I too am looking for LifePo4 UPS recommendations.

I won’t use lead acid anymore. 40 years of experience has taught me that unless I’m prepared to replace the lead acid UPS batteries in an annual basis, having a lead acid based UPS is the same as not having one at all.

The batteries consistently have died and provide no backup time when I get my admittedly very intermittent power outages. No bueno.

Cheap and Lithium are not two things I want together

Was asking myself the same question.

Another annoyance is that all products on the market are labelled in VA and not Wh, which makes it very difficult to compare and understand how long they’ll last at a 20W draw of the standard networking equipment.

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There is an issue with using lithium battery in UPS. AFAIK all types of lithium batteries on the market now, They don’t like to be staying fully charged all the time. That’s why lead acid batteries and Ni-Cd batteries are still used for providing emergency power

Lithium batteries are about weight, so they make perfect use for portable uses (like portable power stations). Most UPSes get installed once and stay put until decommissioned. The added expense of lithium batteries makes no sense.

Probably in a dumpster fire somewhere

I’m using a UPS that is plugged into a EcoFlow power station which uses LiFoPO4 battery

https://imgur.com/a/qbqE8e8

Cheap and lithium do not go together. Have you seen what happens when lithium batteries fail?

Most lithium battery ate not full lith It lithium poly etc type. Most none car battery are lead calcium

APC used to sell a consumer lithium UPS: here’s the price history. $270 for something about the capacity of the $50 lead acid equivalent. Looks discontinued now. They sell a lot of rackmounted options but they are all expensive.

I have a regular UPS for my server+NAS, and a small lithium one (pocket sized) for my low voltage things (basically all my network gear, sans POE). It was inexpensive and works fantastically. The best part was erasing 4 power brick transformers from my network closet and replacing them with just a 5V barrel cable directly to the UPS. I think it’s highest output is 12V which runs my 24-port switch (I think, maybe my router).

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WLD32RP

Simultaneous charge and supply circuits cost a fair bit to design and implement.

It’s a lot cheaper and profitable to build a basic ‘brick’ that can be sold to hundreds of thousands of 'phone users rather than a premium product for a few computer folk.

Lead acid is very cheap, electrically very easy to charge, safe and actually very recyclable.

That said, yes LiFePO4 is really coming down in price. In telecom DC power systems, I’ve been using 48V packs in some situations because the cost difference between lead acid and lithium is only about 20-30% more.

The big benefit of lithium is the weight and amount of cycles you can get out of them. The longer service life is also a factor, but they’re most useful in situations where you are cycling a lot (EVs, solar power systems) but UPSes aren’t really taking advantage of that unless you live in a particularly bad area for power, the UPS’s poor quality charging will likely damage the battery more than the cycling. It’s also nice that lead acid is so common that you can often just walk into most battery / auto parts stores with the cell and they’ll have something that will fit.

EDIT: I forgot to mention! There are some cheap 12V lithium UPSes out there for powering things like modems and WiFi routers. These are often a lot smaller than traditional UPSes, but since they’re keeping everything on DC power can mean you still have a decent amount of runtime.

Vertiv has multiple ranges of Lithium UPS products. They have a small 400VA unit that can be found for about $180.

https://www.vertiv.com/en-us/solutions/learn-about/vertiv-lithium-ion-ups/