I’ve seen a few posts about this, but they’re often mixed together and I couldn’t find a clear answer.
I’d like to know if anyone here has tried an EcoFlow Delta with their printers. On their website, they mention a response time of <10ms — in real-world use, do the printers actually stop, or do they keep running without noticing anything?
I currently run 6 printers, and instead of buying multiple UPS units (which I find quite expensive, and the batteries tend to die after 2–3 years), I’m considering investing in a system like this instead.
My goals are:
Avoid any micro power interruptions
Have at least 1–2 hours of backup time in case of an outage, so I can choose which prints to continue (based on progress or value) and stop the others if the outage lasts longer
I’ve already calculated my power usage, and I’d likely go with a Delta 3 Ultra — around 3kWh capacity with 3600W output (7200W peak), so it shouldn’t trip even if two P2S start at the same time
Anyway, I’d really appreciate feedback from real users!
In theory a UPS with the quoted 10 ms response time should be fine. Even a desktop PC will keep operating.
In theory the device will not notice the outage because any device connected to the mains is supposed to be able to continue operating in the event of a single missed AC pulse, which is 50 or 60 Hz, i.e 17 ms.
Practically one should consider the load the UPS can handle. The H2D in particular draws current very heavily to heat the bed and this can exceed the rating of many UPS units. (I think this was addressed in firmware). You also want to consider is whether you want to do a safe shutdown (i.e. pause your print) and resume after mains supply comes back, or run the printers off the UPS batteries, and this will depend on your hardware, print, and circumstances.
You may have enough printers to warrant a more robust backup power system.
The answer for me was it depends. The Delta Pro at least feeds line AC to the printer and when that’s lost, it switches to the battery (just being explicit for others). If the printer survives that depends on what the printer is doing at that moment and probably (but I don’t know) on where on the sine wave the transfer happens.
At any rate, I had a number of successful tests and then had a failure. To an extent that can make using one a liability instead of an asset but that is super easy to fix procedurally and can even help keep the printer out of line issues and such.
When printing, all I do is run from the Delta Pro with the mains disconnected. I have a switched outlet I use with the Delta Pro so I can turn mains off and on easily. It has plenty of capacity to run the printer for a day or two and so far none of my prints have been longer than that. All I do is charge the Delta Pro up and when ready to print, turn off the mains power and print entirely from battery. There are never any glitches on the mains to sneak through to the printer that way. It’s a LiFePO4 battery so is good for lots and lots of cycles.
That may not work for your situation though with wanting to run multiple printers.
But I also found a trick if you need to switch from mains to battery manually. I haven’t metered out the bits in my printer (X1C) but pretty sure the heated bed is the big one. If you just change the temperature on the bed down a couple of degrees or so it will give you a few seconds where the load is reduced and so far when I’ve tried that I can switch off the mains no problem. I can’t tell you that will always work but it has for me so far.
And I think that trick is why I had pretty good luck just switching over - but not perfect luck. I was likely making the switch when the heater was off during regulation.
But using it as a straight UPS and luck of the draw if there is a mains glitch seems to be a bit of a gamble. It seems it can actually cause problems with random glitches on occasions. I just use it as an AC power supply from battery alone.
I can hook 12 A1’s to each no problem with room to spare. The wattage as you print fluctuates between 50-200w so it handles it fine. I charge from the sun so I dont have a whole lot of context on UPS mode, but I do know that on shady days when I have it pulling AC, I hit the switch when im done, and the printers stay on. I imagine the same is in a power outage.
They are mildly noisy. Moderate idle consumption. Bad app but I dont use apps generally lol. They perform and I aint askin for much more out of them. When I did the research they were the best value per battery kwh which maybe isn’t the dimension you care most about.
I use an ecoflow stream AC Pro with my H2C and I actually had a short outage due to lightning striking powerlines. Everything else restarted but the printers continued. Not sure if the AC Pro has the same response time though
it’s possible it’s a different version in each country, or 240 vs 120 V differences?
In any case, if it does have a 10 ms UPS, it should work properly with mains powered equipment, since the power supply in a mains appliance is supposed to be able to hold up for 1 missed AC cycle, or around 15 ms.
I wonder if maybe Bambu isn’t following that (because it’s niche equipment and not a PC), or there is some issue with the UPS design?
Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply. I decided to pull the trigger and click “buy” — hopefully everything will work well for my small print farm
I’ll post an update once I get it to help others who might be considering buying one.
Like I said, with mine it usually would handle the failover. I would disconnect mains when storms with lightning would blow through and had quite a few successful switches to battery. But then I had one that didn’t and the printer hung. Didn’t keep trying because I didn’t want to lose more prints so no idea likelihood or stats.
But with a single printer, I just run the whole print from battery. Never had any issues turning mains back on while printing.
My experience with Delta 2 is that it works as an UPS during a sudden blackout, but not in a brownout.
Cheap ecoflow battery expansion option. This company paid many YouTubers for it, just you know. Nonetheless, it seems like a solid option, $780 on eBay.
