Surge protectors burning up

[Anonymous user]

Has anyone else had problems with the 7-connection surge protector, P74, burning up? I"ve been installing them, along with battery backups, in a new dental office. I purchased 10 of them last week and installed them yesterday and today. In about 24 hrs I've had 3 of them burn up. You know... the old electronic burning smell? Now I'm concerned about the other 7 and if I should move to another manufacturer.

Anyone else having issues?

- steve

[Erasmus_apc]

As an APC employee who deals with cases of this nature when they do come to our doorstep, I can say that I've never seen an issue with the P74 line of protectors. What may have happened is some "debris" or dust may have gotten into the unit and caused arcing or a short, or you may have had a surge in that area and the units were forced to "sacrifice" themselves since it was too much to shunt to ground.

Do you have the units plugged right into the wall or daisy chained? What was the load on them?

[Anonymous user]

I guess the dust could have been an issue, but....

Although this is a new dental office, we're still waiting for the carpet to be placed. One of them was on the floor, so I could see dust getting into that one. The 2nd one was mounted under a desk and the third one is up on the communications board in the comm room. All are on different circuits with different loads. The first one had a lone HP laser printer, which the 2nd one had a DELL 760, 19" monitor and the 3rd was mounted 8 ft. high on the comm board with a Cyberguard firewall and a Dell 24-port switch. I haven't had any issues with the PSUs; just the surge protectors.

Thanks for your help....

- steve

[Erasmus_apc · Accepted solution]

Well none of the loads sound like a problem and it doesn't sound like dust or debris was an issue on two of them either.

In terms of actual issues with the units, again we don't see increased levels of RMA's among this product line, but maybe some of our other customers who roam our forums could give you a yay/nay on if they have issues with the units.

What I would suggest is to call into tech. support and have them process an RMA for you.