UPS lifespans

[Don Y]

/Neglecting battery issues/, any observations on the typical lifespan
of the electronics in modest sized (1500VA, sine, line-interractive)
UPSs? Or, common faults?

APCs tend to be pretty ubiquitous, but they don't seem to be particularly
high quality (even the larger, more upscale units).

OTOH, given our relatively infrequent outages, perhaps its time to
just switch to "switched outlet strips", instead? And, grumble about
the occasional "flicker"? (most of my machines can bridge brief outages
on their internal power supplies)

Or, deploy the even larger units to handle multiple loads?

(sigh) More frigging work...

[Dan Purgert]

Post by Don Y
/Neglecting battery issues/, any observations on the typical lifespan
of the electronics in modest sized (1500VA, sine, line-interractive)
UPSs? Or, common faults?

The handful that I've had (all APC, so ... "meh") are all 5-10 years old
at this point, and on their second or third set of batteries (3 year
replacements, on average; so the 5YO one is nearing the "replace the
battery" threshold). One is probably closer to 15, come to think
of it ... but lightly loaded, so has only needed two replacements (~6
years on the replacements)

I don't particularly baby them (though do try to keep them down to about
75% of their rated capacity), but the power coming in isn't all that
"bad(tm)" either; which probably helps.

[Don Y]

Post by Dan Purgert

Post by Don Y
/Neglecting battery issues/, any observations on the typical lifespan
of the electronics in modest sized (1500VA, sine, line-interractive)
UPSs? Or, common faults?

The handful that I've had (all APC, so ... "meh") are all 5-10 years old
at this point, and on their second or third set of batteries (3 year
replacements, on average; so the 5YO one is nearing the "replace the
battery" threshold). One is probably closer to 15, come to think
of it ... but lightly loaded, so has only needed two replacements (~6
years on the replacements)

I've no idea how old these are; I rescue them -- often NIB -- and rescue
replacement batteries as well. They will be at least a few years before
covid...

But, I suspect there is a manufacturing date on them, somewhere. Getting
*to* it will be the challenge (I keep them in largely inaccessible places
based on the assumption that I don't really have to interact with them
any more than I'd have to interact with the AC receptacle into which they
are connected)

Post by Dan Purgert
I don't particularly baby them (though do try to keep them down to about
75% of their rated capacity), but the power coming in isn't all that
"bad(tm)" either; which probably helps.

Ditto, here. I use them primarily as "switched, remotely controllable,
outlet strips" and to address the momentary "glitches" that occur -- some
with interesting periodicity.

OK, I will assume they will likely be around for a while, yet, so worth
maintaining. I'd REALLY not want to drag the bigger ones into service,
yet, as their battery packs are huge investments (and not the sorts of
things I can "rescue")

Thanks!

[Carl]

Post by Don Y
/Neglecting battery issues/, any observations on the typical lifespan
of the electronics in modest sized (1500VA, sine, line-interractive)
UPSs? Or, common faults?
APCs tend to be pretty ubiquitous, but they don't seem to be particularly
high quality (even the larger, more upscale units).
OTOH, given our relatively infrequent outages, perhaps its time to
just switch to "switched outlet strips", instead? And, grumble about
the occasional "flicker"? (most of my machines can bridge brief outages
on their internal power supplies)
Or, deploy the even larger units to handle multiple loads?
(sigh) More frigging work...

An n=1 anecdote :-). I bought a 550 VA APC UPS in 2015, in 2022 it started beeping that the battery was low so I replaced it but the unit still beeped. Wouldn't charge the new battery, tried various things including charging the battery separately and reinstalling it but no joy. The manual said there was no reset function, it should just come back to life when the new battery was plugged in The old battery still tested ok, down some capacity but not dead, so I gave up and bought a 600 VA APC and it's still going after 2 years. Room lights flicker maybe 2-3 times a year and go completely off long enough to annoy the microwave clock every couple of years so pretty clean power here. The battery spends it's entire life just floating fully charged. Don't know how long it would last if it was being cycled frequently.

Carl

[Don Y]

Post by Carl
An n=1 anecdote :-). I bought a 550 VA APC UPS in 2015, in 2022 it started
beeping that the battery was low so I replaced it but the unit still beeped.
Wouldn't charge the new battery, tried various things including charging the
battery separately and reinstalling it but no joy. The manual said there was
no reset function, it should just come back to life when the new battery was
plugged in The old battery still tested ok, down some capacity but not dead,
so I gave up and bought a 600 VA APC and it's still going after 2 years.

There is a "reset" process for APCs that doesn't see much attention.
And, I am not sure what it ACTUALLY accomplishes. Likely just ensures
the MCU forgets EVERYTHING (whereas their firmware implementation likely
doesn't know how to accomplish a "total purge" of state.

[I think they just use dinky little 8051's or equivalent. And, you know the
firmware isn't all that complicated. But, the idea of wasting time reverse
engineering it is not particularly exciting]

Google, "APC brain dead" (no idea who decided to call it "brain deading"
vs. "reset"...)

Their battery management systems suck -- they often overcharge or, in your
case, fail to see the battery ("Connect Battery" prompt on units with a
display)

I've got one, now, that claims 999 (!) minutes of available up-time if
power were to fail with the current load -- wanna bet it thinks the
current load (this machine, modem, router, etc.) is "0" and "999"
is its notion of "3 digit display infinity"?

[Even if that were the case, it should be abundantly clear to the designers
that the UPS won't support ITSELF -- in the absence of power -- for that long.
So, why would it ever display something like that? Speaks volumes about the
quality of their engineering!]

Post by Carl
Room lights flicker maybe 2-3 times a year and go completely off long enough
to annoy the microwave clock every couple of years so pretty clean power
here. The battery spends it's entire life just floating fully charged. Don't
know how long it would last if it was being cycled frequently.

Most of their models have a "self-test" feature. The obvious implementation
is to deliberately isolate from the ACmains and force itself to resort to
battery power.

Of course, if the battery is incapable of supporting the load (or the UPS
itself) this will create a REAL power failure, crashing your loads regardless
of what you may have been doing when IT decided to run the test.

A smarter approach (for a "battery check"), of course, would be to provide a
small load to the battery -- even while it is being charged -- to infer the
SoC of the battery without forcing the user to be suddenly at its mercy.

This test can be disabled or its frequency altered.

It would also be nice if the battery management treated each of the batteries
as an FRU (yeah, I'm sure they want to treat them as a PACK as they are in the
battery selling business and just sell UPSs to create artificial demand! :>)

I am amused, though, that I've not (yet) encountered any failures in the power
electronics. OTOH, I deploy the units with plenty of margin (it would be
interesting to plug a circular saw into one to see how well it protects
itself!)

[Martin Rid]

/Neglecting battery issues/, any observations on the typical lifespanof the electronics in modest sized (1500VA, sine, line-interractive)UPSs? Or, common faults?APCs tend to be pretty ubiquitous, but they don't seem to be particularlyhigh quality (even the larger, more upscale units).OTOH, given our relatively infrequent outages, perhaps its time tojust switch to "switched outlet strips", instead? And, grumble aboutthe occasional "flicker"? (most of my machines can bridge brief outageson their internal power supplies)Or, deploy the even larger units to handle multiple loads?(sigh) More frigging work...

The APC's I've had never died. Only the triplites 500va unit
seems to grenade.
Now the replacement batteries are another story.

Cheers

[Don Y]

/Neglecting battery issues/, any observations on the typical lifespanof the electronics in modest sized (1500VA, sine, line-interractive)UPSs? Or, common faults?APCs tend to be pretty ubiquitous, but they don't seem to be particularlyhigh quality (even the larger, more upscale units).OTOH, given our relatively infrequent outages, perhaps its time tojust switch to "switched outlet strips", instead? And, grumble aboutthe occasional "flicker"? (most of my machines can bridge brief outageson their internal power supplies)Or, deploy the even larger units to handle multiple loads?(sigh) More frigging work...

The APC's I've had never died. Only the triplites 500va unit seems to grenade.

I've seen some REALLY tiny UPSs -- even smaller (in physical size; I don't
recall capacity) than the typical 550VA units. I actually thought they were
outlet strips with some "significant" filters inside -- and, was going to
rescue them for exactly that purpose (typical outlet strips don't accommodate
many wall warts due to the outlet spacing and/or orientation).

But, when I pressed the power button, it didn't start. So, I figured it
was yet another cheap UPS that was incapable of starting in the absence of
a functional battery (I'm sure someone can rationalize such an implementation
but it seems pretty brain damaged, to me!)

I've rescued one of the larger "Eaton" (maker of Tripp-Lite?) units (1500VA,
48V battery) but have resisted deploying it as it's internal fan runs
continuously, even in the absence of a load -- obviously intended for
a server farm and not an office or home.

Now the replacement batteries are another story.

What's worse is when a battery is truly *cooked* and swells to the point
that it can't be removed from the case by normal means. Really, guys,
you can't ensure this doesn't happen (temperature monitor)?