UPS Issues

[OhioYJ]

Power outages in my area tend me rare. However a couple months ago we had the first extended power outages since I've had a UPS (APC BR1500MS) on my PC. The PC was off at the time, nothing else is plugged into this UPS except the PC (no monitors, no speakers, just the PC). A couple hours into the outage we notice a smell and find it coming from my office. Once I realize it's the UPS I power it off. I then go grab my IR gun, find it is over 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

I contact APC to discuss this. The APC rep says there is a fan inside that runs based on load (Even sends me a table showing load vs duty cycle of fan). A couple more emails exchanged, and I get asked to test the "power outage" scenario again.

 

This time again with no load on it, noting battery status, taking the temperature every 30 minutes. It started at 68 degrees Fahrenheit. 90 minutes later I measured 160 degrees Farenheit. Obviously I stopped the test as my temperatures did not seem to be stabilizing.

 

1. Design flaw, faulty unit or normal? APC is sending out a "new" unit. So I guess I test this new unit in the same manner?
2. If you had to pick a UPS up right now, runtime isn't really important. I use it more for voltage regulation. I'm looking for a true sine wave output, and one that in theory can handle ~650 watts (My PC in theory should never be close to this anyways, but it does have a 750 watt PSU).
3. It seems like the model up is about double the price, but it does it get me away from this sort of issue?
4. I see many reviews of these units failed and burnt up. Perhaps this is why? It seems with any sort of power outage the unit will burn itself up, from what I'm seeing if left unattended. I have two desks in this room that "meet" in a corner, in that dead space sit the UPS and lamp. So it has room to breath, but I need to move stuff to get it out of there. Once I do I need to check it as I don't think there is a fan in this model.

[Dutch_Master]

You need to realise that although the PC is off, it still consumes power. The PSU still takes power from the UPS, the only way killing that is disconnecting the machine from the UPS.

[evilcloud]

sounds like a faulty unit to be honest, they shouldn't do that.

[Hairless Monkey]

33 minutes ago, Dutch_Master said:

You need to realise that although the PC is off, it still consumes power. The PSU still takes power from the UPS, the only way killing that is disconnecting the machine from the UPS.

71°C isn't normal in a no load, nor a low load scenario...

48 minutes ago, OhioYJ said:

If you had to pick a UPS up right now, runtime isn't really important. I use it more for voltage regulation. I'm looking for a true sine wave output, and one that in theory can handle ~650 watts (My PC in theory should never be close to this anyways, but it does have a 750 watt PSU)

The "PFC" units from Cyberpower are quite good. They are pure sine wave with AVR. I own two of the 1500VA version, one for my wife's PC and one for mine. My PSU (HX1000i) reports that the input voltage is constantly and consistently exactly 115V @ 60Hz regardless of brownout/powerout etc.

 

https://www.cyberpowersystems.com/products/ups/pfc-sinewave/

 

They go on sale some times for much lower than MSRP.

[OhioYJ]

10 minutes ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

The "PFC" units from Cyberpower are quiet good.

 

I looked at those back before I bought the APC, and for someone arbitrary reason felt like the APC was the "brand name". That worked out well for me, haha. I've been meaning to get a UPS for my son's PC for the same reason, I'll get one of the CyperPower ones picked up. Looks like the Microcenter near me has those. I'll see what the new APC one APC sends me does before I decide to do with mine.

 

21 minutes ago, Dutch_Master said:

You need to realise that although the PC is off, it still consumes power. The PSU still takes power from the UPS, the only way killing that is disconnecting the machine from the UPS.

 

Yes, but we should be talking about a very minimal amount of power. Even the UPS registers it as "no load".  When I get the other desk moved, I can measure it, but I have a feeling we're talking maybe a couple watts?

[evilcloud]

apc used to be the de facto go to with UPS, but over the years they just got worse.  I can highly recommend Eaton though, replaced all the APC units at work with them and not had any issues touch wood.

 

 

[OhioYJ]

So I wanted to update this and bring this to a conclusion. APC did replace my UPS, and I did test the new unit. It's worth noting that I originally purchased the BR1500MS, which has since been replaced with a BR1500MS2 which is what APC sent me. Below is all the temperature data I collected (in Fahrenheit). I stopped on the new one as I could clearly hear a fan (could not on the old one) and the temperatures were stabilizing, and come down. It definitely seems as I had something wrong with my old UPS.

 

 

It's also worth noting that APC replaced this nearly 2 year old UPS with any hesitance after exchanging these emails, and me running these tests. They included return postage for my old UPS as well. So they definitely deserve credit for that.