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APC Recalls 2.1 Million UPS Units
Controlio writes "Check your cubicles. APC has recalled two of its Back-UPS CS models, the Back-UPS CS 350 and Back-UPS CS 500, in both the 120 volt and 230-volt flavors. The units were sold between November of 2000 and December of 2002. The affected units have the potential to overheat, melting the outer casing and causing a potential fire hazard. Yikes."
WEST KINGSTON, R.I. -- January 14, 2003 -- American Power Conversion (Nasdaq: APCC) (APC), in cooperation with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, today announced a voluntary recall of two models in its Back-UPS® CS uninterruptible power supply (UPS) line due to potential safety issues that may result in overheating and represent a potential fire hazard. The total number of affected devices being recalled worldwide is approximately 2.1 million with approximately 900,000 devices recalled in the United States.
APC has received eight reports worldwide of units overheating resulting in the melting of the unit's outer casing, six of which occurred in the United States. Three of the reported incidents resulted in minor property damage. No injuries have been reported.
The recall is limited to two specific models in APC's Back-UPS CS product line - the Back-UPS CS 350 and the Back-UPS CS 500, in both 120-volt and 230-volt models. The affected units were manufactured between November 2000 and December 2002. The units were sold primarily through computer and electrical distribution, catalog and retail outlets worldwide.
Consumers with affected units can identify them by the model markings on the front of the unit and by the serial numbers located on the bottom of the unit. Only units with serial numbers having the first six characters in the following ranges are affected:
AB0048 through AB0251
BB0104 through BB0251
JB0125 through JB0251
Any units with an "R" at the end of the serial number are not part of the recall.
APC recommends that the user immediately remove the UPS unit from service by turning off all connected equipment, turning the UPS unit off, and then unplugging the unit from the electrical outlet.
To learn more about the recall action and the process for replacing the affected units, users should visit www.apc.com or call 866 APC-RELY (866 272-7359).
APC has been working closely with the Consumer Product Safety Commission and other appropriate parties in this action, which does not affect any other APC devices.
"We remain highly confident in the overall safety and reliability of all of our products, and have been working diligently to ensure that this action results in a minimum inconvenience to our customers and channel partners," said Rodger B. Dowdell, Jr., APC president and CEO.
Usualy when a power supply blows its because of an overcharged capacator. Toms hardware had a review of a few dozen power supplies a few months back, he found that aparently alot of manufactures are overrating their supplies max wattage. Some of the blowouts he described sound pretty similar to what you mentioned (loud pop). Might want to see if your dead power supply was on his bad list.
They don't have a thermal overload sensor?!? I had an old 1200VA (not APC) that was cooled by a fan. The fan only kicked in while it was on battery power or while it was charging (because it ran warmer during those periods). One night, the power went out and the fan didn't kick in. The UPS got hotter and hotter until...the thermal switch tripped and the unit shut down.
Best Power publishes their pinouts and protocols, in addition to making a very nice UPS.
Their products are also bundled with power management software that works just peachily on a Linux box.
We've had a Patriot Pro in place on our production machine for a year or so now, absolutely no complaints.
To learn more about the recall action and the process for replacing the affected units, users should visit www.apc.com or call 866 APC-RELY (866 272-7359).
You could try their ironically spelled phone number. My guess is though you will have to go through 7 menus and wait on hold for a while before you can actually talk to someone. Good luck
As usual slashdot provides the worst URL for the story. The URL in the story is simply the press release. This is their main site about it, has much better information about how to identify if your UPS is part of the recall... and links to a nice FAQ. Of course I'm still wondering what type of unit they will replace mine with.
If you have apcupsd setup and the cable hooked up you can use the following command to find out your serial number:
apcaccess | grep SERIALNO
Just checked the CS 500 under my desk and sure enough mine is one of the ones in the recall.
Here's the more detailed page with instructions to finding out if your's is one of them.
And the recall instructions I got once I registered my UPS.
Looks like all they are doing is replacing the "dangerous" unit with a "safe" unit of the same model, as they ask you to remove the battery from the recall unit and reuse it in the replacement unit.
I was kinda hoping to get a fresh battery with this recall. But then this does save them a hell lot in shipping considering how heavy the batteries are. With 2.1 million unit, every ounce saved amounts to quite a bit of money.
Hopefully I get a replacement soon, power at my apartment sucks.
Nothing tops when Apple had to recall those PowerBooks shipped with bad batteries.
The 5300 may have been a crappy PowerBook, however they were never recalled due to batteries - 2 battery units overheated (neither caught fire) whilst being tested at Apple, and none of the problem Sony batteries were ever shipped to customers. An extended warranty (9 years IIRC) program was introduced to handle other problems with this model - the screen hinges were lousy, the plastics would often split, and there were was a rash of models with bad motherboards.
Unfortunately it's become an urban legend that Apple shipped some kind of burning PowerBook - but they didn't. You must be thinking of Compaq (had to recall 55,000 batteries from their Armada laptops), Dell (about 30,000 batteries from the Latitude and Inspiron models), or IBM (about 220,000 ThinkPad power adapters).
Nae bother
Here is a link to the signaling daemon which is completely open source, works with all their serial APCs and has bee out since october of 1999. http://www.apc.com/tools/download/software_comp.cf m?sw_sku=SDW32&os_list=Linux
Actually...
If you do read the tech sheet on SmartUPSes, you'll see it's not what you think.
What you wrote is precisely describing how a BackUPS works. The battery power stays dormant until there is a power loss. Then, it kicks in and with only a minor glitch, it gives you fairly rounded sinewave voltage.
SmartUPS is not the same. Technically, when you plug in a SmartUPS, all your power cord does is charge the battery. Everything plugged on your SmartUPS gets its current from the battery, which is really decently sine-waved.
That way, you don't suffer from minor brownouts, 1/100th secs spikes, voltage variation or anything else. The current sent to your devices is precise and regular.
Drawback: you have to change your batteries more often, as they are constantly being used.
There is a warranty for precisely these things. APC's one is really great. Simply the fact that you didn't even tried to send them in before buying one makes me feel like this story is a complete troll. I haven't heard from anyone having problems with APC, and they did save my day more than once.
Have a nice day
Mike
Just because a device is NRTL (e.g., UL) "listed", does not mean that that the NRTL actually tested it...
UL listing or recognition can indicate one of these:
1. the device's technical/construction details and product safety test data were submitted to UL by the mfr (COMPASS).
2. Certain tests were witnessed by a UL representative at the mfr's site (CTDP), where construction and test data are verified.
3. An example unit was submitted to UL for test and evaluation, along with construction details.
Conditions of Acceptability, and usage limitations of any UL listed (and many recognized)devices can be found on UL's website (http://database.ul.com/).
In any case, UL is supposed to visit the factory at least once per quarter to verify the the device is being built according to submitted construction details.