this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2026
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DC UPS for router? (retrofed.com)
submitted 2 days ago by voyagertest@retrofed.com to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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Hi y'all looking for advice here

I selfhost a nextcloud server and a NAS for backups, and one of my challenges has been data corruption after power failures.

I went and bought some consumer UPS units about 5 years ago, which helped, but now the batteries are starting to fail, and I'm not protected from power outages until I replace them.

I have the router on UPS as well so the computers can communicate with each other that the power has failed and it is time to gracefully shut down (using NUT).

However the router itself uses quite a bit of power and I am hoping to make a smarter decision this time around when getting a UPS.

The router's power supply is 12V5A with a barrel style jack, so i have been searching for "DC UPS 12V 5A" to try and find something compatible that wastes less energy converting from battery DC to AC for the power supply to then convert back to DC.

But the only thing I've been able to find are these units designed to power electric doors: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D8VLPRN2/

I'm not sure if this would even be safe to use with a router, and i don't know how i would wire it up to the router either.

I think i just don't have enough knowledge to know how to shop for an appropriate DC UPS, or if such a thing even exists.

Anyone been in a similar situation?

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[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 12 points 2 days ago (2 children)

That rating from that PSU will be the max it can supply, it is very unlikely that a consumer router is pulling 5A.

Your router firmware might even expose its power consumption if you are lucky.

I have the same/similar setup. My wall-warts are just plugged into the UPS.

[–] iocase@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I was just thinking the same thing. I was also thinking you can get a wide input voltage buck converter on amazon for cheap and use a bunch of cells in series as the UPS and the buck converter spits out 12V until it cant anymore. Then just wire up a charge controller to charge and balance your lead acid cells.

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

If you are using a buck converter you might as well use a ups. They're both going to be ~ 95%.

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 0 points 2 days ago

Yea, small business routers (think old Cisco boxes) use a 5A laptop-style power supply. I suspect this is what OP's using, as I've never seen a consumer model with such power specs. Consumer stuff is built around the cheapest hardware they can get away with.

Thing is, I don't doubt the Cisco box (or similar business units) may need that much juice at times. Put your hand over one that's not connected but powered on and they get hot.

Stuff like that they really don't care about power consumption during design, just capability.