[Discuss] UPSes

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2006-12-11 19:18-0800 David Bronaugh wrote:

> The reason I am suspicious that it is not simply a battery failure is that 
> the unit's front panel display went into a mode where all of the lights on 
> the front panel started blinking and power to the devices connected to the 
> UPS was disconnected. This mode is not discussed in either their paper or 
> their online manual for this UPS. The dead battery light was never lit.
>
> That kind of behaviour screams either "piece of crap" or "equipment fault" -- 
> either of which I'm not particularly impressed with. UPSes that decrease 
> uptime are generally considered a "bad thing".

This may be a case where less is more.  Although APC BackUPS models don't have
nearly the features of their SmartUPS models, there is also a lot less to
go wrong.

I have always had good luck with my two APC BackUPS models (one bought in
1996 and one in 2001).  Each has failed once and the solution was a battery
replacement (from Queale as somebody else mentioned).  If any component
other than the battery ever fails with these beasts, I will probably go for
a reconditioned BackUPS.  There is a non-APC company that sells those out of
Ontario.

Probably you feel snake-bit by APC at the moment, but if you buy from a
different vendor I would go for something similar to a BackUPS with very few
features other than the principal one which is to switch to battery power
when needed + some rudimentary signals of what is happening.  Everything
else is mostly window dressing IMHO.

If you (or anybody else on this list) decides to buy a BackUPS, then there
are a variety of control cables supplied by APC to choose from.  Have a look
at http://www.apcupsd.org/manual/Cables.html for an analysis of their
characteristics from the software perspective. Some only support signalling
of loss of voltage (which means you can only tell apcupsd to shut down the
system n minutes after that signal is received), while others supply the
loss of voltage signal as well low battery and kill power signals.  Those
extra signals give apcupsd a lot better control over the shutdown so be
careful what control cable you request from APC to go with your BackUPS.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net); the
Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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