Any of you guys run with a gaming pc onboard?

Yes, it will be a race to see if the UPS fails before the power supply or CPU in the desktop fails. A UPS needs at least decent mains electricity to remain switched off. It really can't get this from the typical 1500+ watt inverter. And when it switches onto battery, most UPS's will provide a mediocre AC power supply at best.

Probably better off to take your chances running direct through/from a decent inverter then from a UPS supplied with inverter power

 

An UPS unit is plugged into a household or work place power source. Then you plug in your computer(s) or network machines into the UPS. The batteries within the unit will stay charged and not used until the power goes dead. then it kicks in and maintains power to your network giving you enough time to safely shut things down. It is not designed as a long term power solution.

So to answer your questions yes you are correct in saying that it provides power via batteries when normal current goes out. and yes an UPS unit can go bad if it has to keep switching on and off with an unstable power source. It's just like batteries in any electronic device. Over time constant charging and discharging will shorten the batteries capacity.

 

When I was in business at a facilty that had a lot of heavy AC consumers of 240 and 480 VAC power, our UPS units for our POS and other computers rarely lasted more than about a month or two before failing because the power variances were constantly causing the UPS to switch over and they just aren't made for constant switching. We finally invested in some expensive AC conditioning equipment and this helped a lot.

If you were careful to ONLY operate the PC when running the engine at high idle or with an APU running, along with good and ample truck main battery power you might could get away with it.

 

Now something like this (as an example) might be of use with an inverter but even then I'm inclined to say don't use a desktop in the truck.

https://www.amazon.com/Goldsource-STU-500-Voltage-Converter-Transformer/dp/B0022U4J12?th=1

 

An inverter's power (output) will drop as the battery's pull down (lower voltage) between engine or APU starts/charges. The inverter output with 11.75 volt DC supply will be different (less) as compared to 12.75 volts DC supply, to the point where a computer PSU generally won't like it.

 

Agreed... But in an early post I said something about a xformer, so I thought I'd throw it out there.

 

leads one to a generator on the truck

 

I have a gold rated CoolerMaster v650 that requires pure sine or it won't start. Or, if it does start it won't run properly. But I have seen what you're talking about with many of the higher end PSUs. Vibration is also a big concern. Luckily I have soft tubing in mine at the moment but once I get some money coming in I'm going to be upgrading my case and going with a custom water loop. Haven't decided on PETG or acrylic yet.