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White Hot: APC BX1500 UPS $99.99 - 50 MIR = $49.99
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i just realized i was putting it in the reverse way because apparently the factory cables were "bent" in that fashion, now i had to twist the battery-side cable in reverse so now keeping the cover on is a bit hard. =/ anybody else had to do this? im afraid because the connector cable looks warped now after i had to bend it to get it to twist and go in the right way.
Someone asked about replacement batteries a few posts back. APC prices for replacement batteries are exorbitant for any of their UPS's. I have used their UPS's for years (have five in the lab right now) and have always found replacements at a fraction of the APC price. The battery pack for these BR1500's consist of two 12v 9AH batteries mounted face to face with a connecting unit that includes the cable that comes out to the front. The replacement batteries are UB1290 and can be purchased singly for as little as $16 each. You simply use the connector to mate the two new batteries for an exact replacement for less than half the price. You will need to tape the two batteries together so they are a single module -- just as APC does in their battery pack. If you got one or more of these UPS's you may wish to file away the replacement battery number; UB1290.
FreedomGUNDAM
Platinum Member
thanks for the info on the batteries.
I also have quite a few UPS in my home. I never purchase replacement batteries from APC. I usually goto Batteries Plus locally or the Interstate batteries store to pickup some replacement batteries for my UPS.
I also have quite a few UPS in my home. I never purchase replacement batteries from APC. I usually goto Batteries Plus locally or the Interstate batteries store to pickup some replacement batteries for my UPS.
Just a thought for people that don't get this deal from office depot.
I bought a number of apc smart ups 1000 and 1500 from ebay.
Most had good batteries. My average price was about $35.
The smart ups does sine synthesizing, which is much better than the 'modified sine wave'
(really square waves plus some 0 voltage) that the back ups line does.
I also bought an apc smart ups 3000 on ebay for $63 and
a big battery box with 4 car sized batteries on ebay for $26.
It should provide power for many hours.
The smart-ups provides a much longer runtime than the back-ups
line does at a given 'va' rating. The smart-ups 1000 weighs 42lbs,
the smart-ups 1500 weighs 53lbs, and my smart-ups 3000 weight
about 100lbs. The battery pack weighs 280lbs (remove the batteries
and it isn't a big problem to move).
Just be sure to bid on items that you are willing to drive to get.
As others have pointed out, buy replacement batteries on ebay
or at a local store such as batteries plus.
see www.weasel.com/comp-ups.html for more details
I bought a number of apc smart ups 1000 and 1500 from ebay.
Most had good batteries. My average price was about $35.
The smart ups does sine synthesizing, which is much better than the 'modified sine wave'
(really square waves plus some 0 voltage) that the back ups line does.
I also bought an apc smart ups 3000 on ebay for $63 and
a big battery box with 4 car sized batteries on ebay for $26.
It should provide power for many hours.
The smart-ups provides a much longer runtime than the back-ups
line does at a given 'va' rating. The smart-ups 1000 weighs 42lbs,
the smart-ups 1500 weighs 53lbs, and my smart-ups 3000 weight
about 100lbs. The battery pack weighs 280lbs (remove the batteries
and it isn't a big problem to move).
Just be sure to bid on items that you are willing to drive to get.
As others have pointed out, buy replacement batteries on ebay
or at a local store such as batteries plus.
see www.weasel.com/comp-ups.html for more details
Here's my mini review guys:
Well, I got one of mine hooked up finally. It's a big improvement over my APC 725VA. Unlike my older APC unit this one is completely silent. Electronics in my 725 would make this constant high pitched electical noise. It's not too loud, but I can hear it when pc isn't working. This unit however, is completely silent unless you put your ear right up against the box. It also more than doubled my battery time from 16 to 38 minutes (I have a crt monitor, pc box, dsl modem, and wireless router hooked up). Also AVR in this unit is better because it allowed me to set tigher voltage regulations by couple more volts on each end.
Make sure you guys download latest v2.0 software off APC site.
Also make sure you run self test after you get everything hooked up. One problem I ran into when running self test is in the middle of it when it switched to battery my pc would go to hibernation. I fired it back on and it locked up with corrupted screen. On second test my pc went into hibernation again, but this time I could come back without a problem. Software said it had problem communicating with back-ups and that I should shut down everything and turn the unit off for one minute. After I did that it passed the seft test without turning off my pc. So something didn't click right at initial setup and I had to turn it off to reset it. Maybe it's because I had previous APC unit installed, I dunno.
People are saying these aren't that good cus they're not smart but can't really provide and reasons. I've been running one for two years with no problems. I'm sure it saved me at least couple windows reinstalls. In the end everything in electonics now days gets converted to square wave (digital) anyway so might as well do away with sine wave. There are probably very few electronics out there which power supplies wouldn't be compatible with this back-ups. Certainly not computers. As for battery life, I don't have both to compare side by side, but I would think smart-ups would eat battery faster because it has to emulate a more complicated wave, but I can't say for sure.
Overall, I really like this unit over my old one. Lots of improvement, the main one is that it's 100% silent. Double the battery time, more sockets and tighter AVR is also a plus. At this price for a brand new back-ups it can't be beat.
Well, I got one of mine hooked up finally. It's a big improvement over my APC 725VA. Unlike my older APC unit this one is completely silent. Electronics in my 725 would make this constant high pitched electical noise. It's not too loud, but I can hear it when pc isn't working. This unit however, is completely silent unless you put your ear right up against the box. It also more than doubled my battery time from 16 to 38 minutes (I have a crt monitor, pc box, dsl modem, and wireless router hooked up). Also AVR in this unit is better because it allowed me to set tigher voltage regulations by couple more volts on each end.
Make sure you guys download latest v2.0 software off APC site.
Also make sure you run self test after you get everything hooked up. One problem I ran into when running self test is in the middle of it when it switched to battery my pc would go to hibernation. I fired it back on and it locked up with corrupted screen. On second test my pc went into hibernation again, but this time I could come back without a problem. Software said it had problem communicating with back-ups and that I should shut down everything and turn the unit off for one minute. After I did that it passed the seft test without turning off my pc. So something didn't click right at initial setup and I had to turn it off to reset it. Maybe it's because I had previous APC unit installed, I dunno.
People are saying these aren't that good cus they're not smart but can't really provide and reasons. I've been running one for two years with no problems. I'm sure it saved me at least couple windows reinstalls. In the end everything in electonics now days gets converted to square wave (digital) anyway so might as well do away with sine wave. There are probably very few electronics out there which power supplies wouldn't be compatible with this back-ups. Certainly not computers. As for battery life, I don't have both to compare side by side, but I would think smart-ups would eat battery faster because it has to emulate a more complicated wave, but I can't say for sure.
Overall, I really like this unit over my old one. Lots of improvement, the main one is that it's 100% silent. Double the battery time, more sockets and tighter AVR is also a plus. At this price for a brand new back-ups it can't be beat.
For all that have this set up, what are your experiences? When I plug the USB cable into my computer it installs as a RS1500 instead of XS1500 (free upgrade??). After installing powerchute, the application is telling me the battery is 100% charged (keep in mind that I just plugged the UPS in and the instructions say it has to be charged for 8 hours before use)!!?? Also, after powering the UPS off, powerchute and windows still registers 100% battery available? Hmm... just want to know if everyone here have similar experiences.
cheap: The Smart-UPS series outputs a true sine wave and provides for true buck/boost of the incoming AC without having to switch to batteries.
The Backup-UPS series outputs a square wave. Virtually all switching power supplies don't care because of the way they obtain their power from the incoming AC. Sine is better, but square is fine for computer power supplies.
Back a couple pages I listed the weights of the various UPS's I use. Today I installed the 3 new 1500's and for the hell of it, checked the wattage draw of all my equipemnt so that I could load balance the new UPS's.
Here is what I came up with. Test load was actually a large house fan on low, drawing 130 Watts.
Conext rated at 900VA - Total run time before shutdown - 6 minutes
APC rated at 650VA - 17 minutes
Cyberpower rated at 900VA - 14 minutes
APC Smart-UPS rated at 700VA - 59 minutes
New APC BX1500 rated at 1500VA - 60 minutes
After installation viewing the backup time on my main machine with PowerChute shows a draw of 190 Watts and an estimated backup time of 40 minutes. That is the computer, 22" LCD monitor, DSL modem and Linksys Router.
The kicker is however, I am feeding the BX1500 with the 700XL so my actual backup time for the system should be close to 2 hours. Nice.
The Backup-UPS series outputs a square wave. Virtually all switching power supplies don't care because of the way they obtain their power from the incoming AC. Sine is better, but square is fine for computer power supplies.
Back a couple pages I listed the weights of the various UPS's I use. Today I installed the 3 new 1500's and for the hell of it, checked the wattage draw of all my equipemnt so that I could load balance the new UPS's.
Here is what I came up with. Test load was actually a large house fan on low, drawing 130 Watts.
Conext rated at 900VA - Total run time before shutdown - 6 minutes
APC rated at 650VA - 17 minutes
Cyberpower rated at 900VA - 14 minutes
APC Smart-UPS rated at 700VA - 59 minutes
New APC BX1500 rated at 1500VA - 60 minutes
After installation viewing the backup time on my main machine with PowerChute shows a draw of 190 Watts and an estimated backup time of 40 minutes. That is the computer, 22" LCD monitor, DSL modem and Linksys Router.
The kicker is however, I am feeding the BX1500 with the 700XL so my actual backup time for the system should be close to 2 hours. Nice.
The back-ups line doesn't put out square waves; it puts out 'modified
sine waves'. What this really means is square waves plus some zero
voltage.
Here is my lovely ascii art to show what that means:
Well, that didn't work. See www.weasel.com/comp-ups.html
for the ascii art.
The modified sine wave has less distortion than a square wave, but
much more distortion that a sine wave.
If you read my earlier post for this topic, you will note the weights
of the smart-ups 1000 and 1500. They are much heavier than the
backups of similar ratings. The reason is the smartups have bigger
batteries as the previous post mentioned. If all you need is 2 minutes
to shut down your computer safely, it isn't a big deal. If you want
to be able to work through a 5 minute plus glitch it is a big deal.
sine waves'. What this really means is square waves plus some zero
voltage.
Here is my lovely ascii art to show what that means:
Well, that didn't work. See www.weasel.com/comp-ups.html
for the ascii art.
The modified sine wave has less distortion than a square wave, but
much more distortion that a sine wave.
If you read my earlier post for this topic, you will note the weights
of the smart-ups 1000 and 1500. They are much heavier than the
backups of similar ratings. The reason is the smartups have bigger
batteries as the previous post mentioned. If all you need is 2 minutes
to shut down your computer safely, it isn't a big deal. If you want
to be able to work through a 5 minute plus glitch it is a big deal.
It is a good UPS.
It is too big and heavy though.
If you want a UPS to protect your PC from occasional power glitches during storms, and you have a typical home PC, this may be an overkill.
But, if you have the room and don't mind the weight, you have nothing to lose considering the great price.
Exactly. You could easily spend more for much lower-rated models.
I went to an Atlanta OD store (Piedmont road) yesterday (2/17) and, to my surprise, they had about 6 left. No indication that they are on sale...
I would have bought 2 if I had not just ordered a Belkin 1500VA model...
Thanks OP.
lopgok is correct. Teach me to post so early in the morning and in a hurry. Modified square wave is what I *meant* to say.
If I have time today I'll pull out the scope and take some photos of the actual outputs of the Smart-UPS and the Backup-UPS.
Of course for most people it is sufficient to say that relatively speaking, the BX1500 deal is an outstanding buy.
Someone mentioned that this may be overkill for people. Where I live springtime power outages are common (and expected). I like to pull my systems completely off the grid during thunderstorms and such and a good backup system allows for extended computer usage at those times. These BX1500's look like they should run an average system for close to an hour, a hell of a feat for 50 bucks, IMO.
I would also not let the physical size scare you. Due to the tower design the floor space footprint is not very large, I'd eyeball it at 3? x 14? or so.
I was able to completely revamp my backup system for $150 and get 2 years of warranty to boot.
If I have time today I'll pull out the scope and take some photos of the actual outputs of the Smart-UPS and the Backup-UPS.
Of course for most people it is sufficient to say that relatively speaking, the BX1500 deal is an outstanding buy.
Someone mentioned that this may be overkill for people. Where I live springtime power outages are common (and expected). I like to pull my systems completely off the grid during thunderstorms and such and a good backup system allows for extended computer usage at those times. These BX1500's look like they should run an average system for close to an hour, a hell of a feat for 50 bucks, IMO.
I would also not let the physical size scare you. Due to the tower design the floor space footprint is not very large, I'd eyeball it at 3? x 14? or so.
I was able to completely revamp my backup system for $150 and get 2 years of warranty to boot.
Not overkill. In Los Angeles, brownouts are quite common in the summer, and can last for hours. An AVR (boost, at least) model is essential here, if you want to keep online during a brownout. I got this unit for my TV/DBS system, since the TV picture reduces to a postage stamp during a brownout.
Tomer: I bet if you compare the batteries from your smart-ups 700va and 1500va you'll find that 700va battery is the same or even bigger/heavier because I see in your previous post that it weighs a whopping 55 lbs. I was under the impression that VA is not a reliable rating to go by and that watts is a much better rating. These 1500 units are rated at 865 watts. Check the watts/battery on that smart-ups. I don't think it lasted that long because it's "smart" but because it probably has car sized battery in there. 🙂 The cool thing about these 1500 units also is that you can expand the battery to make it last twice as long, but at this price it will probably be much cheaper to get two and chain them like you did.
You feed one unit with another? Is that good? APC recommeds that you plug these directly into outlets. I want to plug mine into a high quality surge protector since back-ups units aren't really good at surges. Do you know if it's good/bad to do that?
You feed one unit with another? Is that good? APC recommeds that you plug these directly into outlets. I want to plug mine into a high quality surge protector since back-ups units aren't really good at surges. Do you know if it's good/bad to do that?
That 700va ups mentioned above is a apc smart-ups XL. The XL means it can accept external battery packs.
The smart-ups XL are designed for heavier duty use than the smart-ups (not XL) line.
The smart-ups is designed for much heavier duty use than the back-ups.
Since I live in LA, and had a power failure during the summer, I used my smart-ups 3000 to power my refrigerator for several hours. When the batteries ran low, I ran a 200 foot extension cord to a friendly neighbor who had power.
Now I bought an external apc battery box with 200+ pounds of batteries. It should power my refrigerator for
over 8 hours.
A friend who had a small ISP had a bunch of smart-ups XL's and lots of heavy batteries. That is what you need to keep a small datacenter alive in the face of uncertain power. I have a bunch of smart-ups's because I bought them cheaply on ebay (about the same price as replacing the batteries on my cheaper ups's).
For a cheap consumer, a back-ups will keep the computer up long enough to do a controlled shut down.
If you need more than that, either buy some big *ss back-ups's or step up to a smart-ups.
My smart-ups 3000 uses a non-standard ac powercord (30 amp circuit if I recall correctly). Since many people don't
have such outlets, mine was bought untested, but worked fine. Since I am drawing just a few amps for a long time
from it, I don't worry about frying the AC adpater cord I made. Your mileage may vary.
If anyone wants some decent used UPS's in the los angeles area that need new batteries, just let me know...
I have several lying around.
The smart-ups XL are designed for heavier duty use than the smart-ups (not XL) line.
The smart-ups is designed for much heavier duty use than the back-ups.
Since I live in LA, and had a power failure during the summer, I used my smart-ups 3000 to power my refrigerator for several hours. When the batteries ran low, I ran a 200 foot extension cord to a friendly neighbor who had power.
Now I bought an external apc battery box with 200+ pounds of batteries. It should power my refrigerator for
over 8 hours.
A friend who had a small ISP had a bunch of smart-ups XL's and lots of heavy batteries. That is what you need to keep a small datacenter alive in the face of uncertain power. I have a bunch of smart-ups's because I bought them cheaply on ebay (about the same price as replacing the batteries on my cheaper ups's).
For a cheap consumer, a back-ups will keep the computer up long enough to do a controlled shut down.
If you need more than that, either buy some big *ss back-ups's or step up to a smart-ups.
My smart-ups 3000 uses a non-standard ac powercord (30 amp circuit if I recall correctly). Since many people don't
have such outlets, mine was bought untested, but worked fine. Since I am drawing just a few amps for a long time
from it, I don't worry about frying the AC adpater cord I made. Your mileage may vary.
If anyone wants some decent used UPS's in the los angeles area that need new batteries, just let me know...
I have several lying around.
The bx1500 uses the apc replacement battery cartridge #33 see http://www.apcc.com/resource/include/te...ec_index.cfm?base_sku=RBC33&tab=models
for details. It weights 5.33 kilograms.
For a smart ups 1500, http://www.apcc.com/resource/include/te...ex.cfm?base_sku=SUA1500&total_watts=50
the battery pack is apc cartridge #7, http://www.apcc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=RBC7
which weighs 11.68 kilograms.
The reason the smart ups 1500 has a battery (really two) that are more than twice as heavy, is that it is designed to
power equipment for more than twice as long as the back-ups.
By the way, many ups's will make quite a hum if you connect them to any audio/visual gear. APC has a special line
for audio/visual gear, that sorta looks like an A/V component, and hopefully doesn't make lots of electronic noise.
I had a on-line sine synthesizing gould UPS that made terrible interference for a FM radio...
for details. It weights 5.33 kilograms.
For a smart ups 1500, http://www.apcc.com/resource/include/te...ex.cfm?base_sku=SUA1500&total_watts=50
the battery pack is apc cartridge #7, http://www.apcc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=RBC7
which weighs 11.68 kilograms.
The reason the smart ups 1500 has a battery (really two) that are more than twice as heavy, is that it is designed to
power equipment for more than twice as long as the back-ups.
By the way, many ups's will make quite a hum if you connect them to any audio/visual gear. APC has a special line
for audio/visual gear, that sorta looks like an A/V component, and hopefully doesn't make lots of electronic noise.
I had a on-line sine synthesizing gould UPS that made terrible interference for a FM radio...
kaborka: You are correct, my bad. I overlooked them in the manual at
http://sturgeon.apcc.com/techref.nsf/partnum/990-1162A/$FILE/990-1162A_EN.pdf
They are shown on the box labelled 8.
http://sturgeon.apcc.com/techref.nsf/partnum/990-1162A/$FILE/990-1162A_EN.pdf
They are shown on the box labelled 8.
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