist?

Cutenoob

[Chromatix]

Cement truck sized sounds like they might be repurposed locomotive or marine engines.

Typical 1960s locomotive engine: V12, 16"x10" cylinders (no, that's NOT a typo), 200rpm idle, 850rpm redline. Add a ginormous main alternator, a smaller but still large auxiliary generator, and you're good for about 1750hp.

[Der Cute]

These monsters were brand new though. Barely 1000 on the odometer! They smelled new! But, yes, that size. GINORMOUS. Could have kept a city lit for a day.

Cutenoob

[Geek King]

**UPS: Uninterruptible power supply. You can buy them for home use, although a data center's UPS is a fair bit bigger. This one is 7 feet tall, about 12 feet wide, and is handling 200kW of power at the moment. Ours are only designed to run until the generator kicks in to keep things powered for up to 10 days.

Good Grief! That thing must wieght several tons! We have some stackable UPS's at my place that are about 9"x18"x24" and they require two people, or a heavy handcart to move safely. I don't envy whoever has to move the replacement in.

[TawnyMyst]

Could have been Cats, Cummins or the new GEs then. They usually have 2500kw to 4000kw available power, so maybe not a whole city, but definitely a hospital or power centre for sure.

[PepperElf]

woohoo UPS flashbacks! Just what I always wanted!!

Though in my case I was lucky, cos we (usually) had pretty much exact diagrams of what was tied into each UPS.

We pretty much had to have it because in order to work on a UPS or the gear it powers, we had to tag the power switches as "Danger - do not operate", to prevent idiots from turning the power on and shocking the tech working on it.

Unfortunately a good number of our UPS needed to be renamed to POS, with batteries that wouldn't hold any charge.

Good Grief! That thing must wieght several tons!

The ones we had did!

the "shoebox" ones were ok - um... APC 1400 I think. You could pick them up and carry them even though they were heavy.

I don't remember the model of the server ones, but the same brand, with like... oh, 8 batteries inside? in order to transport them it was easier to take the batteries out first.

and oooh i did have some fun, when we decommissioned. coming home from deployment, while crossing the atlantic, we were allowed to dump a lot of stuff (metal stuff) into the ocean. Several UPS met my multi-tool and a sledge hammer and then met the bottom of the ocean*.


* except the batteries. those that still had charges were put in storage, and the dead ones went to hazmat.

[Dreamstalker]

A local Department of Labor office is STILL using a mainframe that should be in a museum. They had a shot of the thing on the news, it took up an entire wall. Tape reels and everything; no "operator console" though. Mom was wondering if they also had a UPS or if the computer was too old (no joke, it looked like something out of The Prisoner). It is NOT going to be pretty when that thing finally fails...it's in the same room as the phone banks/offices, so I can guarantee it's not being cooled sufficiently.

[protege]

Typical 1960s locomotive engine: V12, 16"x10" cylinders (no, that's NOT a typo), 200rpm idle, 850rpm redline. Add a ginormous main alternator, a smaller but still large auxiliary generator, and you're good for about 1750hp.

Yep, an EMD (Electro-Motive Division) 16-645E (which is a V16, and their most common 645-series) engine weighs about 24 tons...the pistons are about the size of gallon paint cans Even heavier, are the 20-cylinder variants used in EMD's SD45 and SD45-2. Since then though, 20-cylinder EMD units are rare--the only recent ones came in the SD80MACs bought by Conrail.

[TawnyMyst]

Yep, an EMD (Electro-Motive Division) 16-645E (which is a V16, and their most common 645-series) engine weighs about 24 tons...the pistons are about the size of gallon paint cans Even heavier, are the 20-cylinder variants used in EMD's SD45 and SD45-2. Since then though, 20-cylinder EMD units are rare--the only recent ones came in the SD80MACs bought by Conrail.

SD80MACS? Do they have a deathwish? The only things those are good for are blowing air compressors real high in the sky.

[Chromatix]

What I quoted was from a British Rail Class 37 - one of the very few 1960s types still in active use on the "proper" railway. The other significant ones are the Class 20, which has a V8 version of the same engine, and the Class 08 and 09 shunters, which use inline-6 versions. All of those are English Electric engines built around the same cylinder dimensions.

The 37 is still used because it's a lightweight (at 100 tons on six axles), which means there are lines which won't take anything else (except DMUs, which can't haul anything) - and amazingly nobody has made a direct replacement yet. The prime mover and generators are probably about half the weight of the loco. The rest is mostly chassis/body parts and motors.

[protege]

SD80MACS? Do they have a deathwish? The only things those are good for are blowing air compressors real high in the sky.

Still, 5,000 horsepower in a single unit isn't something to sneeze at SD80s are a bit rare--only 30 were built. Conrail (and successors) opted for the SD70-series and their GE equivalents instead. Seems the '80s were a bit too 'slippery'

Back on topic here, the camp I once worked at had a few generators in place. One of which, IIRC, was capable of running the entire camp for the entire summer That is, unless the natural gas lines it was connected to, were somehow disrupted.