When your UPS Batteries Fail And You Have A Sold Out Show In Two Hours

[Marcel Birgelen]

I like the movie-themed car batteries you're using.

The go-to brand around here is APC and I'm not a friend of them. Over the years I've seen many failures, one big fire triggered by a faulty unit (I wasn't there when it happened, but I saw the result) and I've had one APC UPS go up in smoke in front of my eyes once. Before they merged with APC, I used UPSes of the MGE brand, which I found to be pretty consistent. Ever since they're gone, I've never really encountered a great alternative. Tripp Lite isn't such a household name around here, but maybe I should give them a try.

We actually have removed those small rack-mount UPSes in some sites, because there were more issues with them than without them. I can imagine that when you're at a location with a shaky power grid, you probably want to have one in there, but fortunately, the power grid over here is generally pretty stable. Most equipment also is pretty well buffered, so it usually survives a sub-second brown-out with ease.

At our own office, we recently installed a larger, central UPS in an external shed. Ever since I've seen the result of that UPS fire, I'm wary of putting anything with large batteries into my house or office...

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I put in the SMART 1500 units everywhere except on NC900's where I used the SMART 1000. What I have found is the intake screen on the front behind the plastic front has to be kept clean for the unit to cool properly. Although I have yet to have one fail, I have found that intake screen completely plugged up on yearly maintainance schedules lots of times. Twice a year is better if there is lots of stuff in the air. Mountain States are bad in this regard, especially when the cottonwoods let go. That stuff ends up on every air intake period. AC Voltage is highly irrelevant. I have yet to install a piece of gear that is not universal voltage, and 220 volts is much more efficient.

[Steve Guttag]

My experience is inconsistent with yours. I've had MANY more UPS type failures (mostly battery but more recently, we've seen the charging circuit fail on those SMAR1000/1500 units). One lost show because a lack of transfer many times pays for the transfer switch.

In fact, on a recent 10-plex installation we did, the manager came from Regal and when he saw the UPSes in each rack his question was "how do we bypass that when it fails." My response was to show that it has an ATS in the rack right above it so the show will never skip a beat if the UPS fails and then the ATS will start flashing to note that the UPS circuit isn't supplying power. ATS can be had in 120 and 220 varieties so that isn't an issue either. We have, by and large, supplied 120V UPSes and then used a step up transformer to make 230V for the projector's electronics since that is the only thing that has needed the 230V and only Barco has so needed...NEC and Christie work with 120V on their electronics. Thus, the one UPS can back up the projector, automation, network switches and even sound electronics.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Considering this is the second time in nine years this has happened among 320+ system ups's, all the extra expense of auto transfer would be wasted money to the small exhibitor. With the short life span of digital gear this entire system.will likely.be gone before that ups ever fails. The only thing this UPS feeds is the projector and Dolby 3D controller. At other sites the stand alone server is also tied in. Since its 240 volts its not all that easy to simply move cords around because of the type of AC plugs used. I have one site that bought one transfer panel to be able to revive any one of their six screens should a ups fail, but its been in its box for going on seven years. In fact not one UPS has actually failed. Just a battery with an.open.cell. Batteries are also uber easy to get with in a day or so no matter where you are.

[Steve Guttag]

Alternately, I would have used a power strip and bypassed the UPS itself. In fact, we only ever plug in one thing to the UPS...a Tripplite UL800CB power strip...everything else gets plugged into that so if you do need to plug around the UPS, you just have to unplug one thing.

We also use ATS (automatic Transfer Switches) both of our design and Cyber Power's This way, if a UPS tanks, you go immediately to city power. A very bad trait of Tripplite's UPSes is that if the batteries fail...it will play possum and appear to be completely dead (no front panel indicators at all). We are looking at APC UPSes again to avoid this problem though APC are notably more expensive. We've also found that the Tripplite SMART1500RM2U (and the 1000VA) variant with the current digital readout to be particularly prone to failure...especially the charging circuit. I will no longer spec them. The older style with the 5 or so indicators never had an issue.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

A long time customer who is on these forums had his UPS batteries fail after just three years, and oddly they worked just fine in the few days before. He arrived in the booth to the battery alarm chirping on the UPS, and he had completely pre-sold out the afternoon show. What to do??? You borrow four 12 volt batteries from the auto parts store and have your electrician temporarily wire them in place of the original battery pack. I'll bet he will want a Tripp Lite bypass panel after this...