Smart UPS 3000

[jmilne_apc]

This was originally posted on APC forums on 5/13/2015

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I have a 208 VAC Smart UPS 3000 DLS3000RMT2U connected to a XFMR step down for 120VAC

My Batteries were 5 years old,  the Charge Indicator LED are flashing in unison and the battery RED LED is LIT

I changed the batteries, only to find out the 5 year old batteries were still at the 13V potential. Aside from that, changing the batteries after 5 years is always a good plan.

My problem after battery replacment I still have the Battery RED LED indicator lit, and the Charge LEDS are flashing in unison.

I have performed a test on the UPS and there is power loss at the output under test. I have redundant supply servers, so the server's other P/S is connected to another UPS.

How do i determine if this is a UPS fault. There is 208 and 115 comng out of the UPS twist lock connector at the rear, the other connector is connecting to the XFMR.

Is there a method to clear the error on this particular UPS if there is no hardware fault.

One other note, I see someone has connected other smaller APC 1000 rack UPS units to the output of the XFMR ( I inherited this ) I'm thinking this is crazy connecting a UPS to a UPS.Any help is appreciated.

thanks in advance.

[BillP]

This reply was originally posted by Angela on APC forums on 5/13/2015

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This is not a fault but rather a notification. Your batteries likely needed to be replaced as you said but the runtime just did not update properly.

Flashing battery bar graph information/how to resolve is available here: http://www.apc.com/support/index?page=content&country=ITB〈=en&locale=en_US&id=FA156538 

If you still have an issue after reading and following the options, let us know.

And yes, connecting a UPS to a UPS is not typically a good idea and does not necessarily provide any added benefits. We have some detail/information on that topic here and potential problems listed -> http://www.apc.com/support/index?page=content&country=ITB〈=en&locale=en_US&id=FA157424 

[jmilne_apc]

This was originally posted on APC forums on 5/13/2015

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Thank you for the reply. I wil try your provided steps.

On the note about daisy chained UPS.

We use our 208V Smart 3000 UPS connected to a 208 to 120 Step down XFMR and the XFMR has NEMA 5-20R outlets.

I see the daisy chained APC units 2200 models have NEMA 5-20R plugs for 120V 20A.

It appears they were plugged into the XFMR because there were no NEMA 5-20R wall receptacles available ( not your problem)

So now you have some info Our XFMR has 12 120V outlets and they are ALL 5-20R

There is a group of 4 outlets on Black painted background and a group of 2 on Black painted background ( chassis painted)

Then there is a group of 4 outlets on bare chassis color and a group of two outlets on bare chassis color.

The Smart UPS 3000 output goes directly into the XFMR connected with two twist lock connectors ( probably 208V)

My question, Are all of these outets on battery backup, or are some just filtered. I cannot tell with the system being live. Maybe the other UPS are not in fact daisy chained fi some XFMR outlest are only filtered power.

the back panel of the XFMR looks like the one on top here http://www.apc.com/products/moreimages.cfm?partnum=SURTD3KRMXL3U-TF5

The UPS is definitely not my unit, but the XFMR looks similar.

[BillP]

This reply was originally posted by Angela on APC forums on 5/13/2015

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Hi Jeff,

On the daisy chained UPS, the painted outlets (either black or silver chassis color), like those in the picture, are just color-coded to show you which outlets are tied back to respective output circuit breakers (those little white things that stick out). In the event an outlet is overloaded and trips the output breaker, it will only typically trip the breaker associated with the small group of outlets and not necessarily everything connected to the rear of the UPS will come down.

All of the outlets on a Smart-UPS itself are battery back-up and surge/filtering. Only Back-UPS type products have what we call "surge only" outlets. The transformer of course must be plugged into the output of the UPS to be able to have battery back-up and surge protection. Otherwise, it is like a giant power strip that is just stepping down voltage for you.

I hope that helps clarify. It sounds like these are all chained because you have no wall outlets anywhere but those smaller units will all have battery backup and surge protection and you'll just want to be aware of what was in that knowledge base. You may want to look into re-arranging this if you need and instead of connecting a UPS to a UPS, you could get some power distribution units (power strips) to connect to the rear of your UPS/stepdown transformer as would be what we suggest for this type of thing. I feel with UPSs connected to UPSs you have more points of failure like if a UPS connected has a bad battery, turns off, has a fault, etc.

[jmilne_apc]

This was originally posted on APC forums on 5/13/2015

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Thank you very much for your assistance.

I will ensure some 20A circuits are installed so I may unchain  the 20A UPS(s) from the Smart UPS 3000.

I was thinking that without having all the documentation it was possible the previous persons were smart enough not to chain UPS,  and possibly the XFMR has some NON UPS outlets.

Apparently they were just lazy and looked for outlets they could connect without properly installing 20A circuits.

[amihin_apc]

This was originally posted on APC forums on 5/14/2015

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Thank you for the reply. I wil try your provided steps and let you know the result.

[jmilne_apc]

This was originally posted on APC forums on 5/20/2015

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Angela,

Again, thank you for the all the assitance.

The core issue with my UPS ( after untangling the mess of power cords) was the fact that the previous persons had qty 3 2200W Smart UPS plugged into the XFMR of the 3000W Smart UPS. This created an over load condition where the APC CPU could never calculate a run time leaving the right hand battery indicator LEDs flashing in sequence, while the replace battery Indicator was red. The previous persons were apparently too lazy to install separate 20A circuits for the qty 3 2200W ups and in error used the 20A receptacles in the XFMR!

Changing the batteries made no difference, The previous batteries were 5 yrs old even though they tested good.

Once i removed the overload from the 3000w Smart UPS and the new batteried installed, the UPS functioned correctly and the Battery Charge indicator returned to normal.

[BillP]

This reply was originally posted by Angela on APC forums on 5/20/2015

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Hi Jeff,

So was it the overload indicator that was on or really the replace battery indicator? How many LEDs were on the load bar graph (on the left)? All five?

Thanks for sharing what you found!

[jmilne_apc · Accepted solution]

This was originally posted on APC forums on 5/20/2015

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The Load indicators were at maximum on the left side.

There was no indicator to signify an overlead with exception of the LOAD LEDS showing maximum and the UPS flashing the Battery level LEDS in unison while the Battery warning RED LED was lit.

Basically the 3000W smart UPS had too much load on its output to function properly. Probably why it thought the batteries were bad since it could not internally calculate the run time on battery.

In summary, the box will perform fine if installed correctly and loaded reasonably for the capacity, in this case 3000w.