Product Review: CyberPower CPS425SL UPS System

We live in a rather isolated section of Maine, an island in fact, connected to the mainland by a bridge. This bridge is not only the only way to drive on and off the island but its the only place all of the powerlines for the whole island converge.

Between our house and the power station are miles and miles of forest, a lot of which was damaged by the major ice store of about 10 years ago. Needless to say, any bit of wind brings us power interruptions, surges and power failures.

Last year I installed a back up generator (runs on propane) to handle any major electrical outages. It will keep the water pump running, heat and the fridge so we can flush the toliet and keep the food from spoiling. We can also run a few "luxury" appliances if we are careful like the T.V.

Now the only problem is when the power fails the automatic standby system waits a full 30 seconds or so before it starts up the generator so minor power interruptions can knock out clocks, shut down computers and my most recent annoyance power down and erase my DVD recorder's settings.

We don't watch a lot of TV around here but the shows we do follow we like to catch every episode (Lost, 24, The Shield, Thief, West Wing etc). Nothing is worst than waking up the next morning expecting to have successfully taped your favorite show and finding out that a 10 second power interruption has made your whole entertainment system shut down.

So this product from CyberPower fit the bill as a way to ensure my recording operation would succeed dispite a our frequent power interruptions.

It has an up to 30 minute battery back up system which I really only need a few minutes (in case of a major failure my generator will come on) but its crucial so that my electronics don't shut down and reset.

It has three plugs that are surge protected and battery back up protected - perfect for my DVR, Direct TV box and Stereo - the three items that need to be on for recording a show in my setup. Plus three always on full-time surge protection outlets. The outlets are well designed with plenty of room for those bulk AC adapters which always want to use up multiple plugs in a regular power strip.

Other features include a power switch, power on indicator, electrical wiring fault indicator which checks for problems such as bad ground, missing ground or reversed wiring, a circuit breaker, and communications ports so you can hook in phone lines.

Also since UPS are typically used for computer systems this UPS comes with a serial port to PC connection. This port allows connection and cumminication from the DB-9 serial port on the computer to the UPS unit. The UPS communicates its status to the included PowerPanel software. This software automatically saves any open files so if you reach the end of the 30 minutes of backup power and are not around to save the files yourself, this software will do it for you.

All in all this is a nice compact affordable backup system for short power interruptions. For my purposes its fine. If you don't have a generator for longer outages you may want to look at a unit with more battery life.