I have a question for those who have tried Online-UPS

[pervysage19]

I have an Online UPS sitting in my closet collecting dust. It had a drastic change on my aim feel but something still felt quite off about it. And the odd thing is I could go in the settings of the UPS and change various settings that would all result in a drastically different aim feel but nothing felt all that great... it seemed I was just "manipulating" the aim feel from feeling terrible to feeling just okay-ish but I could still tell it wasn't quite right.

All the Online UPS really did was confirm to me that my issue was indeed electricity related.

I then got myself a Medical Grade Isolation Transformer and that did solve my issues. A "set it and forget it" type solution, no messing about with settings and all that nonsense I had to go through with the Online UPS.

They are ridiculously heavy though so keep that in mind if you would want to try one and return it afterwards if it didn't help you.

My particular model I bought is the MD-2000-U from Triad Magnetics but there are many models available from various manufacturers.

Did it really solve the problem for good? It's so expensive! If possible, film a video of yourself playing.

My issue is nothing that shows up on video.... no flickering, no lines on my display or anything like that... it was just a floaty sensation or heavy aim feel.

As long as you use an isolation transformer correctly, I feel like it would have a good chance of solving a decent amount of peoples issues... but obviously there are no guarantees... everyones issues can be different. You have to be sure your issue is due to electricity at the outlet. Some people's issue might not even be electricity and they are mistakenly thinking that it is.

For me it became obvious electricity was the culprit when one day I was playing and I was having a great time & good aim feel. I got off for a bit to have some dinner and then came back and suddenly my aim felt like trash. In my mind, I was just backtracking and thinking what the hell changed so drastically in the last hour or so that I was away.

That is when it hit me... I had turned my ceiling fan off as the room had gotten a bit chilly... but then I thought... there's no way that could be the cause in change, could it? So I turned it back on and sure enough, my aim feel was changing depending on whether or not my ceiling fan was on! Even more than that, my ceiling fan had 3 speeds (low, medium, fast) and each speed produced a different aim feel on my computer... it was really odd.

That was when I went down the rabbit hole of finding electricity related fixes.

A double-conversion UPS did seem to decouple my computer from the issue but the problem I had with that particular UPS was that it seemed to be adding it's own influence to my aim feel. It was no longer affected by my ceiling fan but the aim feel wasn't exactly perfect to my standard and felt heavy and inconsistent in it's own way. Changing various settings on the UPS, Fixed Frequency Modes, 50hz/60hz, etc etc would all change the aim feel but nothing felt like all that good.

Then I heard about people trying medical grade isolation transformers and ended up getting one for myself. This also solved the issue I was having with electricity in the house (ceiling fan no longer a factor on my aim feel). This time, aim feel also felt great and natural feeling.

One thing to keep in mind (someone else on here had mentioned it as well)... you MUST keep some distance between this isolation transformer and the rest of your electronics. It will affect nearby power supplies if they are too close and can once again result in some odd aim feel... but once you have it set up a good distance away from your setup, it's golden.

One thing I think people are not keeping in mind is that you have to treat this isolation transformer and everything connected to it like an exclusive private island or "safe haven". None of your devices that are connected should link back to the dirty, problem-creating power in your house.

I can easily re-introduce the issue for example by connecting a USB device to my computer and then connecting that same USB devices power supply to dirty power. It instantly creates that feeling of floaty aim feel again.

So basically you need a setup where it's like: Wall Outlet -> Isolation Transformer -> Your PC setup where NOTHING that is making any kind of electrical connection to your PC should be plugged in anywhere else but to the power being provided by your isolation transformer.

I think many are failing take that into consideration. You have to think about things like where your internet modem is being powered from and what electrical connections it is making. You could have everything connected to an isolation transformer, but then you have a internet modem on the other side of the house powered by dirty power. That internet modem is running via ethernet to the room where your setup is located. You then plug that ethernet cord into the back of your PC... BOOM, you are making an electrical link to your PC from dirty power making your isolation transformer useless.

Every single device you plug into this "safe haven" of yours, you have to consider where it is getting it's power from.

Even if you had a cable modem for example, and then had the cable modem itself plugged into your isolation transformer so that it is not getting dirty power... it still likely wouldn't fix the issue because cable modems usually have a coaxial cable going into the back of them. That coaxial cable goes through your walls, back to a switch somewhere which is powered by what? Dirty power!

At my house, I have fiber optic to the home (to the garage to be more precise). In the garage is then a fiber ONT (optic network terminal) and the main modem which are both powered by... you guessed it: dirty power! An ethernet cable then runs from this modem through the walls and to the room where my setup is located. Now if I take this ethernet and run it into the back of my PC directly, yes, I would still have issues.

My solution here is running a pair of Fiber Optic/Ethernet converters. One box connects to a regular power outlet in my room with dirty power (not my isolation transformer). The ethernet coming into my room then connects to this converter box as well. The converter box then runs a fiber optic line to a 2nd converter box (which this time, is powered by my isolation transformer). The two boxes are connected via fiber optic line (no electrical link between the two) so there is no electrical path to my so-called "safe haven" behind the isolation transformer. I have killed that path for dirty power by using the fiber boxes.

You have to basically look at every single device you plan to connect to your computer and consider where it's getting power from and what potential electrical paths it is connected to (speakers, audio devices, amplifiers, mixers, monitors, internet modems, powered USB hubs, etc). Everything needs to be protected by your isolation transformer and there should be nothing that provides an electrical path back to these isolated devices.

So another issue arises where you have all of these devices... like 5, 10 or 15+ devices that all need power and you have an isolation transformer that only provides very little amount of outlets (my particular model has 4 outlets). My solution here was to use two good quality PDU's (essentially just power bars with no surge protection or any extra junk built into them). Each PDU has like 10-12 outlets on it... plenty for all my devices. Just ensure you don't overload your wattage on the isolation transformer or your wall outlet (1800W for most of us in North America). The cord on these PDU's is usually super long as well which is really useful considering you have to be placing your isolation transformer a decent distance away.

Anyways, that's just my experiences and the what the solution was in my particular case... but I'm sure it might not apply to everybody.

I also got both my double-conversion UPS and isolation transformer a while back when they were a lot cheaper... it seems like prices have gotten crazy on all of this stuff recently. These things are also really heavy and not a simple matter to ship back and return, so you are basically taking a gamble on getting stuck with a paper weight if it doesn't solve your issues.