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The Power Center box differs slightly by showing the entire stack rather than just a single component. This seems to emphasize the Power center as a base for the system. This difference helps to prevent purchase by misinformed customers as an external power supply for other components or even for a PC build. The Power Center comes with: A setup guidel, warranty registration card, an AC adaptor, 6 different DC output cables in three different sizes, and two support stands. Unlike the other Stackables, the Power Center is designed to be the base of a stack and offers no other options for setup.
Specifications:
* For use only with Ultra Stackable Series Products Features:
The Power Center looks much different from the other units as it is made from aluminum. The front surface is given a lot of venting and features a blue LED indicator for each of the supported 6 separate 12 Volt outputs.
The back is also given a lot of venting. This venting and the aluminum surface work together to passively cool the power supply. The right side features: a standard power outlet, an off on toggle and a voltage switch. The feet clip soundly to the sides and offer a wide support for the supported additional 6 Stackable devices. The Install:
No surprise here! I installed all of the Stackables and routed power here. The three different lengths of 12 V leads offer some flexibility across the supported drives. Unfortunately the Power center and each component did not come with a short USB lead to facilitate a similar data connection scheme. Given my choice I would have included a small USB cable with each device or 6/7 with the USB hubs.
And here we have the front with the entire stack running. The stack looks pretty impressive even with just the 4 components. With the lights on you can see how those hard drive lights compare to the rest of the system. The Power Center lights give off a tremendous amount of light, maybe even too much for some locations as the brightness cam be distracting in a darker room. Conclusion: The idea of stacking components is nothing new but taking a modular approach to your external device is definitely a solid idea. The folks at Ultra have taken things a step further by providing a single Power Center solution for each of their external devices. I found every device to be well built and easy to setup and install. The basic look is not as fancy as some of the other products Ultra offers but when presented as a stack, the setup looks pretty slick. Each piece is covered under Ultra's 3-Year warranty as well when you register with Ultra by mail or online. I do wish the entire line was aluminum though. Taking each component as an individual piece weakens the package. Each component is on the more expensive side for the market making the Stackables less of a deal when purchased individually. Clearly you would only want to invest in this setup if you planned on adding devices to your stack. As a set they offer a unique first effort at organizing your common external devices in a easy to upgrade modular system. My suggestion would be to pick up a couple of the pieces first then add the Power Center as the third piece before adding the rest. Ultra has taken the lead with external devices by showing what happens when you look at all of your devices as a system instead of just individual pieces.
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