UPS Brands - What's good and what's not?

[nehhet]

Hi all,

I'm a pro-AV engineer and we're looking to standardize on UPS units. We've been with TrippLite for decades, primarily using their SmartPro line of 1U units. They were inexpensive, and held up for the most part.

TrippLite is no longer selling to us direct as they are part of EATON now. and sales is through distribution like everyone else. This is fine, but with that costs go up.

But what about other brands? I see tons out there now and just don't have experience with anything other than TrippLite and APC (now part of Schneider).

I've installed a couple CyberPower units, and the first one I got failed in the first week. They RMA'd it and covered return shipping, but it meant a 4 hour drive to swap and swap back.. The replacement just failed again after 18 months (if that).

Middle Atlantic units seem expensive.

What's the verdict on Vertiv? I've seen them more than once in the wild recently.

Anything else I should look into?

[Teken]

Every major vendor has / had offered products that by any standard were considered junk / garbage. ☝️

A person can find a bad review or negative feedback on every major vendor.

You specific budget will dictate what hardware is under consideration while narrowing down the junk hardware.

All of the vendors you listed are major players in different market segments such as APC, Eaton, Tripplite, Vertiv, Xtreme.

Having personally used, managed, and serviced every vendor that spans tens of millions of UPS. 

The key take away is buying hardware with extended warranty / service plan. Ensure whatever vendor is under consideration offers regional support, service, warranty for your area. 

Field Trials: If the company is large enough you may be able to demo potential hardware to insure it meets your needs.

Validation: Pretty much nobody in the I.T. space completes any type of UPS validation these days! 🤦‍♂️

The primary reason is ignorance and lack of knowledge to complete the same. Along with not having the proper equipment to conduct the validation process. 👎

Any serious UL / ISO certified site will have calibrated equipment that span a Fluke DMM, Conductance Meter, Carbon Load Cell, Variable Transformer, Power Quality Meter, Scope, and NMS to monitor the performance and operation of the hardware.

Lastly, if your budget allows going with a lithium battery system makes a lot more sense vs sealed lead! 👍

Longer service life (cycles), operational runtime due to extended DOD, quicker recharging, lighter, no gassing.

The biggest negative is every vendor selling a lithium based solution are just pirates. 👎

The cost for these systems just don’t pencil out unless you’re a huge company. Good luck and let me know what you decide on and the reasons for doing so. 

[dpierce4776]

Just my 2 cents I agree with a lot of what @Teken said. That said I have worked with Eaton, APC, Raritan, Tripplite, Mitsubishi, Vertiv, Powerware, and others. Pound for pound and all things considered, depending on the KVA you are looking at, I would go with APC double conversion units, and stay away from anything that says "Line interactive". I will not touch their on-line/line interactive units unless made to.

Vertiv and Eaton make OK units but their sales and support are very lacking and any contracts cost way to much for the service. As well as shipping time for them is long. IMHO and experience the rest do not last as long nor have the reporting capabilities needed to do any real validation or testing. But though the various companies I have worked for all things considered APC as a company wins out up to about 20KVA after that I would go with the 9000 series Mitsu with a remote eye 4 card.

Personally I am against lithium battery systems currently as mentioned before the price just does not equal out yet. Also there is always the issue of thermal runaway unless the UPS is in an HVAC controlled environment, and behind some type of power filtering/cleaning.    

[WillW]

Apc is reliable, eaton is efficient for critical setups, and cyberpower is cheaper. Choose based on your needs.

[Teken]

Other considerations to take into account as it relates to lithium based products is the vendor lock in.

Unlike the SLA battery variety there is no third party vendor selling replacement battery cartridges or the ability to easily replace individual cells.

You are literally tied to whatever vendor for their replacement battery cartridges and if they decide to increase the price or stop production.

You’re absolutely screwed . . . 🤦‍♂️👎

Lastly, it seems almost everyone has decided to drink the anti consumer kool aid and incorporate DRM.

This is very much like all the printer companies such as Epson, HP, Xerox, with CRU’s. All of them have chips / software / components to restrict and limit the useful life of the CRU and stop the consumer having a choice of OEM vs third party. 🤢👎

The trend is to incorporate the very same into the battery cartridge as seen in many different vendors / product lines! 

The UPS industry started off with simple resistors, to EEPROMS.