Wednesday, November 26, 2014

What is going wrong?

For the past few nights, we have had the lights dipping and then coming back. This morning my UPS is going mad as it detects the low input voltage and transfers power to the battery. Nominally, the voltage here is around 225v but keeps dropping to 200 or lower.

I have the high voltage trigger point on my UPS set to 253v and the low to 200v with a nominal transfer voltage of 230v. Each time the voltage dips I can hear the UPS go onto battery and see the orange transfer light come on. If the voltage keeps dropping (or rising) to the trigger voltages set, then I get a warning on the UPS interface.

The UPS is designed to cope with these sort of problems but if they are regular and the UPS has to transfer to battery too often that reduces its life considerably. My UPS is now six years old and on its second battery which is over two years old, I may have to replace it if the problem persists. APC will exchange my UPS for a new one for 218 euros giving me a 72 euro discount off the full price. 

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