PC Peripherals UPS for someone who hates APC

calvin1719 said:
I see.
Do the basic UPS models have a function to stop the beeping when they're on battery? I don't need monitoring or shut down etc., I only need a basic one to last 10-15 seconds until the genset kicks in, but the beeping will be annoying.
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My first UPS was power-safe company and it had a very loud beep. I put a register on the speaker to make it quiet.

There are some basic UPS meant to run micro load for longer. They don't beep. I'm not certain how they will fare with a high load of a computer.
https://www.amazon.in/zebronics-Zebronics-MLS750-UPS/dp/B072JW6PGW
 
Haha glad to find someone who hates APC as much as me.
These UPSes are noisy as hell. When voltage is slightly low it beeps and screams like a banshee and sometimes even goes into battery mode. Its like these UPSes were not designed for India.
Currently using Microtek UPS. Never looked at APC again.
 
Mike Messiah said:
These UPSes are noisy as hell. When voltage is slightly low it beeps and screams like a banshee and sometimes even goes into battery mode. Its like these UPSes were not designed for India.
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As a recent buyer of APC. I must say this is kinda true.
I had to buy a BX1100C because my inverter's switching time was not fast enough to sustain my PC on full load (worked fine if PC is idle or low load). Another major reason is frequent fluctuations and voltage surges of upto 285V.

You see my inverter has overvoltage protection cutoff at 280V (on Eco mode, UPS mode keeps switching on battery a lot due to bad input voltage) and when this happens (mostly happens very frequently after 9pm till early morning) my inverter switches to battery and if my PC is on load at that time (during switch) it gets restarted. Here's a whole thread about it: https://techenclave.com/threads/ups-inverter-recommendation-for-750-850w-pc.215933/post-2484881

Anyways, since I bought this UPS, it almost always has its fan on and relay kicking on/off for automatic voltage regulation (AVR). It does this if input voltage is 260V or above and steps it down to 225V for the connected devices. Also when it switches to battery it has a bad coil whine noise. Since I had no other option I'm living with it...

Although it's good to know it's protecting my PC from higher voltages and spikes.
 
enthusiast29 said:
Compulsion, there's absolutely no other company which makes UPS as good as APC.

Microtek and other cheap re-branded are all junk.
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I won't say Microtek is junk. It works well. But there is no monitoring or voltage/capacity display capabilities, it just works like a battery-box and served me well for 2 years, and recently changed batteries. I just wish I bought a higher VA one to get more backup.

Current gen APC ones are getting many negative reviews and expensive compared to microtek ones, so I won't be upgrading to an APC one anytime soon.

One thing I will appreciate about APC UPS is, there are many sockets to accommodate not only pc plugs, but also mobile chargers etc and some models even come up USB port at the front.
Meanwhile my microtek UPS has 3 sockets, out of which only 2 are usable (bcz of sockets too close to each other) and users are forced to connect an extension power box instead.
 
Ssreek said:
Current gen APC ones are getting many negative reviews and expensive compared to microtek ones, so I won't be upgrading to an APC one anytime soon.
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The "Easy UPS" from APC is a rebranded junk for Indian market.

Their Back-UPS and above are their own R&D and better.

Microtek is a middle ground. IDK how their service would be as APC's is excellent that I heard of from almost everyone.
 
enthusiast29 said:
The "Easy UPS" from APC is a rebranded junk for Indian market.
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You mean this model with those green lines? This is the only affordable ones and that explains something.

enthusiast29 said:
Their Back-UPS and above are their own R&D and better.
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Back-UPS pro is very interesting for the features it has, but still costly for what it does.
17k for 1500VA, one can simply opt a inverter+battery instead.

enthusiast29 said:
Microtek is a middle ground. IDK how their service would be as APC's is excellent that I heard of from almost everyone.
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Recently I had called up microtek for service of my UPS. The technician was really good and was very transparent in the service-related knowledge. I will say this is better than what I felt with Samsung crap. But this is only 1 interaction with microtek. YMMV according to city and person.
 
Ssreek said:
17k for 1500VA, one can simply opt a inverter+battery instead.
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It's expensive for sure but it's a UPS not an inverter. The switching time matters for productivity and gaming loads. Inverters generally have switching time of 15-20ms and your PSU even if a good quality one has about 16ms hold-up time.

This means you can either get lucky with an inverter or just miss the time window to switch by 2-5ms. It should always switch on-time when on low load or idle PC conditions. I was in the latter category hence opted for UPS (10-12ms switching time) not that expensive one though.

I can provide backup to the UPS using inverter in worst cases which is generally not needed here.
 
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enthusiast29 said:
As a recent buyer of APC. I must say this is kinda true.
I had to buy a BX1100C because my inverter's switching time was not fast enough to sustain my PC on full load (worked fine if PC is idle or low load). Another major reason is frequent fluctuations and voltage surges of upto 285V.

You see my inverter has overvoltage protection cutoff at 280V (on Eco mode, UPS mode keeps switching on battery a lot due to bad input voltage) and when this happens (mostly happens very frequently after 9pm till early morning) my inverter switches to battery and if my PC is on load at that time (during switch) it gets restarted. Here's a whole thread about it: https://techenclave.com/threads/ups-inverter-recommendation-for-750-850w-pc.215933/post-2484881

Anyways, since I bought this UPS, it almost always has its fan on and relay kicking on/off for automatic voltage regulation (AVR). It does this if input voltage is 260V or above and steps it down to 225V for the connected devices. Also when it switches to battery it has a bad coil whine noise. Since I had no other option I'm living with it...

Although it's good to know it's protecting my PC from higher voltages and spikes.
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oh yeah, the fan...
it just randomly switches on.
And even when you completely switch off the UPS, unplug everything and all...the fan still spins loudly for 10 mins. Like it has a life of its own.
I SHALL NEVER TOUCH AN APC PRODUCT EVER AGAIN IN MY LIFE
btw the UPS i am talking about is APC Back-UPS BX1100C-IN 1100VA / 660W, 230V
 
Mike Messiah said:
oh yeah, the fan...
it just randomly switches on.
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No! This means your input voltage is outside the safe range. My input voltage when is above 260V the AVR turns on and voltage is stepped down to 225V.
Mike Messiah said:
And even when you completely switch off the UPS, unplug everything and all...the fan still spins loudly for 10 mins. Like it has a life of its own.
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That's to cool down the transformer inside for safe storage so that the heat doesn't damage the batteries. Sure it can be better implemented with some better calibrations but since UPS is meant for 24x7 operation this is something which can easily be ignored.
 
enthusiast29 said:
No! This means your input voltage is outside the safe range. My input voltage when is above 260V the AVR turns on and voltage is stepped down to 225V.

That's to cool down the transformer inside for safe storage so that the heat doesn't damage the batteries. Sure it can be better implemented with some better calibrations but since UPS is meant for 24x7 operation this is something which can easily be ignored.
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well my Microtek UPS (Legend 1000VA) is working fine, without making any fan noise or random beeps during low voltage times. (i dont think it even has a fan, i might be wrong) .
Something tells me APC is making a mamu out of all of us by adding all these loud annoying quirks, making us think its superior to competition (voltage stepping down and "safe storage" shenanigans), when in fact the competition can do all that APC does, without any noise and compromise.
Nonetheless, i will make sure no APC product gets purchased while i am around. If my dept is planning to do some electronic purchase (like a new ICT lab) i will make sure there are no APC products in the tender proposal.
 
Mike Messiah said:
well my Microtek UPS (Legend 1000VA) is working fine, without making any fan noise or random beeps during low voltage times. (i dont think it even has a fan, i might be wrong) .
Something tells me APC is making a mamu out of all of us by adding all these loud annoying quirks, making us think its superior to competition (voltage stepping down and "safe storage" shenanigans), when in fact the competition can do all that APC does, without any noise and compromise.
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Did you even do a practical test or just making claims based off of your anger due to the fan noise? I have a strong hunch that Microtek doesn't do any AVR.
In fact even the good brand stabilizers make some kind of noise and produce heat when working. It's highly likely it's a fake advertisement if there's no noise or heat when regulating voltage and what it is probably gonna do is just cut off when it's experiencing high/low voltages outside input range. That is not regulation.
I have personally tested with a multimeter when this noise comes from APC UPS the voltage is definitely regulated. At wall, 260+V and from UPS output I get 225V at the same time. Of course when the voltage at wall becomes normal then UPS does nothing and the fan also shuts off.
Mike Messiah said:
Nonetheless, i will make sure no APC product gets purchased while i am around. If my dept is planning to do some electronic purchase (like a new ICT lab) i will make sure there are no APC products in the tender proposal.
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That is your choice but I would advise against making any accusations or general statements without any data or experience to back it up.
 
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enthusiast29 said:
I have personally tested with a multimeter when this noise comes from APC UPS the voltage is definitely regulated. At wall, 260+V and from UPS output I get 225V at the same time. Of course when the voltage at wall becomes normal then UPS does nothing and the fan also shuts off.
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Yep, I have the smart UPS series that log the data to my server, and a couple of smart plugs that do the same. The ups disables mains in outside acceptable voltage range, and uses the battery to supply power. While their voltage range is slightly on the conservative side (considering all the switch mode supplies can accept a wide range of voltages), I'd take this behaviour anyday over a capacitor popping in the power supplies due to over voltage or exceeding current limit due to under.

Any ups will generate heat when converting battery power up to mains, power conversion is not free, especially at those high current scenarios that you get with 24v battery packs. Understandable that fan noise isn't ideal, but active cooling will only prolong the life of components.

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Can't find the exact specs on the mosfet on the current generation of UPS, but they've used IRFZ24N in the past. RDS_on is 70mohm, max rated current 17A, at that rated current (which is a normal scenario, because mosfets are on the low voltage DC side, hence the higher currents) it will dissipate 20W, and that's just a single mosfet. 20w will absolutely kill the fets in seconds if there's no cooling, and because of space constraints, they have to use active cooling.

They can use better mosfets (and probably do), we have fets these days that have RDS_on <10mohm, but even with those power dissipation is at ~2W, enough to burn the mosfets without active cooling, when you have to provide a few hundred watts output. Then you consider the transformer heat losses, and I'm happy that they have some sort of cooling, despite the fan noise.
 
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My previous UPS was doing sudden shutdowns in the middle of the night, under trivial load. So I bit the bullet and got myself a premium APC UPS: the APC Back-UPS Pro BR1500G-IN.

It was delivered today. Ever since I set it up, the fan has been constantly ramping up and down, which is very irritating. A constant fan would have been ok, a switched off fan would have been better. But this constant on and off is very distracting. Is it worth RMA-ing? Is this considered normal?

You can hear the fan if you turn up the volume on this video:

https://imgur.com/a/iW55U5r
 
tearphones said:
the fan has been constantly ramping up and down, which is very irritating. A constant fan would have been ok, a switched off fan would have been better. But this constant on and off is very distracting. Is it worth RMA-ing? Is this considered normal?
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You're having voltage surges from mains. Either higher or lower than operational limit. The Automatic Voltage Regulation (AVR) of the UPS is kicking in to correct the output voltage to prevent damage to connected equipment.
The fan is to cool the transformer inside when AVR is operational.
 
enthusiast29 said:
You're having voltage surges from mains. Either higher or lower than operational limit. The Automatic Voltage Regulation (AVR) of the UPS is kicking in to correct the output voltage to prevent damage to connected equipment.
The fan is to cool the transformer inside when AVR is operational.
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I changed the display of the UPS to show input voltage, and it is steady at 240-241V. Granted it is on the higher side, but it is within range of what APC claims the input voltage should be (high transfer voltage is 294V).

Also, when AVR is on, this symbol is supposed to display on the screen, and I don't see it.
1713103694406.png
 
@tearphones Then something else is causing the fan to spin and the ramping up and down is definitely done by some temperature sensor I guess.
Look up in the manual maybe or the internet to figure it out.

My 1100VA Back-UPS only turns on the fan when AVR is on and it has constant speed (noisy).

PS: 240V is not high. APC engages AVR when it goes beyond 260V.
 
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