And I'll never buy another APC UPS. Last year mine was telling me the battery was dead. I wasn't in a hurry to replace this one because it wasn't powering anything too important at the time, but it was still useful to leave there as an overpriced power strip until I could get around to replacing the battery, so that's what I did. A few weeks passed with the dead battery in there, but no new alerts. I was cleaning under my desk and ended up touching the UPS when I realized it was uncomfortably hot. I very quickly turned it off and unplugged it. I wasn't sure what the safest thing to do was at that point, but I figured I should get the battery disconnected ASAP. It was difficult to remove, and after I got it out it was easy to see why. The battery casing had actually deformed.
That scared me of of APC. The unit should have shut down before letting itself get that hot.
>The unit should have shut down before letting itself get that hot.
Wny? It already warned you something was wrong, for weeks. There's a reason you don't ignore problems with battery-powered equipment.
>I realized it was uncomfortably hot.
That barely registers on the electronics hardware scale of "what is too hot". When you yank your hand away, shake it, and go "ooof, that's hot", that's too hot ;)
I am in the market for a UPS for my home server rack (live in Nashville lots of storms and power failures), but a lot of the reviews of big brands such as APC and CyberPower on Amazon are very negative. There are reviews complaining about battery failures, annoying beeping sounds, humming, and even starting a fire!!!
My Cyberpower metered PDU[1] shows my equipment using 1.8 amps consistent.
I'm running an APC Symmetra LX in my house to power both my server room and my office. They are pretty easy to find on the used market, and I replaced all of the batteries in mine.
Unbelievable thread on your house build. I literally clicked through every page in the thread [1]. You've got an absolutely beautiful home. I just bought my first house in Nashville last month and have loved filling it will Ubiquity networking gear and cameras, setting up the office, swapping lighting to Lutron Maestro switches, and doing cat6a runs. Nothing like your setup.
Thanks, and it sounds like you have a pretty good setup started at your place. The Ubiquity gear is a great way to have an ecosystem that is straightforward to manage. Those Lutron switches are great as well. I'm just now getting around to getting the Z-wave homeseer radios setup and linking them to my switches. Lots to do, but it sure is fun to see things automated!
Yes same here, and both APC gave up their life in the exact same week after around 2 years (stationed in different houses and connected to different devices).
The problem isn't really "brand" so much as "vendor lying^W^Wmarketing".
The UPS vendors don't highlight the fact that basically anything you buy retail is "offline/standby" and that there are lots of downsides to these types (a lot of them switch off if the battery goes dead even if the AC is still live).
Double-conversion UPS systems are the best, but they have loud fans, so are not really suited to home or office use.
Most people who care about a UPS, probably want what is called "line-interactive". It's a decent tradeoff of features vs heat/fan noise for most people.
It's a UPS and it should "just work", right? <grumble>
UPS company marketing folks should all wind up tarred and feathered for not pointing out the uselessness of their "standby/offline" UPS systems.
"The problem isn't really "brand" so much as "vendor lying^W^Wmarketing"."
I understand that it seems that every brand has downmarketed to at least walmart quality in most consumer goods, but that is a failure of branding and business/product management. Well, and the fact that once a consumer product "brand" hits a bump, it gets scooped up for its previous reputation and then stamped on junk.
It really is depressing that the internet has not produced some sort of historical tracker of brands (or politicians) and their actual quality and reputation scores.
Maybe consumer reports, which probably has more historical data than anyone in this regard, could produce something like this.
I‘m a bit exacarrating but one could rewrite the article as
> I bought a UPS without reading the spec because i thought it‘s uninterruptible (it has a U in it...) and then I never tested it‘s functionality over years. Now I think it‘s the suppliers fault that it did not work.
There was another article that was a rant against a UPS supplier because it did not work anymore after a long time without checking.
IMHO, a UPS is a device for _professionals_. It‘s not something one just buy and install-and-forget. It‘s something that needs regular maintenance and testing. It’s like a car. It’s not just driving, it’s also about checking the tires, dilling up gas, ... It might get advertised to you differently, but it‘s not that easy.
If the UPS is only powering a computer then it should be possible to replace it with a very simple battery charger and a 120 V battery because most (all?) modern computer power supplies are direct online switched mode and can operate on any input between 100 and 240 V. The PSU can accept DC because the rectifier is on the high voltage side and there is no 50 or 60 Hz transformer. This eliminates the inverter and removes the need for any bypass or synchronization circuitry.
Of course you need to check carefully that your particular PSU can operate like this before trying it.
Alternatively surely there should be a market for PSUs that accept 12 V or 24 V input so that they could be driven directly from single car or truck batteries. Or the equivalent lithium ion or whatever else is the best available technology of the moment of course.
That scared me of of APC. The unit should have shut down before letting itself get that hot.