UPS with AVR recommendations?

Hans Manhave · June 20, 2012, 01:01:52 PM

Quote from: Jeff Zylstra on June 20, 2012, 12:10:45 PM

Over 20%?

The device has been deployed over some period of time before. Didn't help. Circuitbreaker boxes were rebalanced, that helped some. Breakerbox surge protectors were installed (Siemens TPS 200,000rms), also took care of some events. Then the transformer was moved (that 7,000 volt feeder) to be closer to our intake. That helped also. The voltage drop happens over the 8 hour work period, over time. Start at 122 or 123v and slowly drop from there until it starts going back up again in the evening. All these changes have taken care of the computer power supply failures as far as I can tell. None of it has protected us from a lightning strike and completely wiping out everything though.

Jeff Zylstra · June 20, 2012, 01:13:24 PM

The daytime power drop makes me wonder if you're in an industrial area and your neighbors are heavy users of electricity. We have a tool and die place about a block away, and when they fire up their 100 ton punch press, it can cause problems. My other guess is that it could be heat related. Heat causes a vicious circle of resistance to the flow of electricity which causes even more heat. The fact that it comes back however, makes me think that it's your neighbors on the same line that is causing it.

As far as protecting from a lightning strike, that's not possible. The best you can do is to give the electricity a more enticing place to go than the power grid in your building. A shorter path to ground. If you have enough problems with this, call an expert on this. They may suggest putting lightning arrestors on the building, or fixing or adding more ground points to your electrical panel.

Bad grounds can also cause voltage issues, by the way. Everyone thinks about checking the load or "hot" side of circuits, but not necessarily the neutral side of the circuits. The neutral returns electricity to balance the voltage in a circuit. If there is resistance of some kind in that side of the circuit (lose wires or corrosion), it could cause strange problems like this.

Jeff Zylstra · June 20, 2012, 01:39:31 PM

Quote from: Alice on June 20, 2012, 12:38:10 PM
I've always used APC UPSes, but now a bit nervous about it. Last month, the two yr old one I had, the battery practically exploded in the case. The alarm was constant but not very loud. If I was not home it could have started a fire b/c when I opened up the case, the plastic around the battery was starting to melt.
I did not get to the unit right away when the alarm started because I was in the shower and didn't hear it. So it could have been sounding for up to 20 minutes.
Was very scary.

I use APC units almost exclusively, but I have thrown away 2 units over the years because of this same issue. It does make me nervous, but I always thought it was the batteries shorting out that caused it. I would be interested to see if anyone has experienced this in other brands of units.

Billy Welsh · June 20, 2012, 01:49:55 PM

I have heard of fires started by Tripp-Lite, so I've always stuck with APC.

No fires for us (knock-on-wood). Only trouble over the years has been the occasional unit that kicks off a constant alarm that cannot be silenced. Have one at home right now with that issue. Usually from bad/old batteries.

I can understand the non-stop alarm on a server unit; not on a workstation/pc. My smoke detectors won't even do that unless there is an actual fire.

Bloody Jack Kidd · June 20, 2012, 02:44:55 PM

I have run PowerWare, Eaton, Tripp-lite, Belkin, Dell and APC. I stick with APC for the most part, but that little 300VA PowerWare unit outlasted everything. I only got rid of it because 300VA just doesn't give enough runtime.

Hans Manhave · June 20, 2012, 03:32:03 PM

A Tripplite unit let a lightning strike destroy the server hard drive in 1990 or 91. They were very easy to work with at that time to get a new UPS unit. It was a 90MB formatted drive. We recovered. Moved to a new building (so it didn't strike twice in the same spot) in 1993 and a lightning strike in 2010 knocked everything out (including the transformer) except for a few work stations. No lights were affected either. Lightning is not friendly. We are on a main business (retail) artery, but just our power comes from the residential area behind us.

I have replaced APC units' batteries that were next to impossible to get out because they were bulging. I have also had them go bad (APC XS-1500) without notice. Just, "hello, replace batteries now" and then in 60 seconds the unit was dead until batteries were replaced.

This latest APC unit, no notice from the hardware, immediate unit failure. I replaced the batteries which gave one more day. The smell of melting capacitors is a distinct smell I remember from my youth. I do not care to ever smell that. This particular unit must have had some of its electronics overheat, not nice. Researching possible replacements and the accompanying reviews showed quite a few occurrences of (contained) fire from different brands.

Bloody Jack Kidd · June 20, 2012, 03:36:58 PM

one thing worth mentioning WRT lighting - unless your equipment is isolated all external cabling, or all external cabling is filtered/protected - lightning can often strike through a backdoor.

Jeff Zylstra · June 20, 2012, 03:48:40 PM

Interestingly enough, about an hour and a half ago, our power went out for about 30 seconds. Certainly long enough for the generator to kick on (it didn't

), and long enough to test the UPS units. I found that the UPS in the utility room that powers my network has an "issue". It's been pulled and is awaiting a battery. I will also be bringing my laptop in tomorrow to connect to each and every UPS in the building to check their batteries, and also their settings to make sure that they're working properly. Unless these things have Ethernet connections and IP addresses or MACs, I'm not sure if it's possible to universally monitor them. I guess that manually checking them is something that I should do at least twice a year. Lesson learned.

Billy Welsh · June 20, 2012, 03:54:06 PM

Quote from: Bloody Jack Kidd on June 20, 2012, 03:36:58 PM
one thing worth mentioning WRT lighting - unless your equipment is isolated all external cabling, or all external cabling is filtered/protected - lightning can often strike through a backdoor.

Lost some ip phones & a LAN switch a few months back this way. Lightning surge went through phone lines or jumped to CAT5 after hitting building.

Bloody Jack Kidd · June 20, 2012, 03:56:31 PM

Quote from: Billy Welsh on June 20, 2012, 03:54:06 PM
Quote from: Bloody Jack Kidd on June 20, 2012, 03:36:58 PM
one thing worth mentioning WRT lighting - unless your equipment is isolated all external cabling, or all external cabling is filtered/protected - lightning can often strike through a backdoor.

Lost some ip phones & a LAN switch a few months back this way. Lightning surge went through phone lines or jumped to CAT5 after hitting building.

excellent example

Billy Welsh · June 20, 2012, 04:57:48 PM

Oh yeah, also damaged postage meter. Which means it was through phone lines, as the meter was only connected to a phone line at the time. Only the internal modem/lan card was damaged otherwise I might point to electrical system as it is not on a surge protector.

So it whacked the ip phones and LAN switch through the CAT5 going from the PBX to the LAN. The PBX itself was unharmed - go figure!