Are faulty APC UPS's easy repairs or is it throw in the tras

[Stephen]

Hi, I have two faulty APC BackUPS CS500's each with a different fault.

The first unit will switch to battery when there is a power cut. However,
when the power is restored, it will not switch back to mains power, it
remains on the battery till it goes flat.

The 2nd one will not power up when pressing the on/off button on the front
of the unit.

I have a third working identicial UPS and I have tried the battery out of
this one in the two faulty units and its NOT the battery.

Are these likely to be an easy repair or shall I flog them on Ebay for
spares?

Stephen

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Thu, 19 May 2011 11:43:53 +0100, "Stephen" <i.want.spam@spam.com>
wrote:

Hi, I have two faulty APC BackUPS CS500's each with a different fault.

The first unit will switch to battery when there is a power cut. However,
when the power is restored, it will not switch back to mains power, it
remains on the battery till it goes flat.

Hmmm... that shouldn't be too difficult. Is there a relay that does
the switching on the CS 500? If so, see if it's working, or if the
contacts are fried.

The 2nd one will not power up when pressing the on/off button on the front
of the unit.

Bad ribbon cable connection on the insulation displacement connector
going to the main board.

I have a third working identicial UPS and I have tried the battery out of
this one in the two faulty units and its NOT the battery.

Are these likely to be an easy repair or shall I flog them on Ebay for
spares?

No. They're a PITA to repair. There are some schematics at:
<http://www.eserviceinfo.com/index.php?what=search2&searchstring=APC>
but I couldn't find anything on the CS500. I've done some seat of the
pants fixes on various APC UPS's but it was more luck than knowledge
that resulted in a repair. Mostly, what I found are bad crimps on the
spade lugs, bad insulation displacement ribbon connector "crimps" to
the front panel, and fried electrolytics when run in backup mode for
too long (high ripple current).

The CS500 sells for $85 to $120, so putting more than about 1-2 hrs
into this is problematic. Google find some vendors that offer APC UPS
repair services, but I have no experience with any of these.

Incidentally, the local recycler constantly complains about the large
number of UPS's that he gets. He has to remove the battery from the
UPS, which burns his time. If you do decide to recycle, please remove
the battery and recycle it separately.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Cydrome Leader]

Stephen <i.want.spam@spam.com> wrote:

Hi, I have two faulty APC BackUPS CS500's each with a different fault.

The first unit will switch to battery when there is a power cut. However,
when the power is restored, it will not switch back to mains power, it
remains on the battery till it goes flat.

The 2nd one will not power up when pressing the on/off button on the front
of the unit.

I have a third working identicial UPS and I have tried the battery out of
this one in the two faulty units and its NOT the battery.

Are these likely to be an easy repair or shall I flog them on Ebay for
spares?

I've never found it worthwhile to fix a UPS, but the first one may have
some hope. Is there a bad relay?

 

[Boris Mohar]

On Thu, 19 May 2011 11:43:53 +0100, "Stephen" <i.want.spam@spam.com> wrote:

Hi, I have two faulty APC BackUPS CS500's each with a different fault.

The first unit will switch to battery when there is a power cut. However,
when the power is restored, it will not switch back to mains power, it
remains on the battery till it goes flat.

The 2nd one will not power up when pressing the on/off button on the front
of the unit.

I have a third working identicial UPS and I have tried the battery out of
this one in the two faulty units and its NOT the battery.

Are these likely to be an easy repair or shall I flog them on Ebay for
spares?

Stephen

I "fixed" 3 APC 250 simply by replacing the battery.

--
Boris

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Wed, 25 May 2011 06:28:24 -0700 (PDT), "hrhofmann@att.net"
<hrhofmann@att.net> wrote:

I replaced the battery in my ES350 unit after 10 years and it works
fine until I connect the serial bus to the computer, then the computer
is told there is a power failure and shuts down after two minutes. So
now I just run the APC without the serial bus, I figure if power fails
while I am using the computer I will know it and can shut it down
manuallly. I don't run the computer except when I am actually there
so I don't need the automatic shutdown enabled anyway.

The APC BackUPS ES350 has a USB port, not a serial port. I don't know
if a USB to serial adapter will work. Probably not.

Once installed, the associated PowerChute software does like to have
the USB cable moved from one USB port to another on the computah. Your
descriptions sounds more like a loss of communications than an ES350
failure. APC may have fixed this in later versions of PowerChute.
Try the latest from:
<http://www.apc.com/products/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=SFPCPE30>



--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[William Sommerwerck]

The APC BackUPS ES350 has a USB port, not a serial port.
I don't know if a USB to serial adapter will work. Probably not.

It might. APC used to provide one on request.

My APC BackUPS works under Windows 2000 Pro simply by plugging it into a UPS
port. PowerChute is not needed.

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Wed, 25 May 2011 07:50:30 -0700, "William Sommerwerck"
<grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote:

The APC BackUPS ES350 has a USB port, not a serial port.
I don't know if a USB to serial adapter will work. Probably not.

It might. APC used to provide one on request.

My APC BackUPS works under Windows 2000 Pro simply by plugging it into a UPS
port. PowerChute is not needed.

The Windoze built in UPS software is rather crude. It's been a while
since I tried using it so things may have improved. It will correctly
shut down the computah after a fixed interval if the power fails.
However, it only recognizes serial port interfaces, not USB.

I've also seen some odd problems where the UPS continues to run with
no load after the computah is shut down. The APC SmartUPS has a "soft
shutown" command to prevent running the battery into the ground:
<http://grox.net/man/ups/apcsmart.html>

The BackUPS is tricky. It won't run without a load. So, when the
computah is turned off by the software, the load allegedly disappears,
causing the BackUPS to shut down. However, if you plug anything else
into the "protected" outlets, this trick won't work.

On XP SP3, it's in:
Control Panel -> Power Options -> UPS
It says "Developed by APC for Microsoft" with a link to:
<http://winupgrade.apcc.com>
for an upgrade to PowerChute.


--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[hrhofmann@att.net]

On May 19, 1:49 pm, Cydrome Leader <prese...@MUNGEpanix.com> wrote:

Stephen <i.want.s...@spam.com> wrote:
Hi, I have two faulty APC BackUPS CS500's each with a different fault.

The first unit will switch to battery when there is a power cut. However,
when the power is restored, it will not switch back to mains power, it
remains on the battery till it goes flat.

The 2nd one will not power up when pressing the on/off button on the front
of the unit.

I have a third working identicial UPS and I have tried the battery out of
this one in the two faulty units and its NOT the battery.

Are these likely to be an easy repair or shall I flog them on Ebay for
spares?

I've never found it worthwhile to fix a UPS, but the first one may have
some hope. Is there a bad relay?

I replaced the battery in my ES350 unit after 10 years and it works
fine until I connect the serial bus to the computer, then the computer
is told there is a power failure and shuts down after two minutes. So
now I just run the APC without the serial bus, I figure if power fails
while I am using the computer I will know it and can shut it down
manuallly. I don't run the computer except when I am actually there
so I don't need the automatic shutdown enabled anyway.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

"Jeff Liebermann" <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote in message
news:va6qt610f0rp3sgq04pa652bvfli9f2e20@4ax.com...

On Wed, 25 May 2011 07:50:30 -0700, "William Sommerwerck"
grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote:

The APC BackUPS ES350 has a USB port, not a serial port.
I don't know if a USB to serial adapter will work. Probably not.

It might. APC used to provide one on request.

My APC BackUPS works under Windows 2000 Pro simply by
plugging it into a UPSport. PowerChute is not needed.

The Windoze built-in UPS software is rather crude. It's been a while
since I tried using it, so things may have improved. It will correctly
shut down the computah after a fixed interval if the power fails.
However, it only recognizes serial-port interfaces, not USB.

I double-checked after my previous post. The APC unit /is/ plugged into a
mainboard USB port. You need a cable with an RJ-type connector on one end.

 

[Kevin .]

On May 19, 6:43 am, "Stephen" <i.want.s...@spam.com> wrote:

Hi, I have two faulty APC BackUPS CS500's each with a different fault.

The first unit will switch to battery when there is a power cut. However,
when the power is restored, it will not switch back to mains power, it
remains on the battery till it goes flat.

The 2nd one will not power up when pressing the on/off button on the front
of the unit.

I have a third working identicial UPS and I have tried the battery out of
this one in the two faulty units and its NOT the battery.

Are these likely to be an easy repair or shall I flog them on Ebay for
spares?

Stephen

The CS500 and CS350 units were part of a recall (overheat/fire hazard)
The recall has ended, and the notice has been removed from apc's site,
it seems.

Affected Model#: BK350, BK500, BK500BLK

Only units where the first six (6) characters of the serial number
fall within the following ranges are affected.

AB0048 through AB0251
BB0104 through BB0251
JB0125 through JB0251

Any units with an "R" at the end of the serial number are not part of
the recall.