Post by @voyagertest@retrofed.com

2026-09-25 02:39 UTC

DC UPS for router? 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?

Replies (6)

@deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 2026-09-25 03:18

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.

Open ##4909686
@zer0squar3d@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-09-25 03:24

Yes which is why i started building a custom 20 usbc 65w max per port box and was going to swap out all barrel pluga for matching voltage usbc receiver plugs but havent finished it yet. Not sure about battery or if i was going to add one to it

Open ##4909770
@Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 2026-09-25 04:25

The common solution is not to replace the UPS but only the battery inside. They are standard sizes and for a cheap UPS probably around 10 - 20 bucks.

Open ##4910467
@Bell@lemmy.world 2026-09-25 05:23

Since it happens to be 12 volts to your router and many UPS batteries are 12 volts… Why not just tap the two leads coming off the UPS battery and run that to the router? After you buy a replacement battery of course, they really are cheap and easy to swap.

Open ##4911315
@B0rax@feddit.org 2026-09-25 05:28

Search for “router UPS” For example there is one from APC “# APC Back-UPS Connect 12V DC 36W - CP12036LI”

Open ##4911376
@tal@lemmy.today 2026-09-25 05:52

I mean, there are 12V native battery systems out there, stuff like vehicle stuff. Assuming that the 12V power supply on the router is permissive enough to take a certain amount of variation, I imagine that you can probably just put a 12V deep-cycle battery on the thing on the thing and directly hook up a 12V charge controller in parallel. I dunno whether there’s some sort of voltmeter that you can connect NUT up to. Personally, my position is that if NextCloud or whatever can’t handle power loss without corrupting data, that’s a bug with NextCloud. I mean, sure, it might not be able to complete an operation if there’s power loss while it’s running, but that shouldn’t result in corrupt data.

Open ##4911885