SMT1500 Pro issue - event without alarm or total failure

[Anonymous user]

Hello,

I have a few of the SMT1500 Pro UPS's. One of them had an issue last week. I have three pieces of equipment plugged into one UPS. Even if all three were running, the load is below the max for the UPS. Only one of the pieces of equipment was running (a thermalcycler). The thermalcycler shut off abruptly and turned back on immediately but the memory was wiped. The other equipment plugged into the UPS stayed on without issue. The UPS shows that an event occurred, but did not beep at all. Could this be a bad outlet in the back of the UPS, or some other UPS issue? If not, what kinds of events would not trigger the alarm?

Thank you,

Beth

[BillP]

Hi Beth,

What is the event the UPS alerted you of? Do you have this one piece of equipment plugged into a different outlet group than your other two piece of equipment?  The SMT1500 does have a single outlet group that may be configurable to such down which could very well be the case.  I would suggest verifying this and consulting the product manual if this is the case.

The manual can be found on the product page under the documentation tab below:

http://www.apc.com/products/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=smt1500&tab=features

Regards,

[Anonymous user]

Hi Jordan,

The panel just said "event 15". I couldn't find anything in the manual about what that would mean except possibly a count of total events that had ever taken place. I just checked where all the equipment is plugged in and they are all next to each other on the back-up power side of the UPS (not the surge-only side).

Thank you,

Beth

[BillP]

Beth,

There is no surge only side on these units, they are all battery back up outlets, but thank you for confirming they are all in the same outlet group.  Does the event before event 15 list an issue?  Have you seen this issue before with this specific piece of equipment.  I am not familiar with the technology of this piece of equipment you have plugged into the UPS, but does it maybe require a pure sine wave?  It is possible that it is too sensitive to changes in voltage and switches to battery which could cause the drop on this piece only.

I would suggest swapping the plug/outlet combination of your 3 pieces of equipment to confirm this.  I doubt it is a bad outlet as the outlet is providing power, but swapping the plug/outlet combinations will verify this.  If your other two pieces of equipment continue to work fine with only this one piece of equipment dropping out during a power event on a different outlet, it looks like that piece of equipment may have specific and more advanced power needs such as 0 transfer time and a pure sine wave UPS.  Finding out what the event that triggered this issue would be helpful here, do you have a network management card to view the advanced logs?  I am under the belief it was a battery transfer that caused this drop if only one of three pieces of equipment dropped.

[Anonymous user]

Hi Jordan,
The left-hand side of the UPS is battery back-up and the right side is surge-only. I just double checked and this is the case. All equipment is plugged into the battery back-up side. All it said was "event 15" and when I scrolled through the other screens, there didn't appear to be any specific event listed. I am not sure if the thermalcycler is a pure sine wave (it uses the Peltier effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_cooling) but I have had one with the power disrupted before and it just turns off, it doesn't wipe the memory and cause it to turn back on. No other power went out in the building and the source outlet has recently been inspected by an electrician.

I can try swapping out the outlet combinations to see if it changes anything, but since it was a single occurrence, I may not know if it worked for a while. I will probably just move it to another UPS and tape off the suspect outlet.

I appreciate the help.

Thanks,

Beth

[BillP]

Beth,

It sounds like your unit is a Back UPS unit and not an SMT1500, could you confirm the model number?  If this is the case, it may be even more likely that your equipment may need a more advanced UPS system.

Regards,

[Anonymous user]

I just looked at it and it is a Back UPS XS 1500 (the other unit we have is a SMART unit). Maybe I should move the thermalcycler off this unit?

thanks,

Beth

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Beth,

I would suggest moving the Thermacycler to a Smart UPS and noting any difference in operation to see if the issue follows the cycler or is specific to the UPS.  Again, I think that since only this one piece of equipment had an issue on a Back UPS unit, I think the unit may require a more advanced UPS.  Do you have a Smart UPS Online unit such as the SURT series?

Regards,