Is APC working on a new UPS made specific for A-PFC PSUs?

[Anonymous user]

Well, since Cyberpower released its PFCLCD UPS series made for power supplies with Active PFC, people are wondering if APC other manufactures will follow Cyberpower's path. I myself am very curious if APC, my favorite UPS brand, will do anything similar to it.

I've just ran into a topic on MacRumors forum where people are discussing about the Cyberpower PFCLCD UPS unit and asking if APC will do something similar. From what I've read so far, the opinions on the product are very good, this UPS seems to do the job very well. The buzzing noise that comes out of the PSU when on battery power that people complained so much is not an issue anymore with the Cyberpower solution, the "Adaptive Sinewave" which seems to be a trapezoidal shaped wave with some kind of "treatment" that smooths out the pointy peaks of the wave. The end the result seems very good and the wave looks very close to a true sine wave. Some PSUs that used to drop the load with the simulated sinewave is not and issue anymore and there's no need for investing a lot of money on true sine wave units if you're a home/office user. The topic on MacRumors forum:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1024208

And one user on MacRumors has posted a video review on his Cyberpower unit on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXsy_L7brig&feature=player_profilepage

I live in Brazil and I think if APC do anything to improve their UPSes regarding APFC PSUs it will take very long until these units arrive here. I'm not complaining about this, I'm just telling this because up until now we have no APC LCD series made for our 220V market and the 120V models are now phased out in our market along with many other models which I'll explain why just below. APC promised me here on this forum a long time ago that a 220V LCD series would be made for the brazilian market, but nothing yet!

In Brazil we went through a process of changing the shape of our wall outlets and the outlets of any product sold in the country, the outlets and the plugs. This new shape is not compatible with the old shapes of outlets we used to have here... In the past many shapes of outlets had been sold, now only one shape is permited, one is 10A and other 20A version. The new shape provides more security against electrocution and ends up with the confusion created along the decades by so many outlet shapes introduced in the country and since it's been a year or so that the older shapes are forbidden, APC had to stop selling many of the units with american outlets. APC has acctually released three new Back-UPS ES for the brazilian market with the new outlets. There's is one 220V 600VA option and other 1200VA one, the others are 400VA and 600VA for 120V only so we don't have many options.

I'm talking about this just to say if APC is strugling to realease new versions with the new outlets, the old LCD series for 120V is phased out in the brazilian market almost a year now, no 220V LCD series has ever seen the light of the brazilian sun :-P, and the APC brazilian website lists models that never reached the stores here... I can only say one APC UPS like the Cyberpower APFCLCD series will take a long, very very long time to arrive this land... 😞 and the local UPS brands don't give a dang for innovation!

Message was edited by: rau

[BillP]

I don't think that we will see something similar to adaptive sinewave very soon since they have just released their new PowerSaving series BRxxxxI and BRxxxxGI.

Anyway the question is, is it really urgent to do it?
As far as I know after hours o research on this topics no one APFC PSU was damaged by stepped sinewave and most problems relative
to UPS is relative to a wrong UPS sizing.

Am I wrong?

[Anonymous user]

To me the question is:

Is APC willing to loose sales because of its main (?) competitor being able to do something better that ensures the user the product will work fine no matter what PSU is used? I think its too early to say that, but let's see a year from now.

What I see is people complaining about the buzzing noise inside the PSU which is something unavoidable with the current Back-UPS line and then there is the people that is never sure if the UPS will work with their computer power supply until they buy and test it and some people will in fact have to return it and will never be satisfied with the solution provided by APC which is to buy one Smart-UPS unit instead. The percentage of people that can't make these UPSes work at all no matter what instruction is followed is not happy and there are some exemples of that in this very forum!

The Cybepower solution is very new on the market, I think its been only 2 months since its realease and not many people know about it yet, but people are little by little getting curious about it and as time passes more and more people are gonna choose this option like some are already doing. If you have to choose between one brand that assures you its solution works with anything and the other brands tat say you have to buy an "oversized" UPS that may or may not work with your power supply, and if it doesn't you'll have to pay four times as more to solve your problem, which brand are you going to choose?

The questions is not about hardware damage and never were, the question is about incompatibilities, noises, and not being sure if your UPS is gonna work as it is supposed to with any kind and brand of PSU. And I also think the main question now is about customer satisfaction and that the product you just bought is not gonna give you headaches because a "minor" technical issues or incompatibility.

Sure most of the current UPSes are working fine with APFC PSUs and I'm one of these users that are not having any problems apart from the buzzing noise, but if one computer draws 250W @ Full load and my PSU is 460W and even though I don't use all the 460W but I still have to buy one UPS that can supply at least 460W + 20% and still not be 100% sure this solution is gonna work, I think this is not the best way to deal with this problem. I'm sure it is not an urgent issue specially now that there are better solutions for those that can't pay hundreds of dollars for a true sinewave UPS.

I'm not complaning about anything, I'm just trying to open APC "eyes" for this "new" way of doing things. Well, who am I to tell what APC should or should not do... I'm just one little customer from overseas... I'm gonna continue to use APC UPSes until they don't work at all for me, but If one day I have to buy another UPS and better solutions are offered me, I won't think twice...


UPDATE:

The cost of this "new" technology seems to be low compared to the old simulated sinwave technology and seems to be very easy to implement otherwise Cyberpower wouldn't sell this units for a few bucks more than the older models. So my new questions is: Since it is cheap and easy to implement it, why not convert all the future releases to this "new" technolgy? This would solve once and for all the problems. There's nothing on Cyberpower website saying this technology is patented...

Message was edited by: rau

Message was edited by: rau

Message was edited by: rau

[BillP]

I will never buy anything different than APC, only the warrenty and this forum worth the additional price,
aniway I'm interested in the answer to the original poster. 🙂

[Anonymous user]

After this post of yours...

http://forums.apc.com/spaces/15/universal-transfer-switch/forums/general/5036/cannot-uninstall-power...

...I thought your options were the opposite. I myself would buy a Cyberpower PFCLCD series if it were available in my country...

Sure, by having good warranty and this forum APC deserves our fidelity, but since it is a well known brand everywhere you go in the world, is a big name on the business, they should come out with something similar to what Cyberpower is doing or they'll start losing sales at least for the PC/Mac enthusiasts.

A long time ago I asked APC if it were possible to realease a kind of stripped down version of the Smart-UPS series for those users with APFC PSUs and the answer was that this was not a serious issue that would require such a measure... Well, the other brand don't think so and came up with a cheaper and better solution, but I know they're pushing it too hard by saying that the simulated sinewave damages PSUs, that is not true, but it is true though that some PSUs don't work at all with this kind of wave and it makes the PSU to produce a buzzing noise and as the PSU load increases the noise goes up.

If APC come out with a cheaper true sinewave unit, with the price range of the new Cyberpower units than I would stick with APC no matter what! This solution would kill Cyberpower's PFCLCD UPS Series.

Message was edited by: rau

[BillP · Accepted solution]

My opinion is changed when I sent in RMA my UPS.
I asked for a RMA in the evening, the third day after the request in the morning the UPS
arrived here at home thanks also to Angela.

This absolutely worth the extra euros for an APC product.
I'm not glad with the accuracy of the battery runtime indicator, my battery drops to 75% as soon as I disconnect the AC at
every load conditions and this isn't so cool.
Aniway I will buy an APC product again.