I run a research lab that has a bunch of electrical equipment that needs to run 24/7 and is very sensitive to loses of power and/or surges. Our building has a generator and we have two separate UPS's that keep power going to two different machines until the generator comes online. Unfortunately, we are having issues with the system working properly.

What I would like to know is if there some type of monitor that can be plugged into an outlet that will record the time and duration of a loss in power? Information on power surges would be good too.

I think I want to put a monitor in 3 different locations.
1) plug that is not on emergency power.
2) plug that is on the panel to the generator
3) plug that is on the UPS and the generator

I'm a geologist, not an electrician so I've already exhausted all of my knowledge on the issue.

oscilloscope is what your looking for

when you say the system isnt working properly, what do you mean

Long story. We've had two times where the power was shut off to the building, once planned, but the most recent time was either unintentional or planned but not communicated to others. Both of those times, our machines shut down when they weren't supposed to (lost power?). Caused some damage each time. In between these two events, we did another intentional power shutdown of the building where I was sitting in the lab to see what happened. Everything worked fine then. But when I'm not around, it doesn't work. That's what I'm trying to get some way of recording what's happening when I'm not around (whether it be a planned power outage over a weekend or unscheduled due to a storm, etc.).

Emerson Power products does this for critical support facilities. Not cheap, but works.
We do server room work and most have a bank of UPS that can handle the load until the generator comes on line....I would check my UPS for operation.

That's part of the mystery. There are two different UPS's in the lab independent from each other. One is older than the other. I can go flip the breaker on the older one right now and it keeps humming along.

Get with a good industrial contractor. (electrical). They can put voltage monitors in those circuits that will print off any drops or surges over a period of time you want.Or someone that works in energy management.

Sounds like the sensor for the transfer switch isn't working.They do make monitors that will keep track of surges and power outages.
I put a couple of set ups like that in at Lockheed Martin. They told me if their computers went down it cost them $30,000 a minute.

I've had similar issues on one of the facilities I manage that operates on generators 24/7 as the prime (and only) source of power. We used a Fluke oscilloscope that I hooked up to the main switch panel to record for a 2 week cycle so we could see where the power fluctuations were that cause some equipment failures. Might want to try that.

we use ac/dc out of atl, when is the last time you had a capacitence check on the batteries. Does your ups give you any error codes.

We have an Amprobe DM2 (power quality analyzer) Recording amp meter that does this. A large to midsized electrical contractor in you area should have one of these and can set this up for recordings. It will record voltage, current, surges, lulls, outages, etc and a multitude of other readings. We usually put these on the incoming conductors in the main gear but they can be used for branch circuitry also.

How was the power transferred? Did you guys switch the transfer panel over to test and make the transfer that way? Or did someone kill the power at the breaker panel (killing the power before the transfer switch)? If you have a bad transfer switch it may work when transferred through the test mode on the transfer switch, but might fail to switch over when the commercial power fails coming into the switch. The only way to test that for sure is to kill the power in the panel before the transfer switch and see if the generator fires up and the power switches over. We have a similar setups at all of our central offices. I have to test them every month to make sure they are working properly.

Transfer switch or batteries that are not holding the ups's very long would be my guess. I'm not an electrician but we use ups's 9 all of our equipment. If the generator cranks as it should the batteries should not have to last long. Is everything powered up as normal during the controlled testing?

This is a university setting so I'm working with the guys there. They've been helpful, but are also puzzled with what's going on.

Have not checked the capacitance of the batteries. That's beyond my paygrade (don't know how to do it). One UPS has a very small screen with limited information. The other (newer) UPS has a decent size screen, but making it any sense of it has been hard. Not exactly user-friendly (at least to me). They are both Toshiba machines. Again though, I can go flip a switch and the UPS will kick in and run and the machine it is backing up keeps on going. It's only supposed to take a few seconds for the generator to get going. The UPS was specced out to run for 10 minutes.

Sounds like you need duel battery backup system to prevent data and program loss i work with a robotics system and its set up on a duel battery back up we never have a problem with power loss as far as losing data and program memory

Thanks. I'm not sure. I can share what little I do know. Our machine is hard wired into the UPS unit. The UPS unit is hard wired into a breaker box that is backed up by emergency power (when needed). A second machine has it's own UPS that is also on a different breaker in the same box. We've "manually" tested the system a couple different ways. One has been to simply flip the breaker on the box on the wall. The machine keeps running. The other test we did about a year ago was more involved. I had to be on campus at 5:00 AM. The university electricians cut off power to the whole building. My understanding is that test is the closest thing to testing the overall system (UPS+Generator) relative to a real-world setting of the building losing power. Again, the system worked just fine. I'm not sure where the "transfer switch" that you mean falls in line with our set up. I suppose the UPS itself might have some buttons to push for "testing" it, but we've gone the route of flipping breakers (either in the lab or building-wide).

Not enough pennies in the piggy bank for another 10k UPS. The UPS is only needed to bridge the time-gap until the generator kicks in (less than 30 seconds). The generator runs on natural gas so it should keep going short of a mechanical failure. As it is, the system should work and has worked. At this time it is more about figuring out what is different (if anything) about the power outages where the system fails vs. these tests we're performing where things are happening in a very controlled environment. Perhaps the system does not work well when power "sputters" it's way back on.

Yes, the machines basically do not have a "standby" mode. They are running full throttle 24/7. They have multiple pumps to hold a high vacuum. It would make sense if perhaps the older UPS was struggling because of the old battery not holding a charge long enough. Without taking any quantitative measurements, it doesn't add up in my head given that both UPS's are failing. I do not think both UPS's have virtually bad batteries that can't hold the system for a few seconds. Especially since I can walk in there right now and flip off the power and the UPS does what it is supposed to.

There should be a book inside one of the cabinet doors. There a transfer switch for normal power or generator power. But the transfer switch these guys are talking about is the one inside the ups itself. Last time we had a problem with one of ours tripping the first thing the guy from ac/dc asked was did we have a vacuum pump in the system somewhere. See if you can find manual, it will tell you how to look up error codes. If it was me i would have ac/dc come out and look at it. Also they can do a capacitance test (while its still hot) and tell you when to replace batteries (they'll do that also). Otherwise you wont know about swollen and/or bad batteries until they fail when you need them. The capacitors inside the ups's will go out as well.