APC UPS

Robert L Cochran cochranb at speakeasy.net
Thu Jan 1 19:26:45 UTC 2009


I haven't made use of either nut or apcupsd and really ought to.

Some remarks on hardware brands. I have APC units all over the house
right now -- but only two are working, the one connected to my wife's
computer and the one that serves for guests. The APC unit serving my
network support devices failed suddenly after a very short lifespan of
about a year. I think it developed an internal short in it that fried my
web server machine. The one serving my personal machine failed quickly
as well and the combined cost for both these devices was well over USD
$300. Besides the short lifespan, my wife complains about the beeping
noises that happen with every short power failure which we can't shut
off in hardware or software -- there doesn't seem to be a "don't beep
like crazy" software setting.

The larger-rated APC units of 800 VA or more are physically very large
and heavy and accordingly difficult to move around.

In the case of some APC units, I resent having to separately connect the
battery wires as part of the unit's setup routine. The battery fits in
the battery compartment so tightly this is hard to do, even if it is a
safety feature. If I had arthritis in my hands, I wouldn't be able to do
this, perhaps. Other brands of units don't force you to make battery
terminal connections like this.

I'm aware that I can recycle UPS batteries but in my location this is
inconvenient to do, and the right batteries are hard to find, and when a
UPS unit fails I must decide whether to spend the money to replace the
entire unit or not. I've made the decision not to buy APC brand units
any longer. The company doesn't understand how to build quality units. I
am buying other brands and testing them. Some certainly appear to be
much better quality than APC brand units. I'm using a "Geek Squad" unit
from Best Buy for my network devices which is higher capacity, cheaper
to buy, not so darn heavy, physically smaller in size and appears to be
better built. There is a power switch for it on the front panel which is
easy to use. I don't know how long it will last, or whether the battery
will be easily replaceable, we will see about those. So far I'm quite
pleased with it -- after 6 months of operation.

So why buy an APC brand unit? It's a bad deal. I've had bad experiences
with their units; they literally do end up in the Electronics Recycle
bins on our local recycle days.

Bob Cochran



Nicholas Lysaght wrote:
> Hi All.
>
> I have an APC ES 550 UPS, and am relatively new to Fedora. I have
> noticed that on moving the mouse pointer across the Toolbar, the
> bubble: "Computer is running on AC Power, UPS is fully charged
> (100%)." comes up.
>
> Does this mean that there is an existing UPS Monitoring Programme
> embedded in Fedora9? If so, can it be accessed to change settings?
> Will it, in fact, shut down the computer after after a given time, or
> is it just a visual warning that the computer will just stop when the
> battery of the UPS has lost all charge?
>
> I look forward to your reply, and thank you in advance.
>
> Regards
>
> NICK




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