[rescue] UPS Recommendation

Tue Jul 15 09:38:50 CDT 2003

In the past 8 years I have used APC SmartUPS and BackUPS unit from
450 to 3000.  Other than the old 600s needing new batteries, I have
never had a problem with them, and even once when there was a problem
caused by unbalanced loads across 230V hot legs and neutral (for
two 115V feeds) and a flaky transformer which then caused there to be
a big voltage across ground and neutral which fried half of our APCs,
we only lost one piece of hardware... a PC power supply.  The APCs
happily self destructed to save the equipment.

APC even replaced the units !

Dealing with the smell, fumes, and smoke however was another matter
entirely.... I wasn't there when it happened, but some people got
pretty sick from it.  Didn't even have anything to do with the
batteries.... it was from the components/PCB.  We opened one up
(I used to have pics), and the "blast area" on the PCB (that has
it's components hanging down) had all the sodler melted and components
fallen out along with black charred PCB....  I was told that some of
the UPSs were spitting fire out the back when they failed !

However, it should be pointed out (if not already clear) that the APC
UPSs had nothing to do with the failure, and they did indeed save the
equipment !  I'm confident that without those APC units, the ISP would
have been 90%+ offline for days.

Since the NOC was on it's own power, we ran lots of extension cords into
the NOC from outside it (the space being rented came with power... but
the building owners didn't want to pay for NOC electricity ! :-) ) and
fed the systems that the blown UPSs had been running..... we were up and
running in around an hour.

Needless to say it was one adventure after another working there :-)

-- Curt

>Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 06:39:54 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Michael Dombrowski <ab1244 at yahoo.com>
>To: rescue at sunhelp.org
>Subject: [rescue] UPS Recommendation
>
>What are the preferred UPS manufactures around here? I
>have had horrible luck with the cheapo no-name vendors
>(the just got up and died), and mixed luck with APC
>(both of their "power strip + ups" designs failed on
>me but the simple Back-UPS has been going strong.). I
>need Solaris support either through native software or
>open source stuff. Powerwave looks nice to me,
>particularly their 5115 rackmount series, but I'm not
>yet sure on Solaris support or how good the company
>is.
>
>Thanks
>Mike
>
>__________________________________
>Do you Yahoo!?
>SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
>http://sbc.yahoo.com
>_______________________________________________
>rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

Curtis Wilbar
Hawk Mountain Networks
rescue at hawkmountain.net

My e-mail is protected against viruses and spam by MailGuardian
                  http://www.mailguardian.net
          Top notch protection at unbelievable prices