APC Uninterpretable Power supply

[Mike/W8BAC]

I purchased an APC UPS750 5 years ago to backup my Smug radio and it's computer as well as transceiv sequence switching and it has worked great since. The 750 watts is more than enough power and the time that power will last gives me more than enough time to shut down the system properly in the case of a commercial power outage even if I'm transmitting at that moment.

I was away from home for three weeks and when I got home I heard a three beep repeating sequence that turned out to be that UPS warning me the battery needed to be replaced. I did the normal reset with no result but noticed the UPS was warm.

I checked on line and found PC Connection (with whom I do business) as well as many others sold the battery on line so I ordered one. The dual, sealed lead acid battery cartridge complete with fuse and wiring harness arrived today and with the simple instructions I had it installed in less than 5 minutes with no tools. Plug and play!

With the instructions was a stapled recycling instruction sheet in 9 languages that pointed to a web site. I clicked that site and printed out a FREE UPS shipping label and was instructed to ship the old battery (13 pounds) in the same package as the new battery arrived in.

I won't throw batteries in a land fill. I keep a box that every bad battery goes into until the annual County hazardous waist collection happens (one day per year) If I miss that the box weight doubles until the next year. I wondered about the UPS battery until this APC recycling thing caught my attention.

I KNOW. I probably paid for this service with my purchase of the battery BUT the battery price was reasonable and I don't have to worry about finding a way to get rid of the old one safely.

Bottom Line. I give APC two big thumbs up for product design, ease of battery replacement and recycling policy.

Seems to me I read about government mandates for recycling of hazardous consumer products. If it was a mandate that made this happen, I'm all for it.

Mike

[W7TFO]

Before I retired, the station I worked at had a bank of APC UPS units totalling 30 kW that I set up to run all 22 studios, and the operations center with all the downlinking, servers, routing switchers, monitors, and link transmitters.

They always worked OK, battery changes took all of 10 minutes, and when they were done with life (yours will die on an internal clock about the third battery set) offered a very liberal trade-in value.

Much better product than Tripplite.

73DG

[WA3VJB]

American Power Conversion has been around a long time and I've had good results from a wide variety of their UPS units, from a little one that's supposed to sit under your (CRT) computer monitor, to a big 2200VA job that will run our plasma TV for a half hour.

Not sure which model you've got as to whether they have the following feature, but APC has free computer software you can download (or that accompanies a new unit on a CD), allowing you to program certain functions and make the unit interactive.

I especially like the option of muting the power failure alarm, but other adjustable parameters include the high and low trigger voltages where the unit will activate and supply guaranteed 120VAC to the items plugged in.  We have some wild voltage swings without a total outage during storms around here for some reason, and this just covers the problem nicely.

During brownouts or stable overvoltage conditions, the units also have a compensation circuit that will boost or reduce the incoming line voltage without resorting to the DC to AC battery conversion.

The units I have will "log" incoming line voltage and deliver it as a document file to the master control computer.  This once allowed me to document an overvoltage problem the utility came out and addressed.

I also appreciate the quality control and attention to construction detail. All were built in W. Kingston, Rhode Island, according to the nomenclature stickers on the back.

Once I tried a rival unit from TrippLite, but the output waveform was ugly, the switchover time was erratic, and the build quality was poor.

[AJ1G]

[quote author=Mike/W8BAC link=topic=28380.msg217856#msg217856 date=1311729715

I won't throw batteries in a land fill. I keep a box that every bad battery goes into until the annual County hazardous waist collection happens (one day per year) If I miss that the box weight doubles until the next year. I wondered about the UPS battery until this APC recycling thing caught my attention.
[/quote]

Our town dump has a storage shed for dropping off batteries for recycling for no charge.  All types and sizes of batteries accepted anytime.  Excellent source to pick up quite usable deep cycle marine batteries for powering BA military dynos with when the local boaters re-battery in the spring for the new season.  Occasionally some really huge batts most likely from one of the local fishing fleet will show up.

[K5UJ]

I looked into the UPS situation 2 or 3 years ago because I thought it would be nice to have the computer stay up during a service interruption.  I basically learned there are two kinds of UPS:   The first kind is the desirable design, in which the load is always powered off the battery, which is always getting charged.  With computers, this is how most laptops operate when plugged into a power outlet.  During a power interruption, nothing even blinks because the only change is that the battery stops getting charged.   these also have the advantage of isolating the load from swings in voltage.  The downside is that prices for these seem to start at around a kilobuck.

The second type runs the load directly off the AC service and charges the backup battery.  These have a sensor and circuit that rapidly flip the load over to the battery if the sensor detects a drop on the commercial service line.   The problem is correctly sensing a genuine supply interruption and getting the load on the battery fast enough.   Some loads come unglued with even a tiny fraction of a second lapse.   These UPS are the more common types found at places like Best Buy and are not that expensive.  

Okay so this was what I learned and now it may be out of date.  Naturally I wanted the load on the battery all the time design, but I didn't want to pay a grand, so I wound up doing nothing.   Maybe the cheap design is okay?  Might depend on what the load is I guess.

rob

[Opcom]

The "second kind", the cheapo ones or "standby inverter" , are OK if your equipment has enough storage to go a couple milliseconds. Perfect for almost all consumer computers and the like. If you have a very sensitive load, the full time converter is the way to go.

The main difference between them from a design standpoint are:
- full power rated DC supply instead of a small battery charger
- continuous rated inverter

You can always roll your own UPS by using a DC power supply and continuous duty inverter. That way you can set the battery float voltage too. The thing can be as simple or high-tech as you decide. The only trick is making the inverter sync up to the line (and gracefully when the power comes back).

I use APC of the cheap kind among others. APC's seem to last a long time and are consistently reliable as long as the battery is periodically replaced.

A gripe with UPS's in general (not just APC) is that they run the batteries at the maximum voltage 14+ in order to store the most energy and this is done at the expense of battery life. Looks like a practice oriented towards advertising the most compact size and lowest cost unit per watt, traded off from higher reliability of the system as a whole.

A very old commercial UPS here has had the same AGM battery for over 10 years and the charge is at 13.6V. If that unit had a buzzer, there would never a worry about coming in to the dreaded beeping sound on it. The battery is 92AH nominal and about 80AH at 13.6V, so no capacity issue.
This one is of the 'first kind' mentioned above. The inverter runs all the time, powered by a rectifier and the battery sits on the DC. The transformers for the rectifier and inverter are identical and it weighs about 4 times as much as a same-watts standby inverter (compared less batteries).

For larger applications of 10KW and up, there is a magnetically levitated flywheel system that's more efficient and has a service interval of about 10 years. Those are really big bucks.

One thing is to be aware of the power factor and current waveform, by this is meant the way that capacitor-input filters charge. This can cause a UPS that is not designed for it to overheat if run a long time. The problem was addressed in the past by going 2x or 3x the capacity on the UPS. Most appliances have PFC front ends today so it is not as much of an issue any more.

[kg8lb]

 Mike,

  Many auto parts stores will gladly accept old lead-acid batteries of any type. In fact, I dispose of my old lead acid batteries at Decker Auto Parts , right around the corner from you . I keep a battery bucket here for all the other batteries . We have a battery disposal facility here at work and they will accept all the other batteries. I don't even put watch batteries in the regular trash  

  About two years ago I spotted a HUGE UPC in the trash behind an office building along M59. It used a pair of 70 AH deepcycle AGM batteries. I figured that there "must" be something (repairable) wrong . Turns out it worked perfectly and the batteries were fine. The landfill missed this one.

  "Smug" radio ? Which one is that ?  A Collins ?

  

[AJ1G]

  "Smug" radio ? Which one is that ?  A Collins ?


Worse...a Flex...refers to the attitudes of their owners....

[Mike/W8BAC]

Perceived attitude. Clark/KE7TRP coined this one in early 2010.

http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php?topic=22607.msg164306#msg164306

[flintstone mop]

O gottsa big [2kw] "BEST" online type inverter (UPS) from work about 9 yrs ago. The  IT department were throwing these things out left and right. It was always the battery. (Later they stopped doing that)
Mine uses a sealed lead acid battery, looks like a car battery, and lasts about 5 yrs. The UPS runs 24/7 to back up my audio / computers / and the internet modem and router. Once a week it goes to battery and tests the battery. If the battery fails the load test the UPS tweets every couple of minutes.
Nice clean sine wave power.
Fred

[KE6DF]

I use a 750va APC for my main desktop computer also.

I selected APC because there is LINUX software available for monitoring the UPS, shutting down the computer during a failure, and logging interruptions.

I run LINUX on my desktop and many other UPS's don't support software for it.

I got the UPS after a power surge from a rare Central California thunderstorm zapped the operating system and I ended up having to install it from scratch losing all my files.

Dave

[W3GMS]

At Unisys my group was responsible for the evaluation and selected of recommended UPS system.  We obtained products from most of the UPS suppliers.  APC was consistently the selected provider. 

UPS systems fall in two categories know in the industry as Off Line and On Line which Rob was describing. 

"An off-line UPS remains idle until a power failure occurs, and then switches from utility power to its own power source, almost instantaneously. An on-line UPS continuously powers the protected load from its reserves (usually lead-acid batteries or stored kinetic energy), while simultaneously replenishing the reserves from the AC power.

The on-line type of UPS, in addition to providing protection against complete failure of the utility supply, provides protection against all common power problems, and for this reason it is also known as a power conditioner and a line conditioner." 


The on-line UPS from APC offers nice voltage regulation since your always powering the product from the inverter and they do not operate open loop.  Not that most here would be interested but a lot of remote diagnostic are available.

Anytime we sent them through our EMI lab the conducted and radiated EMI measurements were quite low.

Joe, W3GMS

[kg8lb]

Perceived attitude. Clark/KE7TRP coined this one in early 2010.

http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php?topic=22607.msg164306#msg164306

 Oh, I get it, the other "Smug"


There is no reality - only perception

   Yes, the UPS that I hauled home is a 2KVA on-line "Power Conditioner/UPS" Well worth the grunts and groans during the hoisting event.
We put a small UPS on the YL's clock radio so she wouldn't have to reset it after power interuptions. Yes , it would have been easier to just buy a different Clock-Rad .   But a side benefit is we can plug the cordless phone base station into the UPS and we still have full use of the twisted pair during power outages as well .