Emc2Net HomeLab - UPS

UPS PowerWalker VI 3000 RLE
PowerWalker VI 3000 RLE

One of the components one should have in a HomeLab is an UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply)1. An UPS will protect your HomeLab when the input power source or mains power fails, giving you time to save your data/work and shutdown your HomeLab without data lost or data corruption.

Depending of the model, an UPS can also protect your HomeLab from voltage spike / overvoltage, reductions in input voltage, line noise, voltage dips, etc. A stable power supply will protect all your electric components and will give you a more stable infrastructure.

The model I chose for my HomeLab was the PowerWalker VI 3000 RLE2, a line-interactive UPS from BlueWalker GmbH3. The reasons for choosing this UPS were a very competitive price, functionality, capacity, silent operation and 2U rack design.

Some of the features of the “PowerWalker VI 3000 RLE” are:

  • Power Capacity of 3000VA/ 1800W
  • Pure Sine Wave Output
  • Human Interface Device (HID) Compatible USB Connection
  • Automatic Voltage Regulator
  • Fully Automatic and Silent Operation
  • 8 x IEC C13 Outlets

This UPS has been working without problems since day one and it has enough capacity for all the components in my HomeLab, usually it has a load between 14-20% and a runtime on battery of around 40min. So I have enough free capacity for future expansion.

The UPS is connected via USB to the main router in my HomeLab and monitored using “Network UPS Tools” (NUT)4 with the usbhid driver. The main router, the KVM server, all VMs and the main Desktop computer in my office are configured to shutdown automatically in a proper way if the battery charge goes under 10% or the left runtime on battery is less than 5min.

I have written the article “UPS control with NUT, PFSense+ and Zabbix “ about how this has been done and how I monitor it via Zabbix.

Nowadays the UPS supplies power to these components:

  • Dell PowerEdge R210 II - Main router / firewall
  • Ubiquiti UniFi USW 24 PoE Switch
  • Ubiquiti Unifi AP-AC HD
  • Inter-Tech IPC 4U-4408 4U - Main KVM server
  • Main Desktop computer in my office.
  • Alarm system gateway
  • Sonos Sound system gateway
  • Rack fans/leds
  • Console monitor

  1. UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninterruptible_power_supply ↩︎

  2. PowerWalker VI 3000 RLE homepage
    https://powerwalker.com/product/10121101/

    PowerWalker VI 3000 RLE Datasheet
    https://e-mc2.net/files/PowerWalker_VI_RLE_1200-3000.pdf

    PowerWalker VI 3000 RLE Quick guide
    https://e-mc2.net/files/PowerWalker_VI_RLE_1200-3000VA_Quick-Guide_EN.pdf ↩︎

  3. BlueWalker GmbH
    https://powerwalker.com/bluewalker/ ↩︎

  4. “Network UPS Tools” (NUT)
    https://networkupstools.org/ ↩︎