Am I doing something Wrong?

[sygnus21]

You do not need to have a surge protector hooked up the UPS. The UPS already has a surge protector built in, as well as a backup power source, the battery.

A surge proctor on the other hand has NO backup power source (battery). That’s the main difference between the two. In short, you don't need a surge protector if you have a UPS.

Also, you don't need to turn the surge protector off as that's defeating the purpose of having it hooked up in the first place... to protect.

Turning it off doesn't protect you from electrical surges unless you unplug from the outlet… and if you're going to do that... why have a UPS, or surge protector in the first place.

My two cents.

 

[glennc]

Hello sygnus21,
If you turn the surge suppressor off, doesn't that disconnect the line voltage from the surge protection circuits and the outlet strip? I hear but I readily confused.
Thanks
glennc

 

[Fumz]

Surge suppression is built into the unit; there's no way to turn it off independently of the automatic voltage regulation and/or battery backup.

 

[glennc]

Good Day Fumz,
So you're stating that the disconnection of line voltage occurs after the gadgetry of the surge protector or are you speaking of the UPS surge protection?
glennc

 

[Fumz]

What I'm saying is that a good UPS has 3 basic features: automatic voltage regulation, surge supression, and battery backup. You cannot turn on or off these features independently: either they're all on, or they're all off.

If the unit is plugged in and turned on, then you have the benefit of all its features. If you turn the unit off, you have the benefit of none.

If the UPS is turned off, and lightning strikes your house, or the telephone pole/cable box/hookup (if above ground) next to your house, you're at risk of damaging your computer. If the unit is off, the UPS provides no surge protection. Voltage can run through the lines in your house (electrical, telephone or cable) to your machine.

This is why in heavy lightning, the only real protection is to physically unplug devices.

 

[glennc]

What I'm saying is that a good UPS has 3 basic features: automatic voltage regulation, surge supression, and battery backup. You cannot turn on or off these features independently: either they're all on, or they're all off.

If the unit is plugged in and turned on, then you have the benefit of all its features. If you turn the unit off, you have the benefit of none.

If the UPS is turned off, and lightning strikes your house, or the telephone pole/cable box/hookup (if above ground) next to your house, you're at risk of damaging your computer. If the unit is off, the UPS provides no surge protection. Voltage can run through the lines in your house (electrical, telephone or cable) to your machine.

This is why in heavy lightning, the only real protection is to physically unplug devices.

Fumz,
On my UPS there is a surge protected side that operates with the power to the UPS turned on or off. I thought that was unusual. The battery/surge suppressors appear to work only when I turn the UPS on.
glennc

 

[glennc]

Hello grimreaper,
I appreciate you adding your knowledge. That is some UPS you've got there. Since I'm only concerned with line regulation and a auto nice shutdown I think/hope I'm going to be o.k.
To all, if I find out that my UPS doesn't charge when off, would it be bad to add a surge protector of of it within wattage ratings for the availability of an on/off switch and some additional surge protection? I'm talking about just the monitor and computer? Is that considered that dangerous within output wattage rating. I'm just concerned that the UPS I have seems to line noise fault when I power it up. The extra surge protector would be solely for convenience. Appreciate your opinions.
I can see why some, but if the wattage wasn't overdrawing the output, then that potential danger would be eliminated and it would just be the issue of a second probably larger surge protector circuit off the built in one.
glennc

Thanx for the compliments, I choose this UPS for the sole fact I knew I had a ton of electronic gear to protect in case of the obvious reasons.
It's better to have a UPS that has more juice available then what you're plugging in.

With regards to your question, I cannot stress adding a surge protector to your UPS is wrong, and as a matter of fact in the manuals, this is mentioned also not to plug a surge protector to the UPS.
I can only tell you what I think, it's up to you now to make your own choice if you want to plug in a surge protector to your UPS.
Good luck my friend

Didn't see this till now. Thanks for the information and your response. Yes, I am the one who gets to choose to destroy my new system or maybe not. Responsibilities, angst, anxiety. Right know I took the Surge Protected Power strip for peripherals and plugged into the wall outlet. Wait for five minutes, it may change.
Vacillatingly Yours
glennc

 

[Fumz]

Fumz,
On my UPS there is a surge protected side that operates with the power to the UPS turned on or off. I thought that was unusual. The battery/surge suppressors appear to work only when I turn the UPS on.
glennc

I'd double check that if I were you. I'm not aware of any surge protector that's able to protect you if it's off.

Do you have a link I can look at to some documentation that makes that claim?

 

[glennc]

You have the same family of UPS I have only mine is the next larger size. Are you looking at the Current Status page. That is where the Load Bar is located. From what I see on the APC site your UPS with Software ver 2.2 should show the Load Bar and also have the self-test.
Also your unit WILL charge when plugged in even if you turn it off.

Jim

Hey Jim,
Yeah I am looking at the Current Status Page. No luck. My Battery runtime climbed a minute.
Question fellow APC User's, according to my Status Indicators Sheet, when I turn on the UPS I get Beeping approx 4 times every 30 Seconds. This indicates that the UPS is supplying battery power. Alarm Terminates When: UPS transfers back to Power ON operation.
I think I know what that means, I just can't see the reason for it. As you noted PM, the unit is being charged whenever it is connected to utility power with the switch in the on or off position.
Any ideas on this one. We seem to be closing in on it!
glennc

 

[Fumz]

Question fellow APC User's, according to my Status Indicators Sheet, when I turn on the UPS I get Beeping approx 4 times every 30 Seconds. This indicates that the UPS is supplying battery power. Alarm Terminates When: UPS transfers back to Power ON operation.
I think I know what that means, I just can't see the reason for it.

In your first post you said you had a 550 watt UPS; however, what you might really have is a 330 watt UPS. Volt Amps are not watts. It's 550 VA (volt amps), not 550 watts. That can be confusing, and imho, misleading. I hate the way UPS's market their stuff.

If you're getting continual beeping I'd say it's because the unit simply doesn't have enough watts for all the devices you're plugging in. If it's beeping continually, and I'd characterize 4 times every 30 seconds as continually, then you should consider buying a more powerful model.

Is this what you have? http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BE550G

 

[glennc]

Fumz,
On my UPS there is a surge protected side that operates with the power to the UPS turned on or off. I thought that was unusual. The battery/surge suppressors appear to work only when I turn the UPS on.
glennc

I'd double check that if I were you. I'm not aware of any surge protector that's able to protect you if it's off.

Do you have a link I can look at to some documentation that makes that claim?

Hello Fumz,
I don't think I made myself clear enough. It is my impression that a surge suppressor on/off switch just cuts line voltage to the electronics and the outlets on the strip.
It partially essentially unplugs the hot output line. When on, it connect the hot line to the surge Protector circuit and the outlets.
glennc

 

[Fumz]

Hello Fumz,
I don't think I made myself clear enough. It is my impression that a surge suppressor on/off switch just cuts line voltage to the electronics and the outlets on the strip.
It partially essentially unplugs the hot output line. When on, it connect the hot line to the surge Protector circuit and the outlets.
glennc

Do you have two on/off buttons on your unit? One for the surge suppression side and one for the voltage regulation/battery backup side? If you don't, then the one button powers the entire device... again, surge suppression isn't something you can turn on and off independently.

While it's true that your average $5.00 powerstrip's on/off button cuts the voltage, that's still a separate function from actual surge suppression.

In order for a surge suppressor to suppress surges (wow, that's a mouthful) it's got to be powered on. There are semiconductors inside the unit which decide when a surge is a surge and when to divert voltage. If they're not powered on, they can't operate.

 

[glennc]

Hey Fumz,
Now we're getting to a level that I can understand. On my APC UPS the battery/surge protected side has an on/off switch. With the switch in the off position the UPS still applies line voltage to the surge suppressor only outlets. Thus I was previously leaving the strip plugged into the suppressor only outlet and turning it on and off with it's own on/off button. So the question still remains is that a definite bad situation if the output wattage is adhered to on the surge strip, thus not overloading the UPS. Also if I put a surge strip on the battery/surge outlets within wattage specifications to give it an on/off capability and leave the UPS on. I did find out my UPS is supposed to charge as long as it is plugged into the line voltage, regardless of it's own on/off switch.
I still am muddling it over in my mind, why or why not.
glennc

 

[Fumz]

I'm getting a bit lost in language.

Both sides are surge protected. One side has battery backup and voltage regulation, the other, surge only... but, I'm not real clear on what the latest question is, lol. It's late and I was up early this am. Excuse my fuzzyness.

If it's about the beeping, then we'll need to know what unit you have? Do you have 550 VA or 550 watts? If you have the 550 VA model, then you only have a 330 watt unit and, again, your beeping may be due to all the devices you've got plugged in.

What do you have plugged in, and to where? For example, I've got my machine, monitor, modem and router in the battery backup side... cell phone charger and speaker/bass amp into the surge only side.

If it's about what secondary surge protectors you can plug in, then we'll need to refer to the product's documentation to see what they say about it. A link to the unit would be real helpful.

 

[glennc]

Hey Fumz,
Me too. It is a 550 VA which says 330 Watts. The surge only protected outlets I had another surge protector strip to consolidate all my extra junk. This side does not power down with the UPS's on off button, so I used the on/off button on the extra surge protector strip to power down the whatnot. The amps pulled through the extra strip with its devices I believe is in the output range of the UPS's surge protected only outlets.
I was considering putting a surge protected strip off the battery backed/surge suppressed side of the UPS so to consolidate the monitor/computer/DSL modem and the Router, which I have NOT done yet. I also took the second surge suppressor off the UPS and plugged it directly into an AC outlet.
The problem I'm seeing according to the APC Status Indicators is when I power it up, its power on light blinks, indicating that the battery is supplying power for maybe 10 seconds as the UPS transfers back to the power on state at which time the power light stays on steady. Since I turned off all the devices into the battery/surge suppressed outlets on the UPS, I am lost as to why it is supplying battery power on power up.
I hope that is a little clearer. Thanks
glennc

 

[pparks1]

The problem I'm seeing according to the APC Status Indicators is when I power it up, its power on light blinks, indicating that the battery is supplying power for maybe 10 seconds as the UPS transfers back to the power on state at which time the power light stays on steady. Since I turned off all the devices into the battery/surge suppressed outlets on the UPS, I am lost as to why it is supplying battery power on power up.
I hope that is a little clearer. Thanks
glennc

Glennc: This is not an issue. When you first turn on the UPS....it begins to pull power from the mains. At this point, it's unsure of the safety of the voltage and such on the line...so it transfers to battery power to regulate the power to any devices which are connected and attached. Once the initial power up is complete and voltage is consistent and maintained, the device switches back to running live off the mains and then regulates the power going to your connected devices.

I've got some bigger rack mount APC UPS's at my office. I've got an APC SmartUps 5000 and a 2200 at work and both do the exact same thing you mention about when you first turn them on. You have nothing to worry about.

 

[glennc]

The problem I'm seeing according to the APC Status Indicators is when I power it up, its power on light blinks, indicating that the battery is supplying power for maybe 10 seconds as the UPS transfers back to the power on state at which time the power light stays on steady. Since I turned off all the devices into the battery/surge suppressed outlets on the UPS, I am lost as to why it is supplying battery power on power up.
I hope that is a little clearer. Thanks
glennc

Glennc: This is not an issue. When you first turn on the UPS....it begins to pull power from the mains. At this point, it's unsure of the safety of the voltage and such on the line...so it transfers to battery power to regulate the power to any devices which are connected and attached. Once the initial power up is complete and voltage is consistent and maintained, the device switches back to running live off the mains and then regulates the power going to your connected devices.

I've got some bigger rack mount APC UPS's at my office. I've got an APC SmartUps 5000 and a 2200 at work and both do the exact same thing you mention about when you first turn them on. You have nothing to worry about.

Much relief so many thanks to you and your experience. Thanks pparks1!! They don't show up as incidents. Very pleased to hear this is normal. Mille Grazie. A thousand thanks.
As well as to all who have contributed!
glennc

 

[westom]

Much relief so many thanks to you and your experience. Thanks pparks1!!

If correct, a UPS that takes that long to verify line stability could not switch to batteries in 10 milliseconds. Within milliseconds, a UPS must know if power is good or bad. Because a UPS must make the same decision every minute of the day - in milliseconds. A UPS must know immediately if power is stable or not. It cannot take ten seconds to decide.

What happens during power on? UPS has no idea what its battery state is. A battery can only be verified after at least ten seconds of load. So that is what the UPS is doing. Loading the battery for 10 seconds. Then learning if the battery does anything. Not if the battery is good. A ten second test can only discover a battery at least marginal.

Noted before: a UPS battery has a 3 year life expectancy. That ten second test is insufficient to confirm sufficient battery power. Three plus years from now, a seriously degraded battery will still pass the test even though it can only power a computer for a few seconds . Test is simply a 'fast as possible' test. To learn if a battery stores any electricity.

Note the author. A person who keeps warning you that a majority on this subject are so often wrong. A majority only learn from advertising - not from designing stuff.

Those 'surge protected' outlets are nothing more than a power strip protector (without a power switch). With near zero joules. Just enough joules to claim 'surge protection' in sales brochures. Woefully too few joules to do protection. Those outlets are simply a power strip embedded inside the UPS box. Nothing more.

 

[sygnus21]

I shut it down at night and when the box is off and the monitor show it's off, then I turn the UPS off.

Turning it off doesn't protect you from electrical surges unless you unplug from the outlet… and if you're going to do that... why have a UPS, or surge protector in the first place.

If you turn the surge suppressor off, doesn't that disconnect the line voltage from the surge protection circuits and the outlet strip? I hear but I readily confused.

My question is why??? Would you want to turn it off??? This defeats the purpose of having one in the first place!

Here's the other side of the coin.... If the surge protector/UPS is STILL plugged into the outlet, and even though it's turned off, and you have a huge electrical surge, say lightning strike, are the items connected to the surge protector still protected? I think not! But….that would depend on the rating of the UPS/Surge Protector.

My point... even though the surge protector/UPS is "turned off", it STILL doesn't mean you're protected from an electrical surge if it's STILL plugged into the outlet, thus turning it off it useless. You have more protection leaving it on!!!

Have a look at these….
HowStuffWorks "Surge Protector Ratings"
How UPS Devices Work - Types of uninterruptible power sources - Softpedia

Good luck.

 

[glennc]

Hello westom,
What an excellent explanation for the uninitiated. I appreciate it, very much. So I need to keep in mind when three years are up. Do you know of any software that would test the battery beyond what is included in the APC software. I don't have any tests at all.
Thanks again!
glennc