In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Fri, 21 Aug 2015 11:14:44
-0400, Paul wrote:
micky wrote:
I have 2 UPSes, both used, and one was marked Working when I bought it
for $7, and the other I might have gotten for free. I can't remember.
Batteries are not cheap of course. A couple webpages gave me the
impression that some people just buy a new UPS instead of replacing the
battery. That's not a sound plan financially, is it???? Surely a UPS
should outlive several batteries, unless there's a lightning strike.
The second question is, I've read the instructions but still not sure if
the second one works. The instructions are short and don't address my
issue
APC XS 900 .
Does there have to be a load for the Online light to go on? It's off.
A 60 watt lightbulb is as good a load as any, right?
OTOH, the Building Wiring Fault light is on, probably because somewhere
I lost the ground connection, but It's only plugged in for testing. Do
I have to plug it in somewhere with a ground to get the Online light to
go on?
The XS900 is a "loser".
Put it back on the curb.
Check the reviews on Amazon. This is how
I judge them.
http://www.amazon.com/APC-900VA-Back...ustomerReviews
I didn't even think to do look at this, maybe because I own it already.
Wow. 2 stars out of 5, which I consider to be 1 star out of 4 since one
can't give something 0 stars.
I didnt' think APC would make anything that bad. Unless people have
unreasonable expectations because it's a famous brand. -- I haven't
read the reviews yet. Only 11 reviews.
That's the second lowest thing I've seen. The lowest was a battery
powered jumper box for cars, that Pepboys marked down from 50 to 30.
Since I'd been wanting one, I bought it and when I got home, I looked
it up like you did. I owned it but could return it. It was only 1.7
stars out of 5. But when I returned it, the clerk, and clerks often
don't give a darn, seemed surprised and told me they sell them and never
hear back, that is, people are satisfied. (Of course they are only used
when the car won't start, so maybe it's too late to return them then!)
I think Pep Boys marked them down because the rating was so low and they
couldnt' sell them at the regular price. It was part of a Grand
Reopening Sale (even though they were never closed) and they had other
things cheap but nothing I needed. Well they had the little red floor
jack 40 marked down to 20 or so, but I had already bought one and used
it for 5 days. Plus for pulling the broken fence post out of the
ground). Where was I?
An internal fan with no vent ?
I hope not.
That's what one of the reviews says. I'll take a look. I'd be glad to
put a hole in the case, but it sounds like it's too late for that. But
I''ll still do the check I told Art I would do.
Maybe the thing is
ferroresonant and the noise is the
transformer.
Well mine's not humming..... because it won't do anything yet!!
The APC site claims to be "down for maintenance" at the
moment, or I'd have a look at the user manual. It could
Do I detect a note of suspicion, the quotes and all? ;-)
Anyhow I got the manual earlier today (been up since 5) and it's only
two pages long. I think it's funny that in an age where printers etc.
come with 200, 300 page manuals, they have a 2 page manual.
A longer one makes people think they're getting more for their money.
Especially when they could go on with situations like the one I asked
about, but they don't. .
be an AVR unit for example (automatic voltage regulator)
and "line interactive". That means, it is buggering
with the power at all times, one way or another.
*******
And yes, replacing batteries makes perfect sense, on the
That's what I thought, but I'm susceptible to suggestion -- in many
areas and I've known this for a long time -- so when two of them
suggested what they did, I had doubts.
mid-range ones. I paid $250 for my UPS when new, the
battery lasted *ten years*, and a new battery cost $60.
Much better than spending 250, plus it's easier to go buy a battery than
to have to shop for another UPS, evaluate features and price and all
that.
The price on batteries has come down slightly over
the years, presumably since all the batteries are made
in China. And if you take the rate of inflation into
account, the price has come down.
One secret to battery life, you can do nothing about.
But you can control the "level of discharge". I'm always
careful, if I'm in the room, to shut down the computer
loads then switch off the ATX supply, to spare the battery
when the lights go out. The shallower the discharge, the
longer they last. Don't rely on the low voltage cutoff on
the UPS itself, to "protect" the battery. The battery life
can last longer, if you take care of it.
I don't consider the UPS to be an "alternate power source",
it's merely a way to ride out one-second outages, when the
Yes. And I don't know why people need a big one. I almost never have
more than one file that hasn't been saved, and that's the file I'm
typing in at the moment. Before I leave this window, I"ll save it.
So it takes 10 seconds to save the file, 30 seconds maybe to wait for
the power to come on if it usually does, and a couple minutes to
hibernate.
utility switches over stuff. I have one computer cabled to
the automatic shutdown feature, and Windows happens to have
the right driver for that APC unit, already in Windows. For
the second computer connected to it, I shut down that
computer manually.
*******
The low end of the UPS market, the failure rate out of the
box is 10%. And the Amazon description for the XS900,
shows it just doesn't last with time.
There are different kinds of UPS architectures.
There are SPS (standby power supply). There
are AVR (automatic voltage regulation). There
are more than five different types. The SPS remains
cool to the touch, because the inverter doesn't
run when AC power is available. The battery charges
to a constant voltage (and you can stick your meter
on the battery terminals after a 24 hour charge
period and verify the terminal voltage is
correct). That's one check I could do after installing
the new battery.
The UPS has the ability to do a load test. It places
a known load on the battery for a few seconds, and checks
the resulting terminal voltage. The output impedance of
the battery is considered a health indicator. A high
impedance battery, drops to a low voltage when loaded.
A UPS which "beeps" once every 24 hours, has just done
the short load test, and found the terminal voltage
to be wanting.
And a 60W light bulb makes a fine load. It is resistive.
The load is relatively well controlled (draws 120W when
cold, has a "surge" due to the cold resistance), but
eventually settles down to 60W. If the output voltage
of the UPS is not correct (makes 200V rather than 113V),
then the color of the filament when lit gives a quick
indication of whether the output voltage is correct or
not. I can easily spot when my power here drops to 100V
at the mast, just by the color of the remaining incandescent
bulbs I use. LED bulbs on the other hand, are regulated,
and have no characteristic useful for analyzing what
the utility is doing to you.
What do they do when the voltage goes down? Just go dark like digital
TV with a weak signal?
*******
For your next curbside UPS, check the reviews and
see if the unit stinks or not. If a lot of users
complain of weird symptoms within the first year
or two, chances are fixing one up is not a wise
use of time or money.
Have fun,
Paul