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."

Comments

APC will remarket the ones returned:

[saskboy]

These returned UPS's will be resold as UFS's

Unstoppable Fire Supplies.

Re:APC will remarket the ones returned:

[baywulf]

More like "Unstoppable Pyrotechnic Sources".

Nooooo!!!

[oateater]

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.

UPS

[ez76]

Unexpected
Pyrotechnics
Show

Uninterruptible Power Supply?

[Dr. Photo]

Hah!

"Uninterruptible," my ass!

Re:Uninterruptible Power Supply?

[pyros]

I'll say. At my previous job, all us developers had UPS units on their workstations. We also had mini-fridges in our cubes. As it turns out, all those fridges were believed to have caused a specific scenario where the signal on the power lines resulted in all the UPS units shutting off. Not going to battery backup, actually shutting off. That was a wierd day. Dan, you reading?

I'm keeping mine.

[Hubert_Shrump]

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.

Re:Pop goes the power supply.

[Dougthebug]

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.

What if I don't want to return it?

[bonsai_kitty]

I think I *could* give it to my boss.... Because I really do miss that nifty red StreamLine stapler he stole (mumbles something).

Best URL

[breser]

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.

Getting the serial number via Linux

[breser]

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

Well looks like I have one of them...

[hyperactiveman]

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.

WAY TO BE COMPLETELY WRONG!!!!!

[Phosphor3k]

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