line conditioner or UPS?

Hello John,

If it was me, a top notch UPS. "Modern" PCs cannot always survive a sudden loss of power without corrupting files or part of the OS. Thank God most cars are not (yet) designed that way.

Regards, Joerg

Regarding efficiency: I use a Sola 1000VA regulator. It is a constant voltage transformer. I don't know what the efficiency is , but it makes an excellent foot warmer, even under no-load conditions. One advantage of this type regulator is high reliability. It uses nothing but passive components (a saturating transformer and a capacitor, no active components). It handles "brownout" voltages down to 70V, and surges of greater than 200V). Of course it can't help in case of a vdropout.

In the home-built PC group, they regularly have users crying about losing data when their hard disk drive fails and they do not have backups. I do backups frequently and my stuff is not critical.

I am concerned about hardware.

Doing some research, someone said that their line conditioner wastes lots of energy (quiescent current or whatever it is called), something like 140 watts?

Does that sound high?

The APC Model LE1200 line conditioner specifications say it is greater than 93% efficient. How much energy, how many wants, does the unit itself use?

Does a line conditioner convert to DC and then back to AC?

Thank you.

By the way, anybody know what is the deal with laser printers and their (possible) ability to destroy power equipment by sucking so much current? Bad laser printers? Just curious.

I have been using the APC LE1200 for a few days. It is connected to my personal computer, two monitors, and a DSL modem. It barely gets warm. I guess that means it is not consuming a lot of electricity. I will open it up later to take a look at the components and workmanship.