News
HM Cragg Partners with ITWatchDogs
Added: May 9th 2011
HM Cragg Partners with ITWatchDogs
New Product Line Available from HM Cragg
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (Spring 2011) – HM Cragg, a leading distributor of backup power supplies and remote monitoring devices, has partnered with ITWatchDogs to distribute web-based climate and power monitoring systems designed to provide remote IT security.
HM Cragg Partners with Falcon Electric
Added: April 12th 2011
HM Cragg Partners with Falcon Electric
New Product Line Available from HM Cragg
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (Spring 2011) – HM Cragg, a leading distributor of backup power supplies and complementary products, now carries Falcon Electric voltage regulators, frequency converters, and single-phase UPS product scalable up to 40 kVA.
HM Cragg Opens Reno Distribution Center
Added: March 16th 2011
New Distribution Center in Reno, NV
March 1, 2010, HM Cragg opens a third distribution center
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (Winter 2011) – On March 1, 2011, HM Cragg opened a new distribution center in Reno, NV – their third stocking facility in the US and first in the western region. As an Eaton Master Distributor, HM Cragg stocks over $2 million of product in three strategically located distribution centers: Reno, NV; Minneapolis, MN; and Raleigh, NC.
New VP of Sales
Added: January 11th 2011
New VP of Sales
HM Cragg hires Tom Latanision as VP of Sales
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (Winter 2011) - HM Cragg, a leading distributor of backup power supplies, has hired Tom Latanision as the VP of Sales in charge of expanding current markets, growing the customer base, and managing the dynamic sales team. Tom’s core objectives will include sales plan development and management as it pertains to UPS (uninterruptible power systems) products and complementary offerings.
HM Cragg Expands
Added: December 3rd 2010
HM Cragg Expands
Ribbon cutting ceremony held at new office
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (Winter 2010) - In response to its rapidly growing product sales and service needs, HM Cragg has expanded into an additional leased office and warehouse space. A ribbon cutting ceremony was held on Thursday, December 2nd, 2010 to mark the occasion. The new location will house HM Cragg’s service department while providing more warehouse space for their expanding backup power distribution business at 7674 Washington Avenue South.
Power Protection Costs
Added: October 29th 2010
Is power protection costing you more than it should?
A simple change in your power system can pay for itself many times over – and return thousands of dollars to your IT budget.
Five questions to ask about high-efficiency, multi-mode UPS
1. Does the UPS sacrifice protection to gain high efficiency?
Some UPSs force a trade-off between power savings and power quality.
2. How does the UPS achieve its high efficiency?
Some UPSs vary in how they switch between operating modes.
3. How efficient is the UPS when lightly loaded?
Real-world performance can be quite different from stated rating.
4. How quickly does the UPS detect and respond to power events?
Electronic equipment only tolerates brief, sub-second interruptions.
5. What extras does the UPS offer for maximum protection?
How does the UPS handle storms, overloads and load faults?
Neglected Elements of UPS Architecture
Added: October 29th 2010
To maximize the performance and reliability of your UPS, treat batteries, fans, and capacitors as the perishable commodities that they are, and plan on replacing them at or near the end of their rated service life. Every UPS contains life-limited components that must be replaced according to the manufacturer’s specifications. To ensure these parts are properly cared for and replaced when needed, regular maintenance is critical.
Batteries: A battery string is only as good as its weakest battery—often the leading cause of UPS failure and load loss, batteries (VRLA) need to be replaced every three to five years.
Fans: Anything from dried-out ball bearings to electrical and mechanical failure can incapacitate a fan far sooner than their expected life span, leading to dramatically increased risk of overheating. Fans should be replaced after seven years.
Capacitors: Are an essential contributor to the overall purpose of the UPS, which is to take unpredictable or erratic supply voltage and turn it into a filtered, steady voltage. Capacitors are used to filter, store, and release electrical energy. In many cases, a capacitor failure triggers the UPS to switch to bypass mode, during which it can’t protect downstream loads. A typical capacitor is rated by the manufacturer for five to seven years.
HM Cragg offers comprehensive battery preventive maintenance; from visual inspections to detailed recordings using the latest Midtronics and Alber technology, we strive to keep your critical power equipment running at full capacity. For questions regarding service contracts or backup power systems maintenance, please contact us.
Service Contracts
Added: September 30th 2010
You’ve invested the resources to protect your “Critical Equipment,” but are you proactively taking the necessary measures to ensure the viability, productivity, and efficiency of your UPS and battery backup system? Get your critical power supply the protection it deserves with a preventive maintenance plan available through HM Cragg.
If the warranty has expired on your UPS, we can provide assistance in helping you decide what type of coverage plan provides the most benefit to you. Service plans can be customized to include the following: 7x24 emergency response coverage, UPS and Battery Preventative Maintenance Plans, and remote UPS and battery monitoring. Routine preventive maintenance significantly reduces probability of load loss. Bad batteries, fan failure, capacitor degradation, and transient spikes in input voltage are the most common causes of UPS failure. The only way to optimize the performance of your UPS or battery backup system is to schedule preventive maintenance visits from our factory-trained technicians. Contact us at 1-800-672-7244 or info@hmcragg.com for more information on our service capabilities.
If you are currently without any critical backup power, we can provide a quality power solution tailored to your need.
Spot Cooling
Added: September 30th 2010
What is a Spot Cooler? – A Spot Cooler is a small portable air cooling unit, generally ranging in size from 10,000 BTU to 60,000 BTU. These units consist of the same components that make up larger, integrated cooling units usually found on the roof or located on the ground in close proximity of the cooled facility.
Why use a Spot Cooler? – Availability of mission critical IT and communication equipment depends on many factors including environmental conditions. The infrastructure design was likely appropriate when the room and equipment was initially installed. However, changing customer needs and technology gains have impacted environmental and system performance. For example, current high performance dual-processor servers and high-speed switches and routers are pushing enclosure densities well over 30kW.
Many of today’s blade servers draw power and create a heat load near 5.8kW — the Cisco router can create a heat load of 15-16.6kW. Enclosures with multiple servers and communication equipment can create significant heat level in enclosures that take up only seven square feet of data center floor space.
Today’s consumption and heat generation far exceed where the industry was as recently as 2000, when a data center enclosure consumed an average of 1kW per rack.
This jump in consumption and heat generation has pushed many installations beyond the environmental limits for which they were designed. The result is poor performance and downtime. Many large businesses estimate the cost of downtime at nearly $500,000 per day.
Spot coolers are economical and easy to install to remedy heat issues in the data center.
Thermal assessments are the first step in identifying hot spots and potential equipment problems. These readings can determine if heat is being adequately removed or addressed by the current systems, allowing for optimal system performance.
When temperature and air flow issues are detected, data center managers can begin eliminating hot spots and supplemental cooling is a low cost, easy-to-install option.
What does HM Cragg offer? – HM Cragg has partnered with Airrex to provide a complete line of portable cooling products. Airrex has manufactured cooling systems since 1958 and offers a product line ranging from 10,000 BTU mobile units to ceiling-mounted 60,000 BTU systems.
HM Cragg also offers the needed pre-sales support to ensure the proper considerations are made to air flow, heat deflection, and power requirements.
Contact your HM Cragg Regional Sales Manager to hear more about our quality air cooling solutions from Airrex.
Powerware BladeUPS
Added: September 30th 2010
Maximize runtime and service life with the Powerware BladeUPS
The Powerware BladeUPS distinguishes itself with its unique load-sharing feature for parallel configurations. While incorporating several battery-optimizing performance technologies, such as redundant internal batteries, premium quality batteries, and optional external battery modules, the BladeUPS from Eaton is designed to maximize battery runtime and increase system reliability.
Innovative technologies that maximize battery health, runtime, and service life
• High power density. With 12kW of power protection in a 6U unit—expandable to 60kW N+1 in one 19” rack—the Powerware BladeUPS delivers twice the backup power of other vendors’ modular solutions, while dissipating only one-third the heat.
• Highest efficiency. The Powerware BladeUPS operates at a leading 97 percent efficiency in normal operation. Even at <30% load, where you would expect much lower efficiency, this UPS is more efficient than others’ modular products at full load, saving thousands of dollars per year.
• High availability. The Powerware BladeUPS incorporates leading technologies that Eaton developed for multi-megawatt UPS systems, such as: patented Powerware Hot Sync® paralleling technology, hot-swappable components, external battery modules, remote monitoring and automated bypass capabilities.
Battery load-sharing in parallel systems
A key merit of modular UPS systems such as Powerware BladeUPS is the ability to electrically and mechanically connect modules into a larger configuration that performs as a synchronized unit. For instance, up to six 12 kW Powerware BladeUPS modules can be paralleled to give the user 60kW (N+1) in one 42U enclosure. If any module is unavailable or cannot support the output load, another module can seamlessly take over. Parallel configurations therefore add important redundancy in the power protection architecture.
The challenge of battery management in traditional parallel UPS systems
In traditional parallel configurations, battery management has been a challenge. The entire system has been compromised at the mercy of the weakest battery in the setup. Here’s why…
Parallel UPS configurations are programmed to share the load evenly among all active UPS modules in the group. This strategy is designed to protect UPS modules from potential overload conditions or the stress of dramatic shifts in load volume as conditions change. Trouble is, although the UPS electronics modules are equally capable of handling equally shared loads, their batteries might not be. Batteries age and deteriorate at different rates. A parallel configuration could easily have a mix of strong batteries and weak ones.
If the parallel configuration must resort to battery power during a power outage, some batteries will be up to sharing the task equally, others might not. That reality can trigger a troubling chain of events. The weakest battery is depleted early on, causing its associated UPS module to go into under-voltage alarm and shut down in self-protection. If the remaining units in the parallel configuration cannot support the total load, the whole system will fail, even before completely draining all the available batteries.
The Powerware BladeUPS system alleviates this problem by intelligently monitoring the health of each individual battery module and—during outage conditions—properly adjusting load distribution to take advantage of the strongest batteries, rather than being constrained by the weakest.
