SUA3000XL flashing all lights

[Anonymous user]

Hi all,

I've got a 3000XL here, with fairly new batteries, which was working great until one day, out of the blue, I got a bunch of beeps & every single light on the front panel flashing. I've attempted the various reset options, to no avail.

Yesterday, I dug my old 1400XL out, which has a duff battery, and tried one of the 3000XL batteries in it, and I get almost the same reaction - all the lights on the right hand side of the panel flash. A multimeter across the battery terminals shows 26-27 volts. I don't have any way of load testing a 24v battery, so that's as far as I've got.

I can't find any description of what the problem is, but obviously now it looks like the batteries are suspect, the next step is to buy some replacements; but can anyone tell me what the fault is?

Thanks!

Ade.

[BillP]

Hello, 

All LEDs flashing - > electronics failure (likely relay welded) 

Right side (battery charge LEDs)  flashing->UPS detects that it can provide less than the minimum desired runtime if it was to operate on battery (2 or 5 mins depending on settings), this might be caused by bad battery, or no runtime calibration performed after replacing old and bad batteries

[Anonymous user]

Hi Wolf,

Thanks for the reply - the flashing battery lights, would that include the unbalanced load & bad battery light (the red ones) as well as all the charge indicators?

Many thanks,

Ade.

[BillP]

No, if the problem is the weak battery, then only the battery charge leds would flash (the 5 leds in a straight standing row at rightmost side).

[Anonymous user]

Hm, I'm getting the two red LEDs flashing as well.

So, here's the full symptoms, from power up for the 1000XL (not a 1400, that's another one I've got somewhere, can't find it just now):

Switch on utility power. Unit starts buzzing quietly (I guess this is the charge circuit?) for about 25 seconds, brief pause, buzzing resumes; repeat.

As soon as I press the ON button, the unit clunks, the mains light starts flashing, and the battery shows a number of bars (it's been four every time until just now, now it's one).

About 10 seconds later, the unit clunks again, the mains light goes off, and ALL of the battery lights (all 5 charge lights, and the three indicator lights) all start flashing. It does this until press the OFF button, at which point the buzzing resumes as above.

I'm going to leave it plugged in & switched off (but with the mains switched on) tonight, just in case it needs to put a big charge into the battery. If it behaves differently tomorrow, I'll post here.

Cheers!
Ade.

[BillP]

The unit most likely has some sort of electronics failure. Try to cold start it. Ie. Mains not plugged in(only batteries are connected), and hold the on button pressed util you hear a beep, then release the on button during the beeping. It should start running on batteries. 

The normal start procedure with mains plugged in should look like as follows: on button pressed, brief beeping sound heard, battery charge leds become lit, online led flashing for several seconds, online led turns off, yellow on battery led turns on and clicking sound heard (and inverter buzzing sound), several seconds later yellow on battery led turns off and clicking sound heard, green online led turns on. 

[Anonymous user]

Looks like there's a problem with the circuit.

I had similar issue with my SU2200. But mine started when i tried to upgrade it to 3000 by increasing the number o MOSPHETs. Mine, the faults was that when i try to start it, it goes off during self test leaving all the leds flashing but it was charging the batteries very well to 100%.

I was able to solve it though. And this was what i did.

The capacitors (C17 & 99) were empty with no caps on them. I filled those spots with the appropriate caps. Then i replaced the CT1 with another which i got from an SU3000. And the system is up and running beautifully well with my external (200AH) batteries.

If your issue is same with mine i guess it same problem that your stuff is having considering the fact that they're same model but different VA.

[Anonymous user]

OK, I'm guessing it's an electronics fault then, possibly on both units.

Wolf - 

The 1000XL behaves basically the same if I cold-start it There's a big click (relay), a brief squeak from the inverter (usual noise), then a second big click and all the battery side lights flash.

I haven't tried the 3000XL again yet, as I have to swap the connector on one of the batteries, which is a chore...

It could still be duff batteries, although the 2 packs from the 3000XL seem to hold good charge. I do have a car battery charger, I could probably try each individual battery in turn with that... except it needs about 4 hands to do the test...

Samuel -

That sounds like something I could try; was yours flashing ALL of the lights (mains side too), or just the battery side? Reckon I need to swap those battery terminals back over & give the big boy another try anyway. Can I ask where you found the component specs? I've not removed any covers yet, are they printed on the board?

Thanks all!

Cheers,

Ade.

[Anonymous user]

OK, so I found some extra hands 😄 and tested 6 of my 8 batteries (all of which are conjoined into 4 24v units).

The two packs in the 3000XL are great. They both show around 13v per side, and on a 15 second 125A load test, dropped to between 8-10 volts, and recovered nicely to 12.5-13v (per side). The "OK" range on the battery tester is about 6-10 volts.

One side of one of the other packs is dead as a dodo. The other side is good. The fourth pack is totally dead.

So... I've 2 good solid batteries by the looks of it, and 2 failed UPS units. Grumble 😞 I'll look into fixing the 3000XL per Samuel's post, I think the 1000XL may as well be tossed. It's pretty ancient anyway, and it's so heavy the scrap value alone should get me a fried breakfast 😄

Cheers!
Ade.

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

Yes it was flashing all the LEDs and the fan works for some time and stop on its own till i touch the power off button then the lights stops blinking 

More So, I got the components from one of my scrapped APC UPS.

[toddbailey]

Seems like the apc has design issues.  I had a 3000rmxlu3 that had same fault condition and didn't run. I sent it ba k and the replacement works but the load indicator leds don't work. I'm thinking maybe buying tripplite