I have an apartment setup right now where one fuse has a fair amount of load on it. (Fridge, Microwave, PC). Rarely, when these are all used in conjunction, the fuse trips and I have to turn it back on (and I'm sure it's awful for these devices too!) Would it be at all possible to put a UPS on the outlet, and then plug everything into the UPS instead? That way when it's at a higher load, it falls back to the battery draining a little, instead of the fuse blowing? Or is that not how a UPS works at all? This is in the USA in case that matters for watts/voltage/whatever.
Electrical – UPS to bypass tripping a fuse
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Ok I read your question a few times, so hope I understand what you want to do. You want GFI prtection on the outlet , but no GFI protection to the fridge. This will be easy to do if you can affirm that the load wire leaving the j-box where the switch and outlet are located, is actually the feed for the fridge. To check this out, you need to turn off the power, check the outlet at the sink and fridge to be sure they are ,in fact on same circuit and off. Now disconnect all the wires from the outlet and any wirenuts so everything is isolated. Now, carefully turn the power back on and check the hot (typically black) leads to ground with a volt meter to determine which one is the feed/source wire. Mark this with some red electrical tape. Double check to see that the fridge outlet is still dead.
Next, turn off the power and wire nut the black source wire and associated white neutral to the black and white wires you suspect goes to the fridge.( black to black, white to white) Turn the power back on and check with your voltmeter at fridge outlet again. If there is voltage there now, you have found the right feed wire to the fridge outlet. An alternate method of finding that wire with the power off, is to use an ohm meter. Assure the power is off, then twist the black and white together on the wire you suspect goes to fridge and check the hot and neutral slots of the fridge outlet with your ohm meter. the meter should show 0 ohms or "short circuit".
Now that you have identified the hot feed and load wire to fridge in your box, you can wire it so only the counter outlets are GFI protected. Put the source black wire together with the fridge black wire, along with a separate 8 inch piece of black wire (pig tail) and wire nut them all together. Use the 8 inch black wire to feed your switch/gfi hot. The neutrals tie together as usual with an extra pig tail for your GFI outlet neutral. Obviously, trim the pig tails to a comfortable length to fit in your box before connection to the GFI.
Since all outlets must be GFI protected in the counter outlet and since you cannot split a gfi outlet top and bottom like in your diagram, you have to do your light differently from your previous plan. I would suggest using a switch/single outlet device wired from the load side of the gfi. Wire the switch in series with this single outlet. This means only the single outlet is switched and gfi protected. You must have gfi protection on this outlet, as someone could unplug the lights and use it for something else.
Hopefully, one of my artistic buddies can do an edit and add a nice diagram depicting what I have outlined for you.
My APC UPS has a setting to be more tolerant of the input power. I found it necessary to enable this when running from a generator during power outages. Without the setting, the behavior was just as you describe -- constant switching between line and UPS power. Read the documentation for your UPS carefully -- there is probably a similar option.
Edit:
Here's an excerpt from the APC BE450G UPS manual:
Voltage Sensitivity Adjustment (optional) The Back-UPS detects and reacts to line voltage distortions by transferring to battery backup power to protect connected equipment. In situations where either the Back-UPS or the connected equipment is too sensitive for the input voltage level it is necessary to adjust the transfer voltage.
1. Connect the Back-UPS to a wall outlet. The Back-UPS will be in Standby mode, no indicators will be illuminated.
2. Press and hold the ON/OFF button for 10 seconds. The OnLine LED will illuminate alternately green-amber-red, to indicate that the Back-UPS is in Program mode.
3. The Power On/Replace Battery LED will flash either green, amber, or red to indicate the current sensitivity level. Refer to the table for an explanation of the transfer voltage sensitivity levels.
4. To select LOW sensitivity, press and hold the ON/OFF button until the LED flashes green.
5. To select MEDIUM sensitivity, press and hold the ON/OFF button until the LED flashes red.
6. To select HIGH sensitivity, press and hold the ON/OFF button until the LED flashes amber.
7. To exit Program mode wait five seconds and all LED indicators will extinguish. Program mode is no longer active.
The details for other models probably will differ.
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Best Answer
The fuse is there to prevent your wires from burning up in the walls. A UPS is for a short supply of backup power when the power goes out - not to bypass the tripping of a fuse/breaker. If you're not able to move these loads to different circuits, then you shouldn't use them all at once or allow them to be used together. You don't want to bypass a safety device.
As for your second question to alleviate the problem.. Yes, you should push something off to a different circuit. However, extension cords aren't intended to replace hardwiring not for "on/off" appliances like a heater or refrigerator. Of your situation, I'd say move the computer to a different circuit or extension cord as it's not a huge load.