Re: UPS failure modes (was: fire at NAC)

[Simon Lockhart <simonl () rd bbc co uk>]

On Thu May 29, 2003 at 04:29:13PM -0400, Alex Rubenstein wrote:
> From folks I've talked to (engineers and industry people), Powerware seems
> to be known as the UPS that just works. I've yet to talk to one person who
> had a powerware die on them. Myself included.

We are a Powerware house. We had a large number of 3kVA and 6kVA units in
our previous data centre (no-one would stump up the cash for a large unit
so we had to buy them as we needed them). After about 5 years (very rough
figure), we've now had 3 or 4 units fail, sometimes in the UPS, sometimes 
in the bypass unit. They all seem to be component failures (in the case
of the bypass unit, a leg broke off a small capacitor). I don't think we've
replaced any of the batteries in that time and they're still all holding charge
well, even at full load.

At our new site we have some 50kVA and 80kVA units that we inherited from the
previous owners. One is already exhibiting the signs of a failing fan, but 
we have no idea what their history is before we moved in.

Simon
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