FYI: APC BackUPS ES infant mortality

Here at work I recently replaced all of our desktop UPSes, about 30 of them. I replaced them with a mixture of APC BackUPS ES 550 and 650 UPSes. So far, I've found seven infant mortalities, including at least two DOAs. (I'm testing them straight out of the box now.) Sadly, everything seems to be okay, except it just won't hold a computer's load at all.

I would suggest that if any of you have one of these that you test it before you need it.

The symptoms I've seen, other than the failure to hold a load of any size include: incandescent lights powered by the battery run at about 75% luminosity (by eye), fluorescent lights flicker on and off, a desk fan's speed drops to about 25%, and apcupsd reports zero load. (Oh, and despite the fact that they're all supporting the same model of computer, the reported loads on the ones that do work right vary widely, from 23% to 82%.)

What are you doing putting lights on the UPS meant for a computer? Assuming you are justing doing it for testing the flickering could be the result of how the inverter inverts- square wave vs sin wave, and could mean nothing.

I was explicitly asked to do so by the support guy.

I actually am having trouble getting the UPS to fail now. It even reports a load above 0%.

Is it possible these things have been sitting around for some time between manufacture and use? Lead acid batteries can become a little twitchy if they're not used for a long time, and may take several cycles to 'wake up' to the point you can draw useful current from them. A really bad one won't produce any current at all, even though the voltage can be spot on, as the internal resistance rises too far.

This is also the normal method of death at end-of-life for lead acid cells. But that normally takes either a few years use or a few years disuse. A few years, anyway

pca

Speaking of off components... Can anyone make a recommendation for a UPS brand/model that isn't going to break the bank and that will support my PVR server?

The PVR server has a 400W PSU and 3 500GB drives in it. It's running on-board video and has 2 PCI video capture cards. I also need to protect and keep up, an external 2-drive RAID box (which has a transformer that I can't remember the load/current of right now).

My old UPS doesn't seem to handle the system very well. The battery died a couple of years ago and I fitted a replacement last year (identical manufacturer and part). It seems to beep at me every now and then and blinks some light. It's a smaller APC and I'll see if I grab the model number later. If the beep is indeed because the computer just pulls too much power, maybe I can still use this UPS for my router/backup drive (Apple TIme Capsule).

Costco has/had some nice APC UPS's for quite cheap: 1300VA / 780W. I've got one of them in the Myth cabinet downstairs for exactly the same use as you mention. The price last winter was something like C$130 or so.

Cheers

Did you tell it that you had installed a new battery? Often it will prompt you to replace the battery when it thinks it's old, and it's not smart enough to actually notice that you've replaced it.

That said, a UPS for 400W isn't pricy at all these days. Probably under US$100. I would suggest you buy Eaton, though, as we could use more jobs down here.

Mmmm.. My next door neighbor works for Eaton. Wonder if he can get me one at a discount.

Currently Costco only has up to a 380W model on their Canadian web site. I'll take a look around when I'm next in the store though. The model on the site looks to have a smaller battery than the one I already have (the unit itself looks smaller too).

BTW, how do you reset such an APS after replacing the battery?

Without knowing what model you have, I couldn't say.

The last time I did that, I followed the instructions from the user guide that came with the UPS.

Yeah, it really depends upon what they currently have on the pallet in the store.

By the way -- there's a wholesale/retail battery supplier in the west end of Toronto, should you ever need to purchase a replacement UPS/alarm battery again. Most batteries are in the $25-$40 range, retail.

I've forgotten their name, but www.evercorp.com -- I found them originally (a couple of months ago) with google. Local shipping is cheap, but you can also pick-up for $0 shipping.

Cheers