sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Battery backups

Not sure if this is the correct location for this post, but thought I would share something that happened to me last week. I have an Avaya IP Office system mounted in a rack with an APC 3000 UPS system at the bottom of the rack that the IP Office was plugged into. I get a call from the customer saying that there is a lot of smoke and an annoying continuous beep coming out of the phone room. When I arrived on site, sure enough, the IP Office, PC and monitor are dead. I pushed the reset button on the UPS, and the APC starts choking, sputtering and coughing. I unplugged the UPS from the wall and re-routed the cords onto other battery backups that were available. Brought everything back up to a normal state (thank goodness). I was told by an electrician that works on UPS's, that I should not move them for fear of possible explosion due to some plate inside the units that could short against one another. My question is, has anyone experienced these UPS's frying like this, without any prior warning? Is there some routine maintenance that should be done? And are these things succeptable to exploding? The larger UPS's have an LCD panel with codes and such, but the smaller ones like the 3000 don't have any indicators at all.

Then the customer comes in with a screw driver and promptly removes the units and puts them on a hand truck, and bounces them down 2 flights of stairs, even though he was aware of what the electrician had mentioned. He did this after the fire dept left the site.

One of the firemen that showed up said he had a small one in his house that caught the floor on fire. Why is this company still in business?
Anyway, thought I'd share.
Thanks for listening, if this helps 1 person, then it's worth the rant.

Wet cell batteries we used on the ships when I was still in the Navy didn’t react well to a direct short across the bars. Seen them blow out. Kind of like the oops when jump starting a car. Of course those were wet cell not dry. We wrapped wire around dry cell terminals when we needed to light a smoke and the Zippo was dry. So a direct short across a dry cell will get hot enough to start fire. The only time I saw them explode was when they were thrown by mistake in the incinerators we used for burning trash. Those were the AA, C and D types. So maybe if the bigger dry cells got extremely hot they could too. We have not experienced any problems with APC brand units.

The first thing you need to remember is don't believe everything a sparkie tells you. There is a lot of misinformation out there. What he says may be true for some wet cells such as the one in your car, gel cells are a different animal.

The second thing you need to do is contact APC right away about this rather than assuming anything and going off half cocked. They are a reputable company and they will stand behind their product. I'm sure they will be interested in your story.

-Hal

I have had better luck with Tripplite and Adler then APC. Specially if you are buying the cheap consumer-grade UPS. I would call APC and have them send you another one. It sounds like it's still under warranty.

the customer showed some sense , get that thing off the rack and out of the building ...NOW !!

what was sparky s suggestion ?

I use APC , ive installed and or /worked with hundreds and have never heard of a fire cant be common

like HAL said Contact them

My biggest issue with APC units is short battery life. That's because they charge a pirate's ransome for replacements and they get it from end-users.

I used Minuteman units for a while, specifically the PRO1100 series, but found that cooling fan failures were a bit high. When the fan fails, the unit shuts down. I went with them on the advice of a supplier since they aren't sold in retail outlets like APC. Far too many times, when in a competitive bidding situation, the company's IT guy always seemed to have a catalog on his desk selling APC below our cost, so we couldn't compete. Still, in order to obtain warranty service on the Minuteman units, they require that we ship the equivalent of a cinder block halfway across the country at our expense.

APC is also not very good with post-sale support either. I had a very expensive 2200 VA one fail and APC's solution was to offer me a discount toward the purchase of a new unit. Being only two years old, I found that to be a bit pushy. Customers don't like to hear that.

I agree with Hal about sparky stories. For some reason, electricians like to speak of the "crash and boom" factor associated with electrical hardware. All self-contained battery backup systems use gel batteries. In a dead-short situation, yes significant heat will occur and there is a potential for fire. Gel batteries don't explode, but they might rupture. That's all folks.

Minuteman, for sure. Now they are owned by Pana and the quality has gone to .........

:nono:

If we take APC and Minuteman out of consideration, who makes a UPS worth purchasing? :confused:

Express Communications Supply, Inc. is the company we deal with right now. Their product is a battery back-up and not a UPS. It uses the power supply charging system of the KSU. If your KSU can be set-up this was you will still need surge protection. I would also make my decision based on the manufactorer recomendation. I know for a fact that the Comdial DXP did not like any UPS that put out a square wave instead of a sine wave.
For UPS we use Tripp-Lite

Excellent question, Paul (Dexman):

The problem is that everyone who makes UPS hardware is engaged in fierce low-end competition. That is where the problems are. Every dollar that they save by shipping manufacturing off-shore is reflected in the product's quality.

The high-end systems from most any manufacturer are good. Just like with car manufacturers. You can buy a $10,000.00 car or an $80,000.00 one on the same lot. This is more of a case where someone buys the low-end model and expects it to perform at the same high-end standards since both products share the same brand name.

The original APC issue was surely an isolated incident, likely due to reversed polarity connections on one of the batteries. Remember that they are shipped with the batteries disconnected, so the original installer probably made the mistake, not APC.