6500EX and APC UPS

[Adam De Lay]

Does anyone have any experience with an APC UPS being used while being powered from a 6500EX?

My office has 4 different model APC UPSs (Back UPS ES 350, Back UPS LS 500, Back UPS CS 500 and Back UPS 550) which were being used as battery backups for various computers and internet equipment. Ever since I set up the 6500s to supply power to my office, when solar power is being produced the UPSs end up continually switching from line to battery mode and then back again. So much so that I ended up having to disconnect 2 of them (Back UPS ES 350, Back UPS CS 500) because all I was hearing when I was working was constant clicking from them switching back and forth (I assume it's only when solar is being produced because I'm not in the office after dark most nights).

I thought I was ok after just having unplugged the two UPSs because the other two seemed to work fine, but then today my inverters switched to bypass mode and now UPS #3 (Back UPS LS 500 - which runs my main computer) is now continually cycling back and forth.

I'm kinda at a loss as to why this is happening. Are the inverters putting out that dirty of power or are the APC UPSs just that picky and sensitive?

 

[ljwobker]

I have experience with a few of these baby APC, and from an internal design standpoint they're all pretty much crap. The output power waveform is really bad, most of my newer PC power supplies won't run when on battery. They also will not run well (if at all) if the INPUT waveform isn't pretty close to a pure sine wave. Something on the input side logic detects that the mains power isn't clean, so it declares that power "bad" and tries to run the load off the battery. When I replaced the *input* side with a good sinewave inverter, the UPS's would accept that as input power and run as expected... HTH