mcs@dreamit.fps.com (Mike Sanfratello) (08/06/90)
Does anyone have an address/phone number for American Power Conversion? I want some info on their UPS's (has anyone used them?) Thanks in advance, mike
dave@imax.com (Dave Martindale) (08/17/90)
In article <10582@celit.fps.com> mcs@dreamit.fps.com (Mike Sanfratello) writes: > >Does anyone have an address/phone number for American Power Conversion? > >I want some info on their UPS's (has anyone used them?) American Power Conversion Corp. P.O. Box 3723, 2 Columbia St. Peace Dale, RI 02883 401-789-5735 I have a pair of their "1200 VX" model, which is rated at 1200 VA and 1000 W. One of them is only a week old, but I've had the other one for about 8 months and am quite happy with it. This is a standby power system (SPS), not an uninterruptible power system (UPS), but an SPS is what most people need anyway. I'm particularly impressed by the APC boxes when compared with a Para Systems "Minuteman 600" that I acquired earlier. The APC unit is about the same volume and only slightly heavier than the Minuteman, yet the 1200 VX has twice the power output capability. The Minuteman makes a rather loud whine when providing backup power; the 1200 VX is very quiet. Both units shut themselves off automatically when the battery is almost exhausted to avoid battery damage, but the Minuteman switches the load back to the AC line at shutdown - even if the AC line voltage happens to be too low or too high! The APC unit just leaves the load powered off, resetting itself automatically when the AC power has returned and the internal battery has recharged sufficiently. I feel a lot better leaving my Sun unattended in the care of the APC unit. In addition, the Minuteman had several outright problems: The Minuteman would often go into backup mode for a few seconds for no good reason (probably just line spikes); the APC unit was undisturbed, yet always came on properly during a real power failure. When the output of the Minuteman was once accidentally shorted to ground, the two SCR's that pass line current to the output were destroyed and had to be replaced. Another time, I arrived in the morning to find that the Minuteman had blown its AC input fuse. Replacing the fuse with another (of the correct rating) and turning on its power switch resulted in an impressive flash as a PC board trace was vaporized. In summary, I wouldn't recommend the Para Systems box to anybody. (Exactly the same box seems to be sold by several other vendors; the faceplate's long dimension is horizontal, and there are two LED bargraph displays labelled "output load" and "battery status" in the upper left corner. The lower left corner has an "alarm silence" button.) I would recommend the American Power Conversion stuff as relatively inexpensive, apparently well-designed hardware that works well for me. My experience is only with the "1200 VX" model, but the "800 RT" uses the same box and, from the spec sheets, seems to differ from the 1200 only in output capacity - the design is probably the same. APC also makes a smaller line of SPS's intended for PC's that are quite small for their output, but they generate a stepped square wave output instead of sine wave, so you need to check whether your hardware cares about harmonic content in its power. In general, a computer with a switching power supply and DC-powered fan (if any) will be quite happy with square wave power, while equipment that uses a line-fed power transformer, linear power supply, or AC-powered fans may run hot when fed with a square wave. There is an article on SPS's and UPS's in the August 1990 SunExpert magazine. It doesn't go into much technical detail, but lists the major manufacturers and their lines in general terms. You might find it helpful. Dave Martindale