- It's easy to forget how much everything we use
relies on power. To overlook the power of the power supply,
so to speak.
And it wasn't until recently that I realized
how important an uninterruptible power supply is,
so I finally picked "ups" a UPS.
(Intro Music Type Beat)
Now to be honest with you,
I actually felt like I walked into a secret club
when I first heard about uninterruptible power supplies,
because it was new to me
and it seemed like everybody I knew,
especially people who are really good at what they do
and really serious about what they're doing
already knew about this and had already been using one
for a long, long time.
Now I will put a link in the description
to the power supply that I use,
but this video is not really about my specific power supply.
It's more about the idea of how important it can be
to use one in your setup and if you're not doing that,
you probably want to do that as soon as possible.
I actually got my specific one from Costco
and the reason I got it is because...
...it's the one they had at Costco.
They had one kind and it was this one,
but my friend, Doc Rock,
who has an amazing YouTube channel that I 100% recommend
and he's one of my favorite people ever,
is the person who recommended
power supplies to me originally
and he's also the one who said,
"Yeah, the Costco one is great," and it has been awesome
so you might be able to find
an uninterruptible power supply locally,
or you'd have to order one,
in which case, UPS might deliver your UPS. [wild applause]
Now this power supply has become a lot more crucial
since I started using the M1 Mac Mini,
not anything to do with the Mac Mini,
but just because it doesn't have a battery.
If you're running off of a laptop and your power goes out,
you can keep things going through your laptop's battery,
but if you're running off of a traditional desktop computer
and the power goes out, everything just shuts down
and you lose everything right away.
Plus, it was honestly a little bit risky of me
to also have all of this expensive gear
plugged into just a regular surge protector,
susceptible to all kinds of funky stuff that can happen
that I didn't even really know about,
because even though your wall outlets
might be listed for a specific voltage,
like where I live, it's 120 volts,
I don't know if that's the same across the world,
I don't think it is, but surprisingly enough,
it's not always 120 volts that you're getting
out of your outlet.
And so what that means is your device
is either trying to, like, I'm not an electrical engineer,
but it's trying to compensate for not getting enough power
or having too much power.
That is where surge protectors come in handy,
so if you have your computer plugged into a surge protector
and there's a storm or something,
and suddenly there's a huge SURGE of electricity or power,
it PROTECTS your equipment from that.
So even though one of my favorite bands of all time
is The Interrupters, you don't want your power supply
to be interrupted.
(That was just a shameless plug for a band that I like.)
What are the advantages of an uninterruptible power supply?
Well, basically, as I already mentioned,
it does act as a surge protector,
but also it regulates the power,
so that way your devices are always getting
the same amount of power, and on top of that,
it provides battery backup and basically a bridge
when power goes out.
So what I mean by that is there's a built-in battery
in the device that's charging all the time
when it's turned on.
When the power goes out,
that battery can keep things running,
in my case, anywhere from four to 25 minutes,
sort of depending on how many devices are connected to it
and how fully charged the battery is.
And what this means is that if you just have
a quick power outage, like it goes out for a few seconds
or a couple of minutes, you don't have to do anything.
Everything just kind of stays up and running
and then it just, power comes back on and smooth sailing.
What it also means is if there's
a really serious power outage, like there's a storm,
the power goes out and you know it's gonna be out
for a long time, you can save everything you're doing,
shut it all down, and then turn everything off
on your terms.
So the power supply that I got is 1350VA,
which, I don't know, is voltage, amps, watts,
"wattever," it is what it is and it works really well for me.
I actually wanted a 1500VA one,
because that's what was recommended to me,
but it turns out that with everything I have
connected to this UPS, it only uses a 11% of its power,
which means that's a lot, like that's studio lights,
it's not everything in this room, it's only the core things,
but I have my computer, my RODEcaster, my speakers,
my clock, a couple of lights,
a couple of bits more of audio gear,
and I think some other random things,
and sometimes I'm charging USB devices
because it does have USB plugs on the front
and that only takes, currently,
11% of the power current from the UPS.
There's a lot of capacity in there,
but it's very important for you to understand
what devices you want to connect to it
so you can figure out what size of a UPS you wanna get.
Definitely a situation where it's better to have it
and not need it than need it and not have it,
so get the largest amount of power that you can.
The downside being that unlike a regular surge protector,
a UPS is kind of big.
The one I have kind of looks like a low-end PC,
and that's sort of what people think it is
when they come in and they see it.
On the back of the device, obviously,
is where you connect everything,
and there are 10 different outlets on mine.
Five of them have battery backup plus surge protection,
and five of them only have surge protection.
So what I have done is for things
that aren't totally crucial and it won't hurt them
if they shut down without me saving anything,
maybe like a light, I've plugged those
into the surge protector,
but for other stuff like my computer
or more kind of in-depth electrical gear,
I've plugged that into the battery backup
so it will keep going.
If you're somebody who wants to make sure
that your stream or your internet connection
or whatever your online work can continue
in the event of a power outage,
it's very important to make sure that your modem
and/or your Wi-Fi are also connected to a UPS.
It could be a separate one,
it doesn't have to be the same one.
You could have tons of them all throughout your house,
but it's very important
if you want your internet to continue,
make sure that's also connected to a UPS,
so that way the power goes out
and your computer set-up is still working
and the internet, the internet is still internetting.
And there is an annoyingly loud alarm
that will go off if your power runs out,
so if you hear that and everything is still turned on,
that's a good chance to come in and shut everything down,
so that way you don't have to worry about any of your gear.
Most UPS's will have a display on the front
that lets you cycle through some different settings
so you can see the current level of battery charge,
the current level of electricity that's being used,
and also the current level of electricity
that's coming in through your power in the wall,
like your actual input from your wall outlet to the UPS,
it will show you what that voltage is
versus what it's putting out.
So there's a very simple display
on the front of pretty much any of them,
but it's full of a lot of really useful information
and I recommend putting it in a position
where it's easy for you to see from where you're working,
whether that's under your desk, to the side of your desk.
I have mine kind of on a little cart over here,
so if I'm ever wondering if I'm, like,
pushing it too hard or anything,
which I've never come close to doing so far,
I can just push a button and see everything right there.
And like I said, since most UPS's have USB
on the front of them, it's nice to have them
near a computer, cause they can just function
as an extra charging port for a tablet,
a phone, or whatever, and you don't have to take up a slot
on your computer.
Now your UPS is going to be very, very heavy,
so you better be super strong and buff
like I am to carry it,
'cause there's a big fat battery in here.
But depending on which model you get,
you're gonna have all kinds of different IO in the,
(UPS beeps)
there's that alarm, see, when it's not plugged into power,
that's what you're gonna hear.
There's all kinds of IO in the back
to help protect different devices.
In this case, I have cable, I have serial,
I have USB, I have network connections.
And depending on which model you get,
you can connect your UPS to your computer through USB,
and then through the magic of your ISP,
you can monitor it all the time.
I just wanted to use all those initials in one thing,
UPS USB, ISP, you see, LOL.
Now, I know that talking about something like a power supply
is not nearly as exciting as talking about
video equipment or a new computer or something like that,
but it is incredibly important.
And if you're somebody who relies on your computer setup
to function properly and to keep things secure and safe
and working well, it's really worth the investment
and picking up a heavy, loudly beeping UPS
so that you can be at rest,
because you're not gonna run out of power.
Hey, speaking of things,
thank you to everyone who helps support my channel.
I really, really do appreciate it,
especially all the members who actually watched
the live filming of this video.
And if you liked this look into my workflow,
you can actually check out a couple of other videos I have
about my specific setup and how I've honed it
to work for me. (UPS Beeps)
It still be beeping.
(outromusic.mp3)