Noozer wrote:

> Might be a dumb question, but the expensive part of a UPS is converting the
> AC to DC for storage, then back to AC for use.
>
> Why not put the UPS *after* the PSU... three (?) mini UPS's actually - 5v,
> 12v and 3.3v... and the -5v, etc if necessary. It could possibly even mount
> into a 5.25" drive bay.
>
> Sounds simple, doesn't it?

If you could charge a 12v battery from 12v it would be extremely
simple. You cant though, so the ups would have to charge itself
with a convertor.

But given the tiny capacity and low charge speed, such a unit
would be quite doable. The miniature battery bank would need to
use something with fast discharge, maybe NiFe cells, maybe NiCds.

The one downer is that the user would need to open the pc up to fit
it, and thus it would never see the sales volume of plug-in units,
and the resultant low prices. This is a rather big downer! That could
maybe be solved by creating a British Standard for a connector
position in a 5.x" bay, so that such units could just slot in, no
case
opening required.


NT