Re:Are retrocomputers best left on or off?
by ryanjshaw on Saturday October 12, 2024 @12:47AM
(#41816487)
Something I didn't see mentioned but a consideration: what's the quality of your electricity supply? I live in a location with a lot of summer thunderstorms and even with a surge protector and lighting arrestors I'm nervous about having stuff plugged in unnecessarily during storms, having seen devices destroyed by it.
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Re:Are retrocomputers best left on or off?
by masswerk on Saturday October 12, 2024 @02:49AM
(#41816996)
That may be a factor, excellent point. Electric supply is pretty good and there hasn't been a major outage, since I was a child. Also, power lines are buried (under ground), here. (But I have surge protection, just in case, and am running all related equipment from the same protected outlet.) Which also means, I have no idea.
Re:Are retrocomputers best left on or off?
by electronbeam on Saturday October 12, 2024 @12:56AM
(#41816529)
Power them from a pure sine wave inverter connected to a battery thats being charged. Aka a good UPS
Re:Are retrocomputers best left on or off?
by mschuster91 on Saturday October 12, 2024 @01:11AM
(#41816588)
That's not good enough - everything attached to the computer (including network gear, unless it's fiber) must be powered by the same UPS, or you have pathways for lightning current to enter.
Re:Are retrocomputers best left on or off?
by Moru on Saturday October 12, 2024 @03:21AM
(#41817110)
Some UPS for consumers even have an ethernet through-port so you can connect your internet cable from the wall to the UPS before it touches your router.
Re:Are retrocomputers best left on or off?
by amelius on Saturday October 12, 2024 @07:05AM
(#41818242)
Ethernet has galvanic isolation.
Re:Are retrocomputers best left on or off?
by formerly_proven on Saturday October 12, 2024 @07:13AM
(#41818281)
That's functional isolation. Yeah, they're individually tested to 1500 Vrms (or so the factory in china claims), but that insulation is still just the very thin lacquer of the windings and maybe lacquer on the core. There are more expensive (and physically much larger) Ethernet transformers for medical devices and such, these have actual double/reinforced insulation and are tested to much higher voltages.
Typically the Ethernet shield is also only alibi-insulated from the device's ground. Sometimes not at all. (Personally it's always funny to me to see the fat 1kV/1nF capacitor from the shield to the device ground and then the metal of the socket is just bunched up with basically no clearance against the metal case or something like that). This can of course be avoided by simply using unshielded cable.
Re:Are retrocomputers best left on or off?
by amelius on Saturday October 12, 2024 @07:50AM
(#41818434)
Doesn't an UPS have similar isolation?
Re:Are retrocomputers best left on or off?
by mschuster91 on Saturday October 12, 2024 @12:03PM
(#41820092)
A online UPS has in line: a rectifier with its transformer and output-smoothing capacitors, a huuuge battery, surge capacitors, power transistors, another transformer and more capacitors. And only then comes the actual device with its PSU.
It takes an awful lot of power to smash through these multiple layers of insulation and bypass all the capacitors, at least if the PSU is properly designed (specifically, clearance between the various power / ground domains).
In contrast, Ethernet transformers are tiny small little things.
Re:Are retrocomputers best left on or off?
by amelius on Saturday October 12, 2024 @03:18PM
(#41821650)
Yes, but only the transformers will provide the galvanic isolation. And if the windings are not physically separated then you are basically in the same situation.
Re:Are retrocomputers best left on or off?
by formerly_proven on Sunday October 13, 2024 @06:40AM
(#41826844)
Most UPS that you’d plug into a socket aren’t online/double conversion though, they’re line-interactive.