High load on a UPS

[odis172]

I bought a used apc SUA750RM1U, the batteries were apparently changed 6 months ago. The load lights are fluctuating between 3 and 4 out of 5. I used my wattmeter, and my system is drawing about 350 watts, the max wattage the ups can provide is 460W. The battery charge lights are blinking when I have my system drawing full power, but its not hitting 5 lights of load. I think the unit is saying that at the currant load, the runtime is below what the user has specified as the minimum runtime. I need to set the runtime alarm to low, 2 mins or so, but i cant because the powerchute software you have to pay for, and i didnt get the software with the unit. The battery does appear to be in pretty good shape, with a 220 watt load it lasted for a bit over 15 minutes.

In short... What can i do about this, is it safe to ignore the blinking lights?

[Tony]

Originally Posted by odis172

I bought a used apc SUA750RM1U, the batteries were apparently changed 6 months ago. The load lights are fluctuating between 3 and 4 out of 5. I used my wattmeter, and my system is drawing about 350 watts, the max wattage the ups can provide is 460W. The battery charge lights are blinking when I have my system drawing full power, but its not hitting 5 lights of load. I think the unit is saying that at the currant load, the runtime is below what the user has specified as the minimum runtime. I need to set the runtime alarm to low, 2 mins or so, but i cant because the powerchute software you have to pay for, and i didnt get the software with the unit. The battery does appear to be in pretty good shape, with a 220 watt load it lasted for a bit over 15 minutes.

In short... What can i do about this, is it safe to ignore the blinking lights?

The blinking lights on the unit just mean that it can't provide a lot of run time should the unit go in batteries with that load. The unit probably needs a calibration to straighten that out. Maybe when the batteries were last switched, they didn't calibrate the unit so it has the wrong info.

Charge the unit to full and then pull the plug, how much run time do you get? If you're happy with the results, don't worry about the blinking.

If you want to get rid of the blinking, you need to calibrate. Also, PowerChute basic is free.

[odis172]

So i downloaded "PowerChute Business Edition v8.0.1 for Windows Vista/2008/2003/XP/2000" (was free) but during install it refuses to complete because "its not compatible with vmware server." This is pretty poor, since i dont actually run vmware that often. Guess ill just live with the blinking lights! Thanks tony

[Tony]

Originally Posted by odis172

So i downloaded "PowerChute Business Edition v8.0.1 for Windows Vista/2008/2003/XP/2000" (was free) but during install it refuses to complete because "its not compatible with vmware server." This is pretty poor, since i dont actually run vmware that often. Guess ill just live with the blinking lights! Thanks tony

It shouldn't be giving you that kind of problem. Try and reinstall it again, maybe there was a problem. Also, you can always do a manual calibration if you're interested, let me know and I can walk you through it.


Tony