Hot? Energizer 600VA Office Battery Backup System

[imported_kkcleung]

got my replacement today, works well


lesson for myself: tigerdirect does suck

 

[emeraldsky]

Got my EnergizerUPS 650VA yesterday. Charged it overnight and tested it today and it works great. It shut down my system with no problems.
It has plenty of power. It shows my load level as 20% - P4 with 9800Pro and 19" LCD.
The software is really nice. It shows Input and Output voltage and frequency, battery level and load level. It lets you configure how long to wait after a power failure or you can wait until the battery power is low, before shutting down. It keeps and displays a log including the time when events take place.
It protects against brownouts by maintaining constant voltage (AVR). The 650VA is the one to get.
The company who sent me this replacement EnergizerUPS is "Technuity". They are fantastic to do business with. I received the replacement before the original was even picked up.

This goes to show that it pays to buy from quality manufacturers, because they will stand behind their products when the retailer flakes out.

 

[imported_kkcleung]

tigerdirect blows
energizer rocks..

basically.. but hey, you can try your luck buying from tigerdirect and hoping energizer will replace your UPS

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hey, if you need a UPS, Microcenter still has their 900VA Conext (APC) unit with AVR for $66. link

 

[silverbullet555]

Has anyone used the Belkin F6C800UNV that was mentioned earlier in this thread?

Staples has them back in stock and at $60.00 it seems to be a good deal. Has AVR which is something I am looking for as my laser printer draws tons of power when it warms up.

 

[PsychoCrazy]

I've got the the Belkin F6C800 that I got from Staples about 6 months ago. It's worked great for me so far. The only down side is that the on/off switch is a push button. If the UPS has to shut itself off, it will stay off even when the power comes back on. You have to push the button to get it to come back on. That's a pain due to the location of the UPS, but fortunately the power doesn't go out for that long very often. I wish it would just come back on by itself though.

 

[silverbullet555]

Thanks for the feedback. I bought the APC 650ES at CompUSA last week, but it does not have AVR which is something that I would really like to have. So I am thinking of returning the APC and picking up the Belkin 800 at Staples.

 

[emeraldsky]

Originally posted by: silverbullet555
Has anyone used the Belkin F6C800UNV that was mentioned earlier in this thread?

Staples has them back in stock and at $60.00 it seems to be a good deal. Has AVR which is something I am looking for as my laser printer draws tons of power when it warms up.

The AVR is good, no doubt about it.
My Energizer UPS says:
"DO NOT use your UPS for: laser printers, vacuums, space heaters, copiers, or shredders.

 

[Elixer]

If the UPS unit is bad, then how is it that (in this case) TD sucks? Most likely it was either defective unit, or very old stock.
TD does have some nice deals from time to time, but in this case, I wouldn't blame them.

I have had bad UPS units from BB & staples, but in both cases the UPS company in question fixed the issue.

Oh, for laser printers, you need 4x the size of a UPS, since when it first kicks on, it puts a HUGE surge on the system... I have seen 1500VA UPS units been taken out of commision by some laser printers!

 

[silverbullet555]

Originally posted by: emeraldsky

Originally posted by: silverbullet555
Has anyone used the Belkin F6C800UNV that was mentioned earlier in this thread?

Staples has them back in stock and at $60.00 it seems to be a good deal. Has AVR which is something I am looking for as my laser printer draws tons of power when it warms up.

The AVR is good, no doubt about it.
My Energizer UPS says:
"DO NOT use your UPS for: laser printers, vacuums, space heaters, copiers, or shredders.

I don't have the laser printer going through the UPS. But, the laser printer plugs into an outlet that is on the same circuit so when it powers up it consumes quite a bit of power for a few seconds. This has caused my computer to restart as my current UPS does not have AVR.

 

[emeraldsky]

Originally posted by: silverbullet555
I don't have the laser printer going through the UPS. But, the laser printer plugs into an outlet that is on the same circuit so when it powers up it consumes quite a bit of power for a few seconds. This has caused my computer to restart as my current UPS does not have AVR.

Thanks. Now I understand. I just plugged my laser printer into a surge protector on a different outlet from the computer.

 

[emeraldsky]

Originally posted by: Elixer
If the UPS unit is bad, then how is it that (in this case) TD sucks?

You're right. It was old stock, and TD knew it. That's why they lowered the price to dump them. It was our good fortune that the UPS company set the thing right.

Oh, for laser printers, you need 4x the size of a UPS, since when it first kicks on, it puts a HUGE surge on the system... I have seen 1500VA UPS units been taken out of commision by some laser printers!

Thanks for that info.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: emeraldsky
The AVR is good, no doubt about it.
My Energizer UPS says:
"DO NOT use your UPS for: laser printers, vacuums, space heaters, copiers, or shredders.

For the record, *all* UPSes say that.. generally the high current-draw of those devices tends to overload the inverter used in UPSes. It doesn't have anything to do with AVR, I don't think. I've never seen a consumer-class UPS that didn't have that warning on it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Elixer
If the UPS unit is bad, then how is it that (in this case) TD sucks? Most likely it was either defective unit, or very old stock. TD does have some nice deals from time to time, but in this case, I wouldn't blame them.

The fact that those units were selling at TD for less than half of the price anywhere else, seems to indicate that perhaps they knew about some "issues" with the units, or that the batteries were probably shot, if the stock had been sitting in a warehouse that long or was exposed to extreme shock/temperatures. They were definately "priced to move", not "at current market prices". I can't prove anything, but it seems likely. Grocery stores often do that. Most people never notice nor care, although sometimes I notice when stocks of something are marked way down to move them, and it doesn't correspond to any mfg-related promotions.

Originally posted by: Elixer
Oh, for laser printers, you need 4x the size of a UPS, since when it first kicks on, it puts a HUGE surge on the system... I have seen 1500VA UPS units been taken out of commision by some laser printers!

Yep. I've also been seeing a disturbing trend, I've seen three APC UPS so far, that their inverter overload-detection circuit has somehow degraded, such that they randomly start alarming (overload alarm - different than battery-low alarm, and more annoying-sounding), within about a 1.5yr timeframe from when they are purchased, and it has nothing to do with the battery's state or capacity. In all cases, the load being drawn is no-where near the inverter's limit. (In some cases, the load connected had been switched totally off, which clearly indicates the UPS has gone defective.) In another case, it was a 650VA unit, and the only things left powered-on were a DSL modem and a wireless router, which shouldn't take much current at all. IMHO, APC must be having some QC issues these last few years. (Note that this observation is for three out of three APC UPSes that I've been around the last few years - IOW, all of them have eventually prematurely failed this way, in different physical locations, in different applications. The only commonality here is that they were APC UPSes.)

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: silverbullet555
I don't have the laser printer going through the UPS. But, the laser printer plugs into an outlet that is on the same circuit so when it powers up it consumes quite a bit of power for a few seconds. This has caused my computer to restart as my current UPS does not have AVR.

Even without AVR, that shouldn't be happening. You either have:
1) low AC current on that circuit in the building, solution = plug in laser printer into a different circuit. Just make absolutely certain that both circuits are wired up the right way around.
2) noise from switching on the laser printer enters the computer's PSU and causes problems, solution = get a surge-protector with EMI/RFI filtering. However a UPS should provide that automatically. Could be a cheapo PC PSU too, perhaps replacing that would help.
3) a defective UPS, it should switch-over (entirely) to battery if the input AC voltage drops too low, my current Tripp-Lite does during brown-outs. AVR makes it more efficent though, because it allows the UPS's battery to last longer during brownouts, since it's only partially instead of fully running off of the battery.

 

[silverbullet555]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Even without AVR, that shouldn't be happening. You either have:
1) low AC current on that circuit in the building, solution = plug in laser printer into a different circuit. Just make absolutely certain that both circuits are wired up the right way around.
2) noise from switching on the laser printer enters the computer's PSU and causes problems, solution = get a surge-protector with EMI/RFI filtering. However a UPS should provide that automatically. Could be a cheapo PC PSU too, perhaps replacing that would help.
3) a defective UPS, it should switch-over (entirely) to battery if the input AC voltage drops too low, my current Tripp-Lite does during brown-outs. AVR makes it more efficent though, because it allows the UPS's battery to last longer during brownouts, since it's only partially instead of fully running off of the battery.

1.) Don't have another circuit close enough to plug in the laser printer as all the outlets in the room are wired on the same circuit. I have heard a few others say they have a similar problem as laser printers draw so much power at warm-up.
2.) I don't think noise would be the cause, but it could be. I would think the tripplite UPS that is on that circuit would be able to filter out the nouse. PSU is Antec TruePower 380W
3.) Could be a defective UPS. That is always an option. It does switch over fully to battery most of the time. Occasionally though, the computer will restart. Not sure if the voltage did not drop low enough to go to battery but dropped low enough to disrupt the computer.

I know I need to get another UPS anyway. I picked up the APC last week at CompUSA. I believe it was 49.99 after rebate plus tax. The Belkin is 60.00 + tax with no rebates which is very tempting and I could just return the APC UPS to CompUSA

 

[VirtualLarry]

Ahh, it is a Tripp-Lite UPS.. I was doing some reading some time ago, and it looks like the models newer than mine (~3-4yr old?), have an adjustment for low-voltage detection, for when they switch-over to battery. I would investigate that, you might just need to adjust the low-voltage sensitivity on yours then, if it has that adjustment.

 

[imported_kkcleung]

Originally posted by: Elixer
If the UPS unit is bad, then how is it that (in this case) TD sucks? Most likely it was either defective unit, or very old stock.
TD does have some nice deals from time to time, but in this case, I wouldn't blame them.

I have had bad UPS units from BB & staples, but in both cases the UPS company in question fixed the issue.

Oh, for laser printers, you need 4x the size of a UPS, since when it first kicks on, it puts a HUGE surge on the system... I have seen 1500VA UPS units been taken out of commision by some laser printers!

well.. defective unitS, the two people who bought the UPS on this forum both had problems with it

but yeah.. it was going out for real cheap.. lucky on us, bad seller attitude on TD