APC Back-UPS Pro 1500 Watt Teardown
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- A teardown of a desktop "PRO" UPS, the APC Back-UPS PRO 1500, a run down of the controller and power electronics of the system. I also compare it to the APC Smart-UPS 1500 VA, that I did a teardown of, some months ago.
Data on the unit (which is currently replaced by a newer unit with same model number "APC Smart-UPS SMT1500IC"): www.apc.com/sh...
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Discussion of the teardown: highvoltagefor...
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#electronicscreators #UPS #teardown
Thank you for entertaining teardowns
and good luck!
Thank you :)
For anyone having a problem with this ups. And getting the f02 error. Check the output mosfets (22n50n) if they're shorted out. And also the half bridge (irf2805) along with the 4 resistors next to them (33.2ohm). That's what i had been dealing with for over aweek. But finally fixed it.
Thank you for sharing your repair experiences with everyone else!
Great video!
The pro models usually (BR1500G) have external connectors for adding an additional battery to increase runtime. If APC cared at all about the environment, they'd allow us to change the float peofile to accommodate lifepo4 batteries. But alas, money talks and ..... walks
I have an older version, which uses similar topology, but has the old method of a huge transformer, and heavy windings. That large transformer I suspect is actually an autotransformer, used to do the line compensation that these can do, and thus you need a huge core with low loss, so that you do not have a huge power loss. Then the inverter bridge can run in reverse to transform down to DC, and the power mosfets body diodes are the rectifiers (or active rectifiers if the controller is properly designed) to charge the batteries. tap changing to allow charge control as well. Yes an old design, but the pro designation likely from the ability to add external battery packs on, instead of the internal 15 minute "shut down real soon" one, and giving the ability to run for a few hours with a bigger external battery.
Mine has 200 Ah of battery on it, no internal one (it was long dead when i got it as free), and has done well, and as bonus has plain USB interface, no fancy one.
Yes the transformer based ones are usually multi tapped for voltage regulation. I can not call RJ50 fancy, for USB, what was the whole idea of standardizing USB :)
@@KaizerPowerElectronicsDk Because they now can sell a $100 cable, added profit margin, because the cable costs less than $1 to make. The profit on the cable likely is more than what they made selling the UPS itself.
@@KaizerPowerElectronicsDk You mean APC abusing existing standards in a way that means you have to buy their proprietary cables for $30 each? I am shocked, shocked I must say to see APC doing this again!
Anyway, haven't bought their crap since I got last bitten by that in 2006.
Back-UPS is a consumer product line, and so the Back-UPS Pro is still consumer-oriented (prosumer oriented maybe?). The Smart-UPS you tore down previously is the much-superior one meant for commercial applications - hence its metal enclosure, more complex electronics design and sine wave output.
I'd say it's most likely they actually charge the battery using the small auxiliary power supply near the input filter - these units have a fairly slow charge rate, and the existence of diodes in the main inverter section implies it is unidirectional.
I never considered that it could be a very small and slow charger, but it could be justified in a UPS that really should be online 99.9% of the time.
If you aren‘t needing the transformer anymore, a teardown would be great.
How they did the windings (prob. Copperfoil), contacting of the wires, etc.
I have to disappoint you. It is already gone.
I have the Rs1000 pro, and it uses the RJ50 port on the back to just communicate through RS323 to usb to let the software do stuff like - battery health monitoring, backup time and automatic hibernation of the system on low battery thershold. I am using it with the internal 2 battery pack and an external 4 battery pack, gives me about 90 minutes on a 1.6KW load
That is a pretty long hold up time for such a large load, to 6 cells.
Interesting exposé. I'm hardly surprised that the "Pro" is just marketing.
That said, I've owned an APC Back-UPS Pro 1500 since 2012, and I believe it has saved me several times (voltage fluctuations and micro-outages are frequent in the French countryside 🇫🇷).
Aside from a battery replacement in 2019, I had no complaints until the past few weeks: at very low load (around 100 watts), nothing to report, but as soon as it reaches 250 watts, the fan turns on and won’t stop until the load decreases. This wasn’t the case before, and it’s very annoying. 😤 There’s no indication of an input voltage issue, no beeping, or anything else.
I contacted Schneider Electric’s customer service, and their response was essentially: "We don’t repair. We have no spare parts. Buy a new one."
Does this situation indicate a specific problem or suggest a potential cause, and is it repairable?
It could be that it needs cleaning from dust, your description sounds like something is not able to dissipate heat. It could also be dried out electrolytic capacitors, which generate more heat from lower capacitances in the inverter.
Thanks for sharing! Have 2 of these in action ATM, pretty good for small loads :)
Do you take advantage of the master/slave outputs, and got some only on surge protection?
@@KaizerPowerElectronicsDk no just use the PROTECTED ports for 1 server and a NAS on each
You have a great voice!
Thanks for the video, could you clarify if that model also comes with its transformer with its aluminum winding? To see how low the brand has fallen, since I saw that the latest APC models are having aluminum instead of copper, thanks for your content.
I did not look for winding material, I will do next time!
The RJ50 (not 45) that is on the back is a usb port to connect to a computer to change settings, in my opinion they are stupid for doing this because it could just have been a usb type b like most printers use because there is no electronics in the cable so they just wanted to sell an expensive cable that can't be reused for something else
Proprietary work when its worst, taking a standard protocol and ruining it with shit hardware.
@@KaizerPowerElectronicsDk Plus a connector and crimp tooling that is not common, so making the simple cable yourself is more difficult. No doubt there are a good number of copies of that cable on Aliexpress though, because the sellers can make a massive margin over the standard USB cable, and make it worthwhile to tool up for them.
I see I can buy the plugs locally for 50c each, but not the tooling, that I would have to order. Bit expensive to buy a $100 tool to make 1 cable, though no doubt you can sell the cables off afterwards, as they are also used for NI connections, and there is a cable and colour code for it.
@@KaizerPowerElectronicsDk i have 3 apc smart ups 3000 that i want to use as inverters for a solar system and i have taken one of them apart to modify the pcb with a usb type B and if i can get it fitted and working i will do it to the rest of them also :D
I modded the rj50 to work with the rj45 cable. Then made my own rj45 to usb cable.
The rj50 has 10 pins, the extremities are pin 1 and 10 which are (-) data and 5v. I just relocated them to other pins.
When looking at the port with the notch on the bottom and the metalic pins up. The far right is pin 1 and the far left is pin 10.
What i did is, on the pcb i bridged with a tiny blob of solder both pin 1 and 3 to move data (-) to pin 3. And pin 10 with 8 to move the 5v to pin 8.
The only thing is, the trace connecting pin 8 on the pcb must be cut with a tweezer. Since the rj50 has both serial and usb.
Here is the pinout before the mod :
Pin 1 : data (-)
Pin 2 : data (+)
Pin 7 : gnd ( -)
Pin 10 : 5v (+)
After the mod :
Pin 3 : data (-)
Pin 2 : data (+)
Pin 7 : gnd ( -)
Pin 8 a: 5v (+)
NOTE : pin 3 doesnt connect to anything on the pcb. So no need to cut anything.
@@rouuuk Thanks for sharing!
How do these units determine that a battery is bad and needs replacement? Mines flashing that it needs a new battery but when I test it by unplugging it from the wall with a 200W load it still works for almost the same time it did from when I got it years ago, but now the 'time remaining on battery ' goes to zero fast and sits there till it turns off!?!? Thanks!
The manual lists battery as lasting 3-5 years, before replacement. The worst case scenario would be that its just a timer randomly indicating battery change, after 3-5 years, but I doubt its that oblivious. Its a trade-off between you wanting security for the UPS actually working and if you trust the new battery pack seller :) Remaining life is maybe tested in its load and charge cycles, and it saves data and determines life time based on this. UPS was never meant to be a cheap solution, you are paying for having power available at all times and that costs money in spare parts. (new battery and possible new UPS) You pay for security, not low expenses.
Need to modify this unit into an inverter, anything you can share
But was the non-pro version fan cooled? LOL
I didn't see that tear down to look.
Forced Air Cooling is always PRO!
Do you have any recommendations to upgrade the fan to a silent one? Its been so loud when it runs.
Please let me know if you know the size of the fan.
Look up the performance of the current fan, amount of air per hour, CFM or M3/h, then find a larger fan with similar air flow rating and it should be able to do the same cooling at a lower noise level.
4:04 I really need to see if they turned off jtag or prevent dumping the firmware on the processor. Was this a modified sine wave or pure sine wave?
I never got into JTAG hacking, so can not answer that one. From the datasheet: Output Frequency: (sync to mains) 50/60 Hz +/- 3 Hz sync to mains, Topology: Line Interactive, Waveform Type: Stepped approximation to a sinewave
hello sir i have the same ups and today froze.... i take out the batteries put the power on but no screen display and after a few sec turn of but the thing is that i take voltage on the bottoms
IEC even when the ups is of. i see a grey cable that goes upper from a component that i dont what it is. its black and on it says 125oC its a few components upper from the speaker, near a brown capasitor 100μf 25V. the board also have 2 of this components in red color near the vertical toroidal coil. what are those i want to change them all . the black one and the 2 red
Why would you want to change something you do not know what is? The two red ones marked L18 and L19 on the circuit board, is inductors.
I have one of these, and I've used the external battery connector to hook it up to a 100Ah 24V battery. You just need to connect the third yellow wire to ground with a 20k resistor for the pack to be recognised. This has worked perfectly for over 1.5 years, but recently the UPS has been shutting down when the external battery is at more than 60% charge (measured by a coulomb counter). It is strange, because the external battery still has a voltage over 23.8V when this happens and can still source significant amounts of current directly. Trying to turn the UPS back on at this point results in a F02 error, but if I disconnect the load, the UPS turns on and the internal battery starts sourcing over 3A of current from the external pack. If I leave it in this state for a while until the current drops, I can turn it back on with the load attached for a short duration. Any clue what might be happening? Weak internal batteries? Do I need to buy another set?
I tried replacing the internal batteries with another set I had laying around which had only seen very light use, but it still shuts down at around 50% external battery charge. When I originally hooked them up I tested by draining them all the way to 10% charge and it worked perfectly.
I've also been a little frustrated with this setup as it has never been able to charge very quickly, the UPS only seems to charge the external pack at a max of 3A, which takes dozens of hours to fully charge the pack. I've somewhat worked around this by using a double throw breaker and an external charger which can charge the battery at 10A. If I don't disconnect the UPS from the pack using the breaker when connecting the charger they both seem to get very confused and fight over which device charges the battery.
F02 says its on-battery output short. Mentions that you need to remove load from battery backup outlets. The external battery is also listed to only be the Back-UPS RS 1500 only, perhaps they do coulomb counting too and you can not exceed the capacity of that original battery pack? Would make sense from their point of view, its properly not built for running 24/7, but only for the duration of internal pack + original external.
@21dws i have same issue with a 60AH 24V LITHIUM ION BATTERY, the only way to "fix it" is using powerchute, just check the battery status and when it says 20% or 50%, replace battery date in the software, it will reset the battery status to 100% once again you can press it any time you need to add extra time and use all the battery voltage
sir, i buy ups apc br 1200si, but the internal fan never spin. why?
Broken or not hot enough.
Need an expert opinion for something I am struggling for a long time. I have a APC Backups pro 1500VA/865W connected to a PC with 4090 GPU. When PC is on standby drawing 300W load and if power supply fails, the PC remains running, but when I load a game and the PC starts drawing 650W, if there a power fluctuation, the PC restarts. The UPS is 2 years old as of now and for 1.5 years I never faced this issue. Is it a sign of some component that is switches from power supply to battery supply not able to work at its original capacity and if yes, what that component is and could it be repaired?
A UPS of this size is only meant for shutting down safely in case of power loss. Pulling 650W from a UPS rated for a maximum of 865W will drain the battery real fast.
@@KaizerPowerElectronicsDk I understand that part of shutting down, but shutting down is not the problem, the problem is when power switches from grid to battery, PC restarts when PC is pulling 650W and does not restart when PC is pulling 300W on a UPS which is supposed to supply 865W. Earlier this was not happening. So wanted to know which component actually controls this switch which is currently not working as expected.
@@jerrygeorge007 The UPS specifies a 8 ms switch-over time, maybe that is too long for your computers PSU and its actually the voltage dipping on your secondary voltages of the PSU that is the problem and not the UPS. You would need a oscilloscope and differential probes to measure both battery voltage, UPS output and PSU outputs to pinpoint the problem.
This unit looks an bit different
more ups teardowns, also i wanna see the project where you plug them all together and something something profit
I must admit, that pile of parts is massive by now :o