Recommendations for my first Desktop build

[Robert17]

American Airlines had twin diesel engines to power their Sabre reservation system 35 years ago which kicked in a few milliseconds after a power failure. Bound to be better solutions available today.

 

[Bill_Bright]

American Airlines had twin diesel engines to power their Sabre reservation system 35 years ago which kicked in a few milliseconds after a power failure.

That would be nice but sorry, no way any mechanical engine (especially a diesel) could turn over, start, stabilize at a set RPM, in a few thousandths of 1 second - this after the monitoring system took the time necessary to detect an actual power outage (without false positives). Even today, that would be impossible. It just takes too long for an engine to start - let alone transfer that mechanical power to an electrical generator.

 

[Robert17]

Saw it, watched the tech's verify testing & stability. Shut down, recycle. Pretty awesome.

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Oh, yeah, and the 3-axis flight simulators from that era were pretty awesome too.

 

[storm-chaser]

Saw it, watched the tech's verify testing & stability. Shut down, recycle. Pretty awesome.
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Alright, so you've seen it work. At this point I guess we have to assume American Airlines used a hybrid type backup system? Because Im with Bill, there is no way to fire a diesel generator in under a second... and that being said, the only theory that comes close to what you are describing would be a battery back up first as a buffer and then an automatic shift to diesel power once the generator gets up to speed. Going slightly off topic again, I thought Id share because it really speaks to the need for competent backup systems. Nuclear plants have both massive diesel generators and battery backups in the case of outside power grid failure. In the case of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, multiple layers of backup redundancy failed to prevent a meltdown of epic proportions. The biggest mistake they made when building the plant was putting the backup diesel generators (which are roughly the size of a large house BTW) in the very bottom floor of the plant and thus bringing them dangerously close to sea level. This vulnerability came to light when Japan was rocked by the 9.0 earthquake in 2011. The plant was battered like a piñata when the tsunami hit, totally flooded and left almost immediately without grid power. Shortly thereafter they lost the diesel generators due to flooding and as a result, the coolant pumps started to shut down. At this point reactors started to cook themselves internally. We all know what happened after that. Not sure where I was going with that but hey at least it demonstrated the need for competent backup solutions, albeit on a much different scale.

 

[habbajabba]

No different than a pull-start UPS with a fuel gauge.@bill bright

 

[Bill_Bright]

No different than a pull-start UPS with a fuel gauge

Again, got a link to such a device? If you have to pull-start something to get it running, that clearly suggests it is not running until it is started. So how can it be called uninterruptible?

So again, you just don't seem to be thinking this through. If the device supplying backup power has to be started, there WILL be a gap in time between the loss of mains power and when your backup device kicks in. Even if that is just 1 second (1,000 milliseconds) - which would be remarkable - that is way too long and any computer would immediately come crashing down! Computer power supplies cannot and do not maintain output that long. The most they are required to maintain output is just 17 milliseconds. And not many are even able to do that.

At this point I guess we have to assume American Airlines used a hybrid type backup system? Because Im with Bill, there is no way to fire a diesel generator in under a second... and that being said, the only theory that comes close to what you are describing would be a battery back up first as a buffer and then an automatic shift to diesel power once the generator gets up to speed.

Exactly! And that "buffer" is the "UPS". The diesel (or gasoline, or natural gas) engine that turns the generator is part of the backup power system - NOT the uninterruptible power supply.

That "hybrid" type backup system is exactly what I was describing way back in Post #28 with air traffic control tower communications systems. And Robert17, it is important to understand ATC communications systems are much more mission critical than any airline reservation system. Nobody is going to die, planes are not going crash if an airline reservation system goes down. But if a control tower suddenly loses comms, that affects both air and airport ground traffic safety.

So you are either confused about what you saw 35 years ago, or the techs who demonstrated it to you didn't explain it properly, or didn't know what they were talking about. Because you are right and there would be better solutions available today, but there aren't! For power to be truly uninterruptible, the device providing that backup power MUST already be up and running 24/7/365 - it would not have to be started first. Any delay imposed waiting for the backup device to start (whether automatic, or requiring a pull) would cause those mission critical systems to go down. That's just plain physics.

 

[EarthDog]

Gentlemen... this point about a UPS for nuc plants/ATC/reserv systems is well outside the scope of this thread. Please stick with helping the OP.

If ya'll want to continue on, do so in PM or start an appropriate thread.