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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."
These returned UPS's will be resold as UFS's
Unstoppable Fire Supplies.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
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.
Why do I have to return my huge brown truck??!?!?! WHY!!!!
ooooohhhhhh UPS "UNITS"!, my battery backup. I won't miss that at all, thank god i can keep my truck.
Unexpected
Pyrotechnics
Show
"Uninterruptible," my ass!
I can't tell which model mine is, all thw text melted off...
-- Shaun "Blessed are the geeks, for they shall Internet the earth"
Thank heavens that a) My mother-in-law does not read slashdot and b) knows that I have one of these. She is convinced that any machine left turned on is a fire hazard. Now this would just add fuel to her ... oops :)
wow, if AMD and APC combine forces they can burn down and catch nearly everything on fire. :)
Free Instant Site Inclusion
When the lights go out - I don't know about you - but I want to huddle around the UPS, tell ghost stories, and roast marshmallows.
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
Having a ton of equipment in my house, I had on occasion wondered if something like that could happen. A couple months back I had a netgear hub start acting whacky, later that day I heard a loud crack which at first I thought was a gunshot.
It turns out it was the powersupply exploding. The plastic top blew off hard enough to make a mark in the ceiling. Examaning the supply, it looks like it was a tiny chip in the adapter. Part of it was not melted so much as cauliflower looking like a silicon STD. Perhaps they were made by Innova?
This was only my second experience of something frying in all my years of computing but I do wonder what the actual rates of this type of failures.
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-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
-- Will program for bandwidth
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.
I think I *could* give it to my boss.... Because I really do miss that nifty red StreamLine stapler he stole (mumbles something).
Computer science is a grab bag of tenuously related areas thrown together by an accident of history, like Yugoslavia.
What is the shipping charge for weight of 2.1 million UPS units? Both directions...
Yikes...
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.
black smoke...bad smell....some flames.... Shreiking secretaries running away from the source of all this combustion. You'll know them when you see them.
:) - I'm sure your new-found dedication to safety will be appreciated by all concerned.
jokes aside...me thinks you should visit the manuf. website, and learn how to read S/N/s
'Was checking their press announcement and found this quote: "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." Umm... really, if you own a UPS and you need that information, you shouldn't own a computer, let alone an UPS.
I just happend to have one here at home, matching serial number and everything. Since their server seems to be also melted at the moment, what exactly is involved in shipping these back? Are the shipping charges refunded, do I go through the retailer I purchased it from? *sigh*
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.
Funny, I have a Back-UPS Office 280 that also melted like this. Apparently it blew a thermistor. At first I thought the smell was from my 30-year-old amplifier, but after some spectacular pyrotechnics and a small blackout, it became apparent that it was indeed the UPS which was sitting right behind it.
Granted, there was somewhere between 1x and 1.5x its rated capacity plugged into it, but still, a properly designed unit should either turn off or withstand such abuse.
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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
A few months ago, an APC UPS cost me everything I own in a huge blaze that almost destroyed my whole neighborhood. The fire fighters were able to pinpoint the starting point to my office/desk area and concluded the UPS as a possible ignition source. There was no load on the UPS at the time but it was plugged in with the inverter inside running. Its burning feeble plastic case ignited nearby paperwork and the rest was history. Gone were my home, all my possisions, years of art and software design. Most importantly was my beloved Great Dane Dirk whom I will never forget. I am still paying his medical bills on the attempts to save him. I hope the idiots that saved a few dollars by using a flammable plastic case instead of sheet metal will be made to pay for the losses of me and others. I am in Talent Oregon.
A few months ago in that very same office one of the UPS's begin emitting a high pitched whistle from within (described as a 'tea kettle' sound), likely very hot gases escaping.
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Expect 8 to change to thousands now that the light is on this. I lost everything I own (house, pet, office, belongings) to that poorly designed plastic UPS only a few months ago. I'm sure the company would love to have you believe that only 8 have torched. Just count how many reports are on Slashdot today.