I live in a rural area where random power cuts are not unheard of. What specs should I go with for a backup power unit with battery? X1C+AMS here.
Mine is a back UPS 1000. I do not print anything during bad weather, even so the power does quit here quite often.
Excuse my ignorance in these things but wouldn’t a major factor in what is needed be, how long do you want to run it just using the UPS?
UPS sizing depends on your operating voltage and how long you expect to continue printing after a power loss.
Power consumption specs are here:
https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/general/power-consumption
Maximum power use will be while initially heating the bed, so do not start a print during an outage. You can see from the chart that power use during a print is much lower.
I really can’t justify a UPS for my printer. We have brief loss of power maybe 5-6 times a year - just long enough that clocks need to be reset. Once or twice a year we might lose power for an a hour or more. I’ve never had a power loss during a print and even if I did the power loss recovery capability of the X1C might save the print. I would have to lose many prints to total power failures to make a UPS worth the cost. I can deal with the inconvenience and lost time of re-printing, if it is ever necessary. We do have a UPS on my wife’s embroidery machine because a power loss could ruin a customer’s expensive coat or jacket. It has never been needed.
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In here, it’s mostly bursts of very short power cuts, like 4 or 5 in a 10mn time frame, several times in a single day. so I wouldn’t need the UPS to power the printer for even 30 mn. It would be more about preventing
interruptions from happening.
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But others said switchers are ok on modified sine wave.
They can make awful noises and it’s pretty hard on the components due to extra vibrations, etc. Some will also detect an abnormal state and just straight up refuse to work, or output noisy or insufficient voltage/current. Pure sine wave is generally the way to go, and these days shouldn’t really cost you all that much more.
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I have an APC 600 currently covering my printer. We do lose power for a few minutes at a time here and there. Not so bad now that the lines are buried.
I caved, as I said in the linked thread, to imaginary peer pressure and purchased a new one. Justified this by tricking myself into thinking I’ll move the current APC to my daughters A1 mini.
Arrives Monday. If Anyones interested I’ll provide feedback.When I bought it I had a coupon for 15% off and it was on sale, was $122 all said and done.
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Sure, I’d like to know how it goes, john. 
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Also my opinion. But when I mentioned it in another thread a number of people said sine or modified sine are both fine for switchers except maybe those with power factor correction. I don’t know the actual answer now but erring to sine wave certainly doesn’t hurt.
LiFePO4 is absolutely the way to go. Please keep us posted how it does.
I looked it up on Amazon, saw a <30 minute runtime @ 400 watt. During printing I see the typical usage is ~57 watt, much more when initially heating bed and hotend.
I’d imagine at the printing wattage a person might expect at least a couple hours.
Let me know how you like it please, I’m in the need for replacements for my APC and a pair of cyberpower cp1500’s.
Will do. Will arrive Monday.
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Running X1C and P1S on single APC 1500VA (900w) + other accessories like dryer and lights, 2x AMS, Canon Inkjet printer, G4 Instant camera, charger etc.
Most consume up to 700w if all running at the same time with heatbed running 100-120c.
Normal, printing 300-400w for both printers running.
Does your UPC show an estimate of run time at those power consumption levels?
Mine always shows ~120-140 minutes run time when power first goes out, then starts dropping like a rock. This is the cyberpower pfc1500 pure sine wave. When new, reality was ~50 minutes with what I was running. They’re still good for smoothing out the power.
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For an UPS selection you need to calculate the power consumption of the device (X1C+AMS) and the time you want the device to run from the UPS power.
With that information we will be able to help you selecting the UPS unit you need.
We used to sell inverters at one of my old jobs, so I had to spend some time learning about them. We had oscilloscopes and other things too so we could also plug them in for fun/analysis/learning during downtime. The cheaper modified sine wave inverters usually produced a sine wave with the peaks clipped off, so although they provided the same RMS voltage, the maximum voltage was much lower.
Interestingly, some of the switchmode power supplies that refused to work on modified sine wave inverters worked on the old square wave inverters we had.
Some of the newer modified sine wave inverters are better, as they digitally reproduce the signal with more resolution, but I don’t have experience with those. This was back in 2012 or so. It’s also possible switchmode electronics have improved since then (stuff like GaN transistors, etc.), but some also haven’t changed at all.
Super excited that LiFePO4 batteries are finally being used in UPSs and more consumer devices. I’ve been harping on about those batteries for over a decade now!
Also, in theory, pretty much any old 400W UPS should be able to run the X1C for at least five minutes on 110/120V (North America), even if you’re heating up the heatbed and cranked the hotend and speeds to the max, since it’s limited to 350W or so. At normal usage, without preheating the heatbed, you’re probably looking at 20-30 minutes of runtime (depends on the battery in the UPS). You’ll need something 1000W or higher to do the same thing if you’re on 230/240V though, since the heatbed can draw more on that voltage. Total energy consumption should be relatively similar though.
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Oh, forgot to mention, there’s often a differentiation between W and VA on inverters and UPSs. In theory, they should be the same (because V*A=W), but… Marketing. Make sure both meet your criteria when buying a UPS or inverter.
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