Back-UPS XS1500 - Operates on battery although utility power exists.

[BillP]

After coming home one evening after a night out, my Back-UPS XS1500 was operating on battery although utility power existed.  The Back-UPS circuit breaker is not tripped, sensitivity is Medium, and the voltage is 122 volts which is well within the high and low range of the UPS settings.  I tried resetting the UPS by removing the load, unplugging the AC power, disconnecting the battery, and then pressing and holding the on/off button for 5-10 seconds.  This seems to have corrected the problem.  I ran a self-test, added a load to the UPS and unplugged it from the AC power, and then replugged it into the AC power, and everything performed exactly as expected.  I disconnected it from the AC power after powering it off to move it to the desire location, reconnected the load and AC power, and turned it on.  It ran the power on self-test, and it stayed on battery power.  The battery is a bit older than I'd like, so I exchanged it with an identical UPS that isn't having this problem, and the results were the same.

Since both batteries are the same age, is this an "old battery" problem, or has the UPS taken a dump??  Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks!!!

[Anonymous user]

Is yours the white plastic tower version or the later model with an LCD display?

Every one of the white plastic tower versions I've had (in either RS or XS trim) has done this, and unfortunately, I don't know why they do it. The behavior would improve if I left the unit plugged in for a while, leading me to believe that it's something temperature sensitive which has gone out of tolerance with age.

Setting the sensitivity to "low" will buy you some time, but ultimately, even that has proven not to be enough.

I'm sorry to say that these are the only APC UPS products I've had with a 100% failure rate. (One of them quit working when a linear voltage regulator within gave out, something it would do only after having been turned on for a while. When it failed, the unit would go completely dead. It took a while to find this.)

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Hi William,

Thanks much for your response.  You're much better at responding than what the APC guys appear to be.

I have the white tower without the LCD display.  I did have to return one of the 2 that I purchased shortly after I received it since it went belly up for some reason that I don't recall at the moment.

Using a "low" sensitivity would kind of defeat the purpose of having a UPS to protect my equipment.  Too bad someone from APC couldn't just sell/give me a small circuit board that would correct this problem and have me back up and running in about 30 minutes.  Since I've already had 2 out of 3 failures so far, perhaps it's time to find a different UPS supplier for my home.  An APC UPS isn't exactly cheap, so I expect a lot more from them than what I'd get from some no-name piece of equipment.  Based on reading others here in the forum, the quality of APC equipment appears to be coming up short of expectations.