Smart-UPS 3000 RM standing on side

[BillP]

Hi, I have a smart-ups 3000 rackmount and was just wondering if it's safe to place on its side instead of mounting it horizontally. I did this because I don't have enough space on the rack. I wonder if standing it on its side would affect the battery liquid with regards to charging, etc.

It's been standing on its side for many years and things have been working fine. I ask now because I'd just discovered this very helpful APC Discussion Forum. 🙂

TIA

[BillP]

Structurally if your doing this, and havent already, I would position the batteries on the bottom to take weight stress off the intelligent and power components of the unit. As long as you have proper ventilation on the unit otherwise it shouldnt really be an issue, the typical ventilation areas for this unit are the front and back, so as long as those have proper clearance you should be fine.

The batteries being a sealed format shouldnt have much difficulty being positioned in that manner.

[BillP]

I also agree with Syn on this. The only other thing to keep in mind, though, is while this very likely will work fine and you may never have a problem, technically these units are not designed to be mounted like this. It is possible that some components will tug differently on the PCB while being mounted that way, as it was not a configuration that APC necessarily thoroughly tested. Some of our UPS's are marketed as tower/rackmount convertible (for example SUM3000RMXL2U) but others are not designed with that configuration in mind.

With that said, again, I agree with syn that most likely it will be fine. Just figured I'd throw that out there. 😉

[BillP · Accepted solution]

There is proper ventilation. I wonder if there is a schematic or internal components drawing for this unit somewhere. Anyway, thanks syn2083 and CMFR for your very helpful input.