220V APC SurgeArrest

[Anonymous user]

I had posted about this subject before, but at the time I hadn't received a good answer so I'm bringing this up again with a few more thing I'd like to point out.

I've gone through all the APC sites for each country they sell their products and I've noticed that there are products made for that country only and some that are shared with more than one country. Some products have different features and naturally, different kind of outlets and others are the same for many countries.

My country is one of the few contries that two different voltages are available, some states are 220V only, some are 110-127V only and others have a mix of both. In my region all homes are feed at 220V.

Many people don't like the idea of spending a good deal of money to buying an UPS when power outages are very rare so they stick with a simple surge protector (here we call it a "line filter"), but the ones sold in our market, the brazilian market, are so cheap and poorly constructed that they're good for nothing or at least they work as an outlet extension. Since APC brought to our market their essential and home/office line of surte protectors, now we have much better products at a fair price. Before that we only had the options of an UPS, cheap and poorly made voltage regulators without any kind of surge suppressing electronics inside and cheap "line filters" or very expensive line conditioners made for the professional audio/video market, most of them for 110-127V only and some for 220V. Most of the UPS sold are also step-down transformers, which converts 220V to 115V, which is a waste of energy for those who doen't need it. You can find UPSes and voltage regulators that are not step-down transformers, but 90% of our market is made of UPSes and voltage regulators that are also power transfomers, including those made by APC for the brazilian market with exception of only one model and the Smart-UPS line which is way expensive.

Now It's been a few years that APC is selling in Brazil part of their surge protectors line and by the way, their products are very well sold here, including their UPSes, so the gap between good surge protectors and the cheap ones were filled, but we still have a problem and are far from having the so many options and brands available in USA or other country. We CAN'T find a good product at a fair price for 220V! A big portion of Brazil is 220V only (Phase - Neutral) and we can't find a good product for those who can't or are not willing to spend money on an UPS. There's also the fact that a dedicated surge protector has better components, bigger varistors, thermal fuses and such than those that come in UPSes, they also come with more outlets and the maximum power provided - VA - are not limited by a voltage regulation transformer or a stepdown transformer. Surge protectos allows you to plug much more stuff the UPSes do.

I've been visiting the african, european, australian... APC sites and in all these countries APC sell 220-230V surge protectors, why not in Brazil?? We can't even import these version because their outlets are very different from ours. APC make an specific version for these countries I mean, the power outlets are made for those countries only, but in Brazil they sell the USA version! At least we can connect the computer stuff in it without adapters because most of the computer stuff sold here come with the same american three prongs plug, but if you want to plug a TV, VCR, DVD or something like that on an APC surge protector, you have to buy adapters and live in an area that are not 220V or content with very expensive line conditioners, very cheap surge-protectors that come with only one phase-neutral 7mm MOV and a 10A fuse or buying and UPS!

The purpose of this message is to ask APC why not to produce a good surge protectors, like the [http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=PF11VNT3] for the brazilian market like they do in Europe? They could sell here the same product that are sold in Europe, they would only have to change the power outlets and as far as I know, they have a factory in Brazil, so...

I can guarantee you that there is a big market for this product in my country. In most of the brazilian computer forums people are asking where they can find a version of the PH8VT3 sold here for 220V, but the sad truth is that it isn't available. At this store: www.atera.com.br and others, the APC Surge Protectors - "Filtro de linha" - are almost always sold out. As of now the PH8VT3 are the third most sold product at www.atera.com.br and are currently sold out, with availability in three days.

1st: Aspirador e jateador de ar MasterSux 110V R$ 96,00
2nd: Nobreak APC BE600-LM 600VA/360W, 120V, 18 minutos R$ 186,00
3rd: Surge Protect. APC PH8VT3 8 tomadas 120V TV fone ant. R$ 72,00*
4th: Suporte para notebook com cooler Clone 17008, preto R$ 55,00
5th: Nobreak APC BE600-BR 600VA bivolt saída 120V, 18 min. R$ 214,00
6th: Placa mãe GigaByte GA-MA69VM-S2 AM2 Athlon Sempron R$ 159,00
7th: Nobreak APC BE500-BR 500VA (300W), 120V, 12 minutos R$ 144,00
8th: Suporte para notebook Kellys KF-1248 Stand R$ 69,00
9th: Identificador digital Microsoft Fingerprint Reader 1033 R$ 99,00
10th: Conversor de discos SATA para interface IDE Comtac 9057 R$ 33,00

I'm posting these here because I've tried the online support before, but they can only tell me to buy and UPS instead! I and many others don't want to spend R$ 500,00 (300 dollars) on an UPS to plug our TV, Stereo, VCR, Home theater or a computer without the need to convert the power to 115V since all but one 300 dollars UPS made by APC for my country are not step-down transformer and it's too expensive and do not come with a good surge suppressing feature. The UPS in question is 150Joules only are 1500VA.

I think that's all! Thanks!

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[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

I have just seen that APC released a 230V version of the 1500LCD and there is also an 1200VA version. The models are, 1200LCDI e 1500LCDI and you can find it in almost every continent that are 230V: Europe, Africa, Australia and contries like India and China, but again, not in Brazil.

When APC realeased the LCD version I almost bought one, but then I realized it was made for 120V then I got in touch with APC and the brazilian support told me that they had no idea when it was going to be released, but that my suggestion for a 220V-240V would be sent to the APC engineers...

I seems APC has forgotten the fact that my country is 110-127V and also 220V! There's a bunch of 120V APC products available here, but two or three options for 220V. I know it sucks, but why not bring to us the options of models that are sold almost worldwide??