WARNING - APC MXA103 manufacturing defect - FIRE HAZARD

[BillP]

There appears to be a manufacturing defect in the APC MXA103 cord connected PDU.  Due to a wiring error the pair of outlets nearest the cord are not protected by a 20a breaker as designed.  This can lead to overheating in the cables connected to these outlets.

I am not an APC employee.  I searched for an APC recall or advisory on this problem and found none.

The remaining 6 outlets on the two units I examined are wired correctly.  YMMV.

I have attached a quick line diagram showing the problem.

To view the wiring on these units, remove the screws in the four corners of the faceplate.  Do not open them while connected to any equipment or a UPS.  Only licensed electricians should attempt to repair these units.  It is very easy to miswire them even worse than the factory did, potentially leading to much worse results.

If you examine the wiring in your units, please post the manufacturing dates so we can figure out if all of them ever made are miswired, just those manufactured during a particular period, etc.  The first four digits of the serial number are the date code, two digit year followed by two digit week.

Both of my units have the same defect, one 9912 (March 1999) the other 0002 (January 2000).