Smart-UPS 500 has started turning itself off without any logs of why

[GCRR]

Recently, our Smart-UPS 500 SCL500RM1UC has been turning off unexpectedly. This has occurred twice this year, and as it's a critical component of our operations, we need to resolve this issue promptly. It has been working reliably for a couple of years now.

There are no warning lights or anything. When it happens, I have to drive to the location and turn it back on, and everything seems fine until it happens again when I'm not there.

If there is a power loss and the battery is depleted will it turn back on when the power is restored?

[Teken]

I would highly suggest you reach out to APC Technical Support. The hardware is covered by a five your warranty. If you have not registered and activated the APC Smart Connect Cloud Portal Service do so now.

The first six months is free and is a paid subscription after the trial period.

Once enrolled you’ll be able to see how the unit is configured and defined. You’ll want to check if the option to come back on line once AC Mains is restored is selected.

You may also install APC (PCSS) software to see if there are options to define. Along with seeing what active faults / errors codes are present. 

Let me know what you see and observe once Smart Connect / PCSS is installed and deployed. 👍

[GCRR]

I can see the status of the UPS via https://smartconnect.apc.com/
It was registered on Aug 31, 2021 and expires on Aug 31, 2026
The events do not indicate anything other than losing communications, which I'm guessing is when it turned off, but there was no indication of it changing to battery at that time.
I came to this forum because I could not find a way to contact support via email and chat was not available.

[GCRR]

Also, it looks like APC (PCSS) is Serial only so that will be an issue as the unit is about 45 minutes from me and I don't have a PC/Laptop that has a serial port.

[Teken]

You just need to use the supplied USB cable to connect to your Windows computer running PCSS software. By serial APC simply means it’s using the serial protocol not the RS-232 connector. 👍

Please do submit a service request with APC Technical Support for your specific region.

The resource link provided here is the full user manual. At the very bottom are the contact links for support / warranty:

https://download.schneider-electric.com/files?p_enDocType=User+guide&p_File_Name=SU+UM+990-91144C+MN...

[GCRR]

Thanks for that. I will have to try that software. I spoke to support yesterday via chat about the issue, and they determined the best course of action was to RMA the unit. The unfortunate part is its availability, so it won't ship until 8/21. Surprisingly, shortly after speaking to support and having the RMA all setup, it did it for a third time, so I may need to buy a replacement sooner and then use the RMA unit for something else.

[Teken]

Please do let us know how everything turns out. 👍

[conflet]

I'm having exactly the same issue with 2 units here. We had a short power outage but both units refused to go back to mains when power was restored. I've done a test by connecting one UPS to the other and pulling the cable between them briefly. The second UPS will not go back to mains until it dies and is reset.

Installed PCSS but it seems to offer no options for how to address this.

[conflet]

Think I've worked out what the problem might be. Our mains voltage here is about 245V so quite high. With out 2 UPSs when I connect from one UPS to the other and pull the interconnect briefly, the second stays on battery until it dies. If I pull power from the first UPS and it outputs exactly 230V, the second switches properly. So there's a mains tolerance which isn't properly set. But there seems no way to change this beyond low, medium and high  - none of which cure the problem.

[Teken]

There should be two options which are the low / high voltage transfer. Adjust the high voltage transfer to suite your needs in PCSS software.