CyberPower UPS Failed in Power Outage

[C(-)ris]

We've been purchasing Vertiv UPSs recently. Lower cost than APC but seem to have the same quality and reliability.

[mrlynn]

Zoidberg wrote:
[quote=Tiangou]
APC is my favored brand, if not "the favored brand here."

One of the main reasons I moved away from APC a (very) long time back was (at the time) their refusal to allow for muting of the alarms. I remember getting an email from them saying "no, they cannot be muted; we feel it is important for you to be aware of when there is a power failure".

I think they've since corrected that and APC units do allow for muting.
Yes, if you have a bunch of them (as I did in a former medical office) they can make quite a racket beeping. Now, however, with just one in my home office (and one down in the basement for the Internet modem and router), the beep tells me it's working. No beep told me my current one is dead.

Just ordered a replacement 1500va CyberPower. May not need all the 1,000W, but I also have a bunch of audio equipment running sometimes as well as my 2015 iMac, extra 27" monitor, and several HDs.

Thanks for the advice!

[Robert M]

Hi everyone,

Ww standardized on Cyberpower UPSs because Cyberpower offers models with pure sine wave output at a reasonable price for use with devices that have Power Factor Corrected (PFC) power supplies. APC offers them but they are very price in comparison.

As with any UPS, though, they have consumable components. In MrLynn's case, I'm not surprised the UPS failed. The battery in that model likely required replacement at least two or three years ago. That's why test the UPSs I have in place regularly after the first couple of years.

Any UPS I buy also has automatic voltage regulation (AVR) to ensure clean power is going to the gear. For a while, I skipped this feature on networking hardware but now all of the UPSs I have in place include the feature once I switched to a mesh system which tends to be very pricey in comparison to the cheap single component wireless routers.

Robert

[S. Pupp]

My sole APC UPS recently gave its “battery has expired” scream. I looked in the instruction manual for the type of battery needed. The manual says the battery is not replaceable, and the unit must be discarded. I tried to disassemble the thing to find out what battery it needs, only to find that its screws seem largely to be for decoration - the blasted device is welded shut. I got the answer in the end, but I’m not going to go to the effort of melting the plastic case back together.

We are now an APC free home. Only Cyberpower can be found here.

[Will Collier]

That's about the lifespan of a UPS battery. I just had to replace one of mine.

[John B.]

S. Pupp wrote:
My sole APC UPS recently gave its “battery has expired” scream. I looked in the instruction manual for the type of battery needed. The manual says the battery is not replaceable, and the unit must be discarded. I tried to disassemble the thing to find out what battery it needs, only to find that its screws seem largely to be for decoration - the blasted device is welded shut. I got the answer in the end, but I’m not going to go to the effort of melting the plastic case back together.

We are now an APC free home. Only Cyberpower can be found here.

Depends on the ‘level’ of UPS…I have 2 APCs at a property I own that I ‘rebatteried’ this month. On those units you slide open a door/cover on the bottoms of the UPS and the 2-batteries-on-a-connector-frame slide out. The UPS keeps supplying outlet power (but beeps a lot to let you know it doesn’t have a battery). Put the new batteries on the frame, slide them back in the unit, good to go.

[Tiangou]

S. Pupp wrote:
My sole APC UPS recently gave its “battery has expired” scream. I looked in the instruction manual for the type of battery needed. The manual says the battery is not replaceable...

BX series tower-from from 2015-ish?

Current BX-series devices do have an easily swapped battery, but there was a generation of consumer devices that needed a half dozen screws removed to gain access.

I have the feeling that you just missed a screw or two.

...They really screwed up on that generation. I'm sure it was some marketer's idea. At the time, they had a pro-line for servers that similarly needed the "face" removed with a screwdriver to gain access to the battery, but even that had just two screws and a metal hatch to remove.

Too late now, but FYI: They sell replacement batteries and instructions on how to easily do the swap are all over the place.

Sorry the experience spoiled you on APC, but as you observed, there are decent units from competitors.

[TheTominator]

I moved away from APC to Cyberpower for two reasons. I still keep one big APC and one small APC (both simulated sine) but the rest are Cyberpower (pure sine).

(1) On the older APC model I have (BACK-UPS Pro 1500), the battery test feature always causes the loud fan to turn on and run for the next six hours or so. I presume that this is to cool the battery and charging circuitry after the load test while it is topping up the battery. Since I have retrofitted only an external battery on this one, the noisy fan is for the internal circuitry only.

(2) The serial port for USB to connect to a computer is RJ-11. That will only work with a specially wired RJ-11 to USB cable. Common USB B to USB A cables won't work here. Lose that factory cable and you'll have to find an overpriced replacement somewhere.

If APC has solved these annoying issues in newer models, I may go back to APC.

I really like that the APC model I have has a dedicated socket to connect an external 24V battery to extend its runtime. I found it convenient to replace the lead acid batteries with higher capacity and longer lifetime LiFePO4 batteries.

[Robert M]

Tominator,

Las time I checked - and this was when I first got a Mac Pro - that extra outlet wasn't available on the typical common APC UPS, i.e. Back UPS or Back UPS Pro. It was on the SMART UPS series, which is a higher end series. Most of the UPSs geared towards the average consumer don't have that feature, just like most of them don't produce pure sine wave output.

Robert

[Bill in NC]

Anyone tried LiFe batteries in their UPS at replacement time?

Those should last much longer than lead-acid.

A LiFe battery in UPS size costs ~$30:

Nermak 12V 7ah LiFePO4