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raddevus wrote:
What is your experience with this? Are these things safe?
I've never experienced any such thing in all the years I've had a UPS. All electronics have the potential to be dangerous. That's just the nature of the game.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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David Crow wrote: I've never experienced any such thing in all the years I've had a UPS.
Very good to know.
David Crow wrote: All electronics have the potential to be dangerous.
I agree. It was just that there were quite a few reviewers mentioning sparks and fires so I wanted to get another random sampling of intelligent users...and even though I wanted intelligent users, I came here to CP.  Of course, I am kidding. CP Lounge is really full of a lot of great people with vast years of experience.
Thanks for the info.
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I got a good-sized APC unit quite a while ago at a very good price. Eventually the batteries wore out and I replaced those last year and it's still going strong. I think it is a 1500VA unit.
I find it difficult to believe stories of sparks being emitted because how could a unit possibly acquire UL or CE rating with that kind of behavior?
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
modified 28-Jul-20 14:41pm.
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Thanks very much for the info.
Rick York wrote: I find it difficult to believe stories of sparks being emitted because how could a unit possibly acquire UL or CE rating with that kind of behavior?
That's exactly what I thought! If this happened even in 1 out 10,000 it wouldn't be a valid product really. 
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I bought a cheap "UPS" from Staples, which was a mistake. No sparks, but it's not a true "UPS" - it takes a few tenths of a second to switch over to battery, by which time the devices on it have powered off.
So, make sure you get a UPS that actually generates the AC from the battery and doesn't do a "switch over" from the mains to the battery.
Can't tell if that CyberPower model does that or not.
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Marc Clifton wrote: but it's not a true "UPS" - it takes a few tenths of a second to switch over to battery, by which time the devices on it have powered off.
Thanks for the info. I was trying to determine the same thing. Is this the option where it is sine wave versus square wave? I just can't tell. The flickers are the exact thing I'm trying to get rid of.
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I've owned or managed at least 30 or 40 of those things (2 at home others at companies where I worked for years) and never ever they emitted anything that was not expected.
Of course they die without further notice, their batteries die...
But in my experience they are safe.
It's a relatively simple device... I fail to see how brands like APC, EATON and others could do this kind of mistake... which would make them illegal in most cases...
modified 28-Jul-20 16:57pm.
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Joan M wrote: I've owned or managed at least 30 or 40 of those things (2 at home others at companies where I worked for years) and never ever they emitted anything that was not expected.
Thanks for the great info. This is what I was looking for...various people chiming in who've had a lot of experience with them. I too wondered how it would be a valid product if that sort of thing happened even 1 in 10,000. Thanks again.
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One additional piece of advice : test your UPS periodically. I work for a rather large manufacturing company and we have UPS' on probably every system in the factories but no one ever tests them so I am willing to bet a majority are useless. The last service call I had to deal with was because of corrupted files that resulted from a power loss where the UPS immediately died because its batteries were shot.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Great advice. I was thinking the same thing. I hope I'm not too lazy though -- because it will mean walking all the way down to the basement and flipping the circuit breaker. 
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I just unplug them from the wall to test them but what ever. 
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Haha! Yes, you are correct. I dont' have one so I was thinking I had to make sure it had no power by other means. Hahaha. Yeah, just unplug the UPS. I will remember that.
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Some mobile phones have known to burst into flames.... 
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A very good point. Laptops on airplanes too...remember?
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I have an APC Back-UPS PRO 550. This one is 3 years old. I have had many others over the last 20+ years. Mostly from APC. I used to have hard disk drives fail before that. Never since. The main benefit is the clean power. On the occasions when there is a blackout I get a few minutes of runtime. If I am around at the time I shut the system down cleanly before the juice runs out.
I agree with the other reply that said the main hassle is replacing the battery every few years.
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Good to know. Thanks for the info. 
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I had several APC over the years. As others have stated, the batteries die after several years. Also I find they don't allow for prolonged used without electricity (the ~USD100 ones can give you power for 15 minutes).
What I've been wondering for my own setup here is whether it would be possible to have some battery powered modems and routers: you would avoid useless conversions (your UPS's battery converted to AC 100/240V then converted back to DC around 5 to 12V).
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Riz Thon wrote: your UPS's battery converted to AC 100/240V then converted back to DC around 5 to 12V)
I know. I thought about that too and it is very interesting because you could have a very small battery running the wifi router and cable modem since they both have external adapters that convert to 5 or 12 V.
The challenge is to have the battery kick in when the 120V is lost. I've done some Arduino and electronics stuff so I'd like to look into building something.
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Great experience over the years here with EATON - have used APC at work but was never happy with their battery life (I suspect that they ran too hot).
We're in a small hill village with many overhead power lines radiating out over the surrounding area, so whenever there is a storm anywhere nearby brownouts or 1-2 second blackouts are guaranteed.
All the puters, NAS, switches, modem etc. are on "domestic" UPS units (we have 4) and they switch over just fine during brownouts.
My favourite: Eaton Ellipse. Really easy to change the batteries (contrary to some Chinese units).
Note that most domestic UPS use 12v 7Ah sealed lead acid batteries that you can find very easily at £12 to £20 ea. (e.g.Yuasa NP7-12L)
So old that I did my first coding in octal via switches on a DEC PDP 8
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Great info. Thanks for sharing.
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I've got:
- A basic CyberPower CP425SLG 425VA just for bench duty (brownout are common where I live)
- The same CyberPower CP1000AVRLCD 1000VA you're looking at for the wife's desktop. (PC and 2 monitors on battery, speakers surge only).
- A CyberPower PR1500SWRM2U 1500VA with 2 critical load (CL) outlets and 4 non-critical load (NCL) for everything else.
Outlet spacing matters. Take a look at Power Splitters/Spiders to get those power "wall warts" away from the back and allow more plugged in.
That "everything else" list grows when you get a UPS. My list:
- (CL) Server for Plex, Minecraft, etc.
- (CL) My desktop development rig
- Power spider with speakers, monitor, & USB hub.
- Power spider with 2 Gigabit switches, Vera Edge, HD dock, and phone base station
- Power spider with cable modem, router, & Vonage adapter
- Power spider with 2 WD EX4100 NAS boxes
I'm sure some would call this overloaded, but I figure the wall warts for most stuff I have plugged in don't draw too much and I tried spreading the load across all the outlets.
With the above setup, I just got 46 minutes run time in a test last week on 8 month old batteries. You do need to change batteries every couple years or so.
Be sure to use the monitoring software that comes with the unit you get.
And don't plug in a laser printer to a UPS. Not sure where I heard that advice from years ago, but I stick with it...
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Great info. Thanks for sharing links and models. I will be buying one soon. I was wondering if those smaller units would help with brownouts, because that is what I'm really wanting it for.
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I have always had a UPS and never had problems with sparking. The problems I have had are batteries dying after a few years resulting in battery replacement when economical or unit replacement when not, failure to kick in quickly enough form some early APC units and figuring out where to place them and the tangle of power cords.
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Thanks for the info. That's what everyone is reporting...no sparks...just battery replacement issues which is normal expectation.
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