APC RS1500 UPS Going South

My UPS for my mail and web server is going south. Been headed there slowly for a while. While all the UPS’s were reporting line voltage at 120V it started reporting the line voltage at 118V. Then 115V. Then 110V. then 101V. then 99V. I thought no big deal as long as it kicked in when the power would go out.

But it’s low voltage trip point was 97V. So when it got that low it went into Voltage Boost mode. Which uses the batteries. When the batteries got low it shutdown the server. And itself. Took a few hours to shutdown. No warning, no beeping. But it came back on rather quickly and the server’s set to reboot when power is restored. So it did. That happened twice now. Lowered the low voltage trip point to 94V. Wanted to go lower but that’s as low as it will allow.

So I swapped it out today with the one for my Windoze box. Cuz I hardly use Windoze. I can limp along that way until I get a replacement UPS. After rewiring when I turn on the UPS now it immediately goes into Voltage Boost mode. It thinks the line voltage is 88V. Have/had 6 of these UPS’s a long time. 3 1000VA and 3 1500VA. Bought many of them at the CompUsa store and they’ve been gone 10 years. This is the second 1500VA now to become unusable. Can’t complain I guess. 10+ years is good service.

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