Back-UPS BE600-BR - too restricted low transfer point.

[Anonymous user]

I apologise for posting this again here, I had posted this message on the General Discussion forum by mistake... The moderators can delete it from there if they want to...

I own among other APC Models, one Back-UPS BE600-BR - http://www.apcc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BE600-BR

and I'm a bit unsatisfied with this unit that I bought one week ago.

In the city I live in Brazil from time to time during the year, we have some problems regarding low voltage, specially on peak hours during the spring and summer. We're in the spring now and the weather is hotter than usual for this time of the year, so people use more air conditioners, fans, the refrigerators work more to keep the food at the same temperature...

Well, the problem I'm having with this unit is that it seems not to have voltage boost and the low transfer point is too restricted. In the lower sensitivity setting, the unit transfer to battery at 190V and only comes back to AC when the input voltage comes back to 195-198V. There are times here that it is impossible to use this UPS because it keeps going to battery all the time until the battery gets depleted. The only option I have is to plug the unit to a voltage regulator, then the input voltage goes to 215V-220V and I can get the UPS going. But I think my voltage regulator is not working well because its 220V output goes up to 245V when the mains voltage returns to normal levels, then I have turn off the UPS, unplug it from the voltage regulator and plug to the wall outlet again because now it transfers to battery because of high input volage, above 240V...

This UPS is a bi-volt unit and can work off a 115V outlets as well. The voltage regulator I have here have both 220V and 115V outlets, when I plug the UPS on its 115V outlet, I now get boost and trim voltage regulation from the UPS and it transfers to battery only when the input voltage drops to 94V or goes over 140v. I noticed it is much confortable to keep this bi-volt unit working at 115V than on 220V bacause of the boost mode regulation . I have it now on 220V again, directly from the wall, because the voltage today is at better levels, but if it keeps going to battery as it has been, the only option is to return this ups or keep it running off the voltage regulator.

The only regulation this unit offers is:

From 220-240 input -> it decreases 50%: 110-120V
From 190-220 input -> it decreases 45%: 105-120V.

The question I have is, is there a way to lower its sensitvity even further, to lets say, 185V or 175V?

All the national UPS brands and other 220V APC models allows the input voltage to drop to 175V before going to battery or even lower, why the BE600-BR has such tight low transfer point and don't offer boost mode voltage regulation when operating at 220V??

Thank you!

Adding new information:

I've been to almost every APC Website for each country APC is present and downloaded as many manual as I could for the 220-240V UPS units and every single one alows the sensitivity to be lowered or are by default set to a transfer point below 190V. I can't understand why the Back-UPS ES BE600-BR which were made for a country where it is known for having unstable power at some locations has such a limited input voltage range! It seems it is always stuck at 190V-240V no matter if you change the sensitivity to "high", "medium" or "low". Why APC designed such a bad UPS like this? Please, tell me if it is possible to lower the sensitivity to 185 in this model. It's serial number is: KB0835212667. This thing can only work if connected to a voltage regulator and now I'm keeping it always at the 115V output of the AVR.

Message was edited by: rau

Message was edited by: rau

[Anonymous user]

I apologise for posting this again here, I had posted this message on the General Discussion forum by mistake... The moderators can delete it from there if they want to...

I own among other APC Models, one Back-UPS BE600-BR - http://www.apcc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BE600-BR

and I'm a bit unsatisfied with this unit that I bought one week ago.

In the city I live in Brazil from time to time during the year, we have some problems regarding low voltage, specially on peak hours during the spring and summer. We're in the spring now and the weather is hotter than usual for this time of the year, so people use more air conditioners, fans, the refrigerators work more to keep the food at the same temperature...

Well, the problem I'm having with this unit is that it seems not to have voltage boost and the low transfer point is too restricted. In the lower sensitivity setting, the unit transfer to battery at 190V and only comes back to AC when the input voltage comes back to 195-198V. There are times here that it is impossible to use this UPS because it keeps going to battery all the time until the battery gets depleted. The only option I have is to plug the unit to a voltage regulator, then the input voltage goes to 215V-220V and I can get the UPS going. But I think my voltage regulator is not working well because its 220V output goes up to 245V when the mains voltage returns to normal levels, then I have turn off the UPS, unplug it from the voltage regulator and plug to the wall outlet again because now it transfers to battery because of high input volage, above 240V...

This UPS is a bi-volt unit and can work off a 115V outlets as well. The voltage regulator I have here have both 220V and 115V outlets, when I plug the UPS on its 115V outlet, I now get boost and trim voltage regulation from the UPS and it transfers to battery only when the input voltage drops to 94V or goes over 140v. I noticed it is much confortable to keep this bi-volt unit working at 115V than on 220V bacause of the boost mode regulation . I have it now on 220V again, directly from the wall, because the voltage today is at better levels, but if it keeps going to battery as it has been, the only option is to return this ups or keep it running off the voltage regulator.

The only regulation this unit offers is:

From 220-240 input -> it decreases 50%: 110-120V
From 190-220 input -> it decreases 45%: 105-120V.

The question I have is, is there a way to lower its sensitvity even further, to lets say, 185V or 175V?

All the national UPS brands and other 220V APC models allows the input voltage to drop to 175V before going to battery or even lower, why the BE600-BR has such tight low transfer point and don't offer boost mode voltage regulation when operating at 220V??

Thank you!

Adding new information:

I've been to almost every APC Website for each country APC is present and downloaded as many manual as I could for the 220-240V UPS units and every single one alows the sensitivity to be lowered or are by default set to a transfer point below 190V. I can't understand why the Back-UPS ES BE600-BR which were made for a country where it is known for having unstable power at some locations has such a limited input voltage range! It seems it is always stuck at 190V-240V no matter if you change the sensitivity to "high", "medium" or "low". Why APC designed such a bad UPS like this? Please, tell me if it is possible to lower the sensitivity to 185 in this model. It's serial number is: KB0835212667. This thing can only work if connected to a voltage regulator and now I'm keeping it always at the 115V output of the AVR.

Message was edited by: rau

Message was edited by: rau

[BillP]

hi rau,

i will follow up on this for you with the appropriate people. you cannot adjust any of the transfer points besides what you can configure in powerchute personal edition unfortunately.

but let me get back to you with any reasoning behind why the unit is designed the way it is.

[Anonymous user]

Okay, you guys here are being really helpful and I'm being very annoying am I?

I'm thinking about returning this unit though.

Thank you very much!

[Anonymous user]

Well, I'm posting this just to say that I haven't returned the unit and I'm still using it plugged to a voltage regulator and is not very nice to hear the clicking noise of the voltage regulator relays and the UPS relays almost at the same time when there is a small voltage fluctuation.

I decided to keep this unit because APC is the only brand in my country that offers UPSes with the software option for lower end products, that can turn off my computer when I'm far from it and there is a power outage and the other UPS options are either too expensive or offers much more power than my computer needs.

Anyways, the power company is still not willing to solve the low voltage problem here. It's been 30 days since the first complaint I made and now I had to write a complaint to the the Agency that regulates the power companies in my country expecting they will force the power company to take the right measures to fix the problem.

A few months ago everything was fine, the voltage was within the expected fluctuation range, but now its not good, there are times during the day that the voltage drops to 180Volts or so. It still doesn't justify the choice APC made for this specific unit, since none of other models made by APC has such strict high and low transfer points. It's like running at the high sensitivity mode all the time, even setting the PCPE to low. 😞

Message was edited by: rau

Is it possible for APC to release a firmware for this model so as to broaden the high an low transfer points? If APC lowers it to let's say 185V as the low transfer point, it means the output voltage when operating at 185V will be 100V, since when it's at 190V the output voltage is 105V. So 100 volts is still good for most electronics. Almost all computer displays are made to work from 100 to 240V and can still work okay from 90 to 260V or more. The ATX Design Guide requires that the PSUs work from 90 to 135 and from 180 to 265V and many modern PSUs are capable of more than that though. Mine for exemple, which is power factor corrected can work nicely from 80 to 265V on the fly.

I'd be very thankful if APC released a firmware that broadens the transfer points of this unit. It's unconceivable that APC has made such a bad choice for this specific unit. I can't understand...

Even the European units, like this one:

http://www.apcc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BE550-SP

can work from 180V to 266V. And the power quality in Europe is very good!

Message was edited by: rau

Message was edited by: rau

Message was edited by: rau

Message was edited by: rau

[TheNotoriousKMP_apc]

The firmware chip within the UPS isn't flash-upgradeable. If this firmware were to change, it would be released onto a new chip which would go to manufacturing and be contained within newly manufactured UPS's.

[Anonymous user]

That's a bummer... 😞

I still had hope for this UPS so now I'm gonna have to stick with the voltage regulator until the power company decides to solve the problem.

It's interesting that this unit was released in 2003 and nothing changed since then. I've seen some people complaining about this on computer forums though, but I think complaints sent directly to APC is not being made by many or by no one but me, which is even worse.

I know I'm being too demanding, but I think it's about time for APC to release new 220-240V models in Brazil, ranging from 500-750VA or so. We only have the BE600-BR at this range that was released in 2003! And the newer released models for 120V mains, the 650G-LM and 750G-LM never reached the stores here, even being listed on the APC brazilian website for quite sometime now.

Thanks for the repply anyway!

[Anonymous user]

"I picked a winna",

Have the "appropriate people" answered you back? I think not... 😞

Well... In my country the regulation agency that controls the power companies, called "ANEEL" - The National Agency for Electrical Energy - stipulates that for 220V grids the voltage can range from 201 to 229V. If the voltage fluctuates between this figures, everything is considered "normal". The problem discussed not only by me, but between some electrical engineers, is that if they allow the voltage to reach 201V at the point of delivery, by point of delivery being the point where the feeder cable is connected to the power pole wires, they are not taking into consideration the voltage drop on the feeder cable and the branch circuit wires which can sometimes reach up to 10 volts when for exemple you turn on an electrical shower which is very widely used in my country and consumes a lot of power, up to 7500 Watts. Not everyone in my country are willing to spend, or can spend, on very thick wires so as to keep the voltage drop as low as possible. In my house the wires are correctly sized for the current they are expected to carry, but even so there is a considerable voltage drop and the code here allows a 5% drop from the meter to the farthest outlet which means a 10,05 volt drop over the minimum 201V they also allow at the point of delivery, so in the end a voltage drop of 30 volts is considered "normal", which gives me 190V! That is crazy!! But as I said before, they aren't even respecting the 201V minimum, voltage here can sometimes reach 185V, 190V... at the meter box!

I complained to the power company several times and to the ANEEL, they promised a solution, but it's been almost a year now and this problem is still haunting me! They are building a new subestation, but it is taking too long to finish it... They started the construction in January...

Despite all of that, I still don't agree with the tight AC working range APC chose for this UPS. Nothing justfies this choice since other manufactures and even APC don't have other UPS models like this one.

Thank you!

Update:

Some people ask me one good and cheap UPS that can communicate with their PCs. In the past I used to recommend the BE600-BR for these people, but now I can't do that anymore. Some of the people complained that the UPS was transfering to battery too often and at times the battery would die after a while. Why I'm telling this here? Beucase the BE600-BR is the most affordable 220V option in my country that can communicate with the PC. All the other national UPS brands only offer a management software for bigger units above 1000VA. APC is the only brand that offers this option for units starting at 600VA in my country, but for 220V there is only the BE600-BR which is not very suitable for reasons I written above. Either you buy a voltage regulator and the BE600-BR for working together or you buy a bigger and more expensive UPS. In this case people prefer to stick with a voltage regulator only or a cheap surge protector. We need more cheap units like the BE600-BR that are more optimized for our needs. Those made for European countries would work very well here with minor adjustments. Why only realease 120V models here like the BE600D-LM, BE350G-LM, BE650G-LM and BE750G-LM, all 120V models that were realeased in Brazil recently. Where are the new 220V versions of these units?? Come on APC, wake up! Many brazilian states are 220V Phase-Neutral.

It's a very bad thing to have so many standardized voltages in the same country. It is bad for everyone! Brazil is one of the few countries, if not the only one, where you can find, 220 Phase-Phase, 220V Phase-Neutral, 110, 120, 127V, sometimes in the same state! 110-127V are considered to be the same thing here...

Message was edited by: rau

Update 2:

See this 220V APC Back-UPS 650VA sold in China:

[http://www.apcc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm]

Input voltage range - 165-266V

I just don't understand the BE600-BR...

h2. {color:#ff0000}*Update 3:*{color}
h2. {color:#ff0000}*I want one 220V version of this one! PLEASE!! :-D*{color}
[http://www.apcc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BR700G]

Message was edited by: rau

Message was edited by: rau

Message was edited by: rau

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Hi Rau,

While I do not have any specific product information to share with you, you can be certain that Brazil is one of the major areas of focus for APC these days, given that it is one of the world's great emerging markets.

I would not be surprised to see new offerings that focus on Brazil's -- let's call it -- "unique" electricity infrastructure.