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you can solder aluminum to copper wire with standard solder and special flux for aluminum, sadly more and more devices like transformers and motors are wound with aluminum wire today
I have of the exact same UPS in use in my shop, all within 2 years old, maybe the oldest one is three. One is inside my locked server cabinet (tight fit). So far, all four have been great. The last one is well past its return to Amazon time. I guess I just have to keep my fingers crossed.
@@unmanaged he just showed you the failure 🙄 f02 warning for a fuse or relay? Presumably for a fuse or relay directly in line with the solid state transformer winding failed connection.. that he just showed you
Copper Clad Aluminum no doubt. I personally have had rack mount APC brand equipment fail in a data center. The transformers are garbage. At least the technology is smart enough to fail safe.
Yeah, this seems like typical "x supplier is out of transformers so we're going with y" bargain bin stuff. I have seen some hokey stuff, but this is next level.
The QC/inspection printout on the side is pretty common with APC's consumer & smaller APCs. It's there to show that it's been through QC, and they've been sticking it to their hardware for a long time. We've stopped selling APCs altogether now. Their quality declined precipitously after Schneider Electric bought them out. And their inverter boards never seemed to do all that well down here in Florida anyway.
Schneider Electric is another one of those garbage globocorps we're the only thing they care about is the bottom line, therefore everything they touch turns into the brown stuff that humans excrete as waste.
Eaton aren't much better, I've killed 2 eaton 9px 2200's in 2 years. They last about 13-15 months, so you get the first one replaced under warranty, and then the second one runs just out of warranty before it goes bang. Good news is they both failed in different ways so now I have one working UPS and a pile of spare parts.... for now.
Oh my, as the owner of an IT shop, this was a shock -- Our "meat n' potatoes" UPS is the APC BR1500MS2 1500VA unit. In the next 48 hours we are ripping apart the transformers of this unit and the equiv from CyberPower and Triplite. Whomever has copper windings on the xformers is the winner to me. Regardless, APC is OUT...this is unforgivable. MASSIVE thanks to Mr. Carlson for bringing this issue to light.
@@MesoTroniK Oops, me bad, should have posted -- The Cyber stuff and the Triplite stuff we use have copper windings. I wanted to check some of the 2000VA and 3000VA units too but I balk at tearing away insulation to expose wires on those spendy beasts. The only saving grace for APC is that their standby power use is lower than the equiv Triplite and Cyber we use, but meh, electrons are cheap, for now.
@@ronsingh Thank you! And that confirms what I believed, that CyberPower makes a superior product. At the least I have never had any issues with a multitude of their sine wave pfc1500 units.
@@MesoTroniK Yes! That CP1500PFCLCD is the model we roll out with all pretty much every desktop for our clients. Great unit. I have been a stanch supporter of everything APC since the mid-80s and for them to betray the trust consumers have placed in them is truly disheartening, such a shame.
This is the first time I've ever seen Aluminum wire used in a transformer! I noticed a very steep decline in the quality of APC units roughly 10 years ago despite their premium price. After I had a few fail only a couple years into service, I replaced every single APC UPS I had with units from Cyberpower and couldn't be happier.
Seems like the old lie about aluminum wiring being bad and causes fires and shorts out is coming back when the size of copper wires versus the aluminum is the real problem. You need LARGER guage wiring for aluminum compared to copper and that's all . They work well in household electronics if simple rules are followed like using a proper flux to joint aluminum to copper for instance.
There are lots of aluminum windings on transformers and motors, if aluminum wires are the correct size and crimped correctly using proper hardware they can last indefinitely, although they do not withstand temperatures as high as copper because aluminum conducts heat worse than copper and temperatures can rise too much in the innermost part of the windings burning the insulation.
APC devices were really top of the line and were extremely reliable, at least when they were made by American Power Conversion. In 2007, Schneider Electric acquired APC and the quality has gone steadily downhill ever since.
Even things like their stud and electrical cable detectors look like cheap Chinese garbage. To think these guys make massive industrial electrical hardware is shocking. Honeywell have gone the same. Cost cutting to increase profits superficially.
One has to wonder how many other little hidden shortcuts lurk in all the cheap garbage electronics we are surrounded with. Awful LED lamps and their power supplies come to mind. Good job, Mr. C! At first I wondered why you'd soil yourself on this junk, but it ended up being informative and ....revealing. Thanks!
If you want tôsee numerous cheap led lamps dismantled, look at Bigclive here on youtube. Surprisingly, at least when it comes to bulbs, most are not great, mostly drivng the actual LED chips harder than healthy for them to last, but rarely electrically terrible. when it comes to led fixtures, the picture is a bit more mixed, sometimes even literally shocking... ut this was a useful video, as I was in the market for a small size UPS. Well guess which brand just went out of the window...
@@spvillano American greed.... China will build to whatever spec you desire. Thats one of the reasons The US is terrified. China builds very high quality that a lot of the US cant or wont. "APC, a flagship brand of Schneider Electric - APC USA" Some flagship...
@@guym6093 some may be terrified, but quite a few of us remembers history of nations industrialization. As for a flagship, the Titanic was also a flagship for a company.
My father used to say: "During my days, things were made to last". How true he was. In the name of "value engineering", core engineering takes a back seat.
Absolutely! I have transformers from the 1930's that are fine. Its enameled copper, insulation material, and a core. It's amazing how they can make something so simple (nowadays) fail.
My grandfather was a TV repairman, used to be his "gopher" on house calls for those big old wooden console tube sets, running to the car trunk to dig up a tube or something he didn't have in his "common stuff" case he brought in. Between him & my dad I learned basic electronics repair (and I remember drooling over the 1974(?) R-E article on the Altair 8800, which led to me reading the TTL handbook probably cover to cover and eventually my IT career). Even today I've got an old 1959 Zenith tube clock radio by my bed (was my uncle's), and I look to repair things before buying something new. My old job in the 90s I'd grab older computers and dead monitors off the "scrap" pile going to computer recycling, fix them up and basically give them to friends who wanted "to get on that new internet thing" (had them cover the modem card cost basically). I still tend to look at things I buy from a "serviceability" standpoint, I don't like buying things that are obviously designed to be "throwaway"... Like I look for lithium battery things that have replaceable 18650 cells rather than those gel-pack batteries - not that I generally can't open it up and replace it, but I know that's designed to have most people just scrap it when it dies rather than just replace the battery, and I'd rather not encourage that. That's my biggest beef in recent years - like the new iPhones where you can't even replace the battery without sending it back to Apple for expensive service, when that's probably the main "wear item" and should be easy to replace. But... That's the old "designed to fail" thing, to drive you to buy new ones and keep them making money.
Back then, things were simple, heavy, and made by a company that cares about their image. Today, they're very complicated and made in an endless race to the bottom.
@@captainz9 Back then you needed a tv repairman because tv's required constant service and ir maintenance. When I was a kid in the 60's vacuum tube tv's didn't last all that long. You could change tubes, potentiometers and channel selector had moving parts that quickly wore out and needed to be replaced, but the tv was thrown out if the crt went. The average tv probably lasted 5 years and not without regular service. Solid state didn't need vacuum tubes replaced but potentiometers and channel selectors were still a high service item and you still threw the tv out if the crt went. Still 5 year lifespan. I have a 17 year old 42" lcd tv that has never required service and works like brand new still and hangs on the wall instead of taking up half the room. I also have a 50" led, ditto except it is only 10 years old. You say new tvs can't be fixed, I say they don't need to be fixed because they don't break.
@@captainz9 I AGREE, absolutely. Things today, are made for easy assembly at the makers' plants. B U T, just try to take apart, and REPAIR THEM ? THEY'RE MOSTLY MADE, to last only a short time; NOT really engineered, to 30 % over the ratings. JUST make warranty time, then, kaput ; throw it away, buy another one. An item of interest: the other night, while dumpster snooping, i found an old Bell and Howell slide projector. A square plastic box, about 10 inches square, maybe 7 inches high or so. Took it apart, and WOW. WHAT QUAILITY OF THINGS, USED. THE LAMP HOLDER, THE COOLING FAN, THE MIRRORS AND LENSES/MAGNIFIER ARE AWESOMELY MADE ! unlike todays' junk..... HANG IN THERE, Captain Z. (no zees, for us old fixer guys.....i guess. )
That’s sad. I used to use APC all the time for smaller data centers but it seems like they’ve really gone cheap. The silly thing is that if they had used the proper connection Im sure it would hav been just fine. That was such shoddy work, I hope you sent pics to APC just to document the hazard.
Thanks for the autopsy of this UPS. I've had several of these same units fail along with the warranty replacements. Either firmware issues or seeing the outer case actually melting because the transformer overheated. Even with a small load! APC demands a premium price, but IMHO, their product is far from premium anymore.
When I was an IT manager, we used these specific devices. They have an absolutely ATROCIOUS failure rate… They fail in the most spectacular fashion also, usually with sparks and smoke (which made for some very interesting helpdesk tickets). I did autopsies on a few of them. Often it would be those voltage regulators (the ones attached to the 4 heat sinks) which would explode. I can’t emphasize this enough: AVOID THESE!
This seems to be a new trend over the last 5-6 years or so with cheaper electronics in general. The bean counters are working overtime. I've been finding aluminum wire in chokes/inductors in switching power supplies as well, and they will coat it to look like copper. One quick test I'll sometimes do now on a power supply is to just nick one of the wires on a large inductor inside with my cutters or a knife, just to check for aluminum. Also really common on cheaper budget and mid range ATX power supplies.
How does this crap even pass UL?! This is insane at this point. Then again tri-level homes in my neighborhood are all full of aluminum romex and they were all built in the early 70s.
Happening throughout the IT industry, too. (my well-known It employer was just taken private by a vulture private equity firm). All the new owners care about is extracting as much cash as possible and eventually they'll throw away the dead carcass that's left). Cut quality, raise prices, and don't give a damn about anyone except the top few customers. It's the "in thing" nowadays....
@@wonderbars36 UL certification costs money and time and UL always has a backlog of customers. Most of these cheap import manufacturers are either not going to bother or just put a counterfeit UL logo and number on the product and hope it gets through US Customs, and it usually will as they don't have the manpower to inspect everything. Customs rejects electronic products all the time for violations and the shipments get returned to China (where they will just turn it around and try to send it back again eventually), but they barely catch a fraction of it. I work in an office in shipping/logistics for a large carrier, and do sometimes handle customs bonding and duties paperwork for import/export shipments. None of this is uncommon.
Glad that you brought this to our attention. I stopped using APC products quite some time ago...had several fail catastrophically (lots of smoke & sparking).
While i am no electrical expert, i have installed thousands of UPS batteries over the years. Often when failing you can hear them switch quickly back and forth from line to battery which is a fast clicking sound that can also certainly sound like arcing. All the larger APC models come with their so called QC report taped to the side like you had there, that is normal when they are new. Thanks for the great videos!
In many states Aluminum wire was used to wire entire homes, from the breaker box to the outlets. Here in California in some places back in the 80s this was very common. Entire subdivisions were wired with aluminum wire. Unfortunately.. Aluminum wire doesnt crimp properly under outlet screws..tighten them up, come back in a year and they are loose as a goose, tighten them up again.. wait a year.. loose again. Wash, rinse and repeat. A lot of house fires happened as a result. And rewiring a home from the box to the outlets is a nearly impossible job without running wire duct or pulling off the sheet rock. Given that southern homes seldom have a basement or a crawl space... brrr! Ive seen a Bunch of homes gutted and rewired, then resheet rocked back again. Really.. really expensive.
@@GunnerAsch1 Aluminum wire is still used in the larger gauges such as between a panel and sub panel and certainly service entrance. If terminated properly using the correct hardware it is just fine. It was the smaller gauges used to connect outlets and switches that caused the fires, probably due to improper hardware not designed for aluminum and lack of training and experience using aluminum. Electricity gets most of the way to your house on aluminum wire used by utilities and even in some of their big transformers. Aluminum is probably still not worth the trouble for branch circuits due to the larger size wire needed and extra fire risk if poorly terminated. It looks like it's not so great in UPS transformers either for the same reason! Really big electric transmission lines are "ACSR". Aluminum conductor steel reinforced. ACSR is a steel cable for tensile strength surrounded by aluminum for conductivity. Not any copper at all. On the other end of wire size scale I tried to solder cable TV wire once. Nope! Had to get a crimp tool!
The thing on the side is a factory testing protocol, and you get that with every APC UPS, or at least every half decent one. It is there to tell you the unit passed QC and works, so you can be (relatively) sure that it won't cause a power outage itself.
@@centauri61032 I think it is there to make sure you didn't accidentally receive someting that didn't pass QC and put that thing into a critical application. So if they mixed the units up, threw a good one out and gave you the bad one, you can show them that it says "failed", and they will give you a new one. This protocol follows the unit through the entire QC and shiping process. Some car manufactureres also do this, so that a worker can't accidentally skip a step in the assembly, and you don't end up getting a car without a horn or a muffler because someone forgot to install it. Some even take this to an extreme, using electric screwdrivers that track which screws are tightened, so they can't forget a screw or leave it loose, causing stuff to rattle or fall off.
Wow... This is unbelievable and extremely dangerous. In what Chinese basement those transformers were made, and how did APC end up using them? APC used to make the most reliable UPS. I have a whole bunch of old models that have worked for over 10 years. APC should have recalled these, I'm pretty sure it's not the only failed one.
I'm totally stunned that they use aluminium, horrible. I'm guessing for cost, weight and thermal properties during very short overloads, but if you're going to use it, then terminate it correctly lol.... I would be uncomfortable buying APC now, very sad. Great video as always
Probably not for weight reasons. It’s a commonly held belief that these kind of things are supposed to be heavy. They will literally put concrete bricks or cast chinesium in cheap stuff to make them feel higher quality.
@@Mr_Meowingtons there's a flux one uses to remove the passivation layer from the aluminum (aluminum quickly forms an oxide layer, called a passivation layer to protect it from further oxidation). So, copper cladding isn't necessary, but cheaper than the flux.
I used to stand by APC as I figured that they were reasonable quality, outside of, say a data center grade brand or model. Perhaps APC now stands for A Piece of Crud?
Sadly, I can''t say I'm surprised to see another failed APC. We've had 4 failures on the 3 units we installed. Yip, the warrantee replacement failed too. My theory is that they see their products as IT equipment, and due to be replaced every 4 years, not infrastructure that needs to last 40. And these were their R60 000 SmartUPS series. Do not recommend. Being in South Africa (three power failures/day, on average) we now install proper infrastructure grade hybrid inverters (Victron, etc.) and Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries.
Got an old APC750XL I got as free, dead battery packs, and use it with 4 car batteries externally. It works well, and I get 2 years out of the cheap flooded batteries, though I do have a monthly reminder to service them, which means checking the electrolyte level and filling it up, as APC really loves to fast charge the batteries, so you get back to full charge in 4 hours, though they take 8 to fully float charge. Toasts the SLA packs, but the flooded cells do not really mind, as this is a lot lower stress than being in a car engine bay. Just buy the cheap batteries and use them.
@@SeanBZA Back in the old days, we sometimes would modify rackmount APC UPS's to lower the charging voltage a bit for this very reason. They were notorious for cooking SLA cells and they'd expand to the point where you might need a crowbar to even get them out of the aluminum frame.
@@johnalexander2349 True, but it has use where you only go to 10% down per load shed cycle, or where cost is a driver.as they are a third the price of the lithium iron ones. Also the lithium iron are hard to get, always out of stock.
I've recently done the same for my small home office - ditched my APC SmartUPS (which itself was a replacement for one that cooked its batteries and was almost too hot to touch when I found it) for a Victron Multiplus II 24/3000 inverter and 2x LIfePo4 batteries. So far I'm very impressed - also helps that I've now got 2x400W solar panels hooked up so the office should be pretty much off-grid all summer, and I can now power the entire office for probably a couple of days if the power drops, rather than just my PC and some networking gear for ~20 minutes. To be fair it was just a little more expensive than the APC UPS but worth it I think.
APC used to make very good consumer grade UPSs and I have owned several of them. My older ones (7-10 years old) are still performing great and my only maintenance has been battery changes; but the newer two (1-3 years old) both failed just about after one year. I believe that APC has started sourcing cheaper parts from China and your aluminum wound X-former is likely one of them. I gave APC the boot a few years ago and I now own CyberPower units that are operating flawlessly.
APC was a competitor of my former company (retired last year). They flooded the market for years with cheap offline boxes such as this one. My guess is yours was a 500-700VA machine. In the US they are in the $100 a unit range and many users presume these machines disposable. They are used until the battery fails (about a year) and then the entire unit is replaced. That practice makes me crazy, but that's how the market views these machines. The Chinese make almost all of these units to the designers specifications. Some are better than others but they are about the same. We always specified copper windings in our transformers which made our machines a bit more reliable and costly (few dollars) but the market doesn't really care. Since all small UPSs are viewed the same, APC maximized their profits by reducing costs.
Apc makes units all over the world. Older units of them were mostly made in india or philippines. All 5 of my units are made in India. The last one being from 2020. I have not any problems with them. The only time i had to do some repairs was when a lightning strike killed some of the mosfets. It did not explode but it did got very hot and burnt the pcb. Nothing a few jumper wires could not fix 😂. Their lower end units like this one is made cheaply. I have a 500va model from 2003 & it is twice as heavy as a 1100va model from 2017. The 2003 model's transformer is twice as big as the 1100va model from 2017. & As such when i replaced the lead acid battery with lithium which has much more capacity & longer run time than leadacid. The transformer thermal fuse melted after 5mins into a full load test at 600w. The original battery were supposed to run for only a minute at this load. But the new lithium battery should have ran it for 15mins. But the ups failed earlier than that. I have another 1000va model from the pro lineup and it has a smps type inverter. And that unit is meant to run with external battery packs and so it did not fail even after i ran it overloaded (50w above rated) for 15mins. Most of the units sold in usa are made in china. , Most of the units sold in Europe and asia are made in India. The only ups worth buying from them are the smart models and the online models. Regular back ups is made with cheap components. Anytime you see a model using low frequency transformer on the inverter section. Do not buy it. Smps design is much more reliable. Even though those models still contain a similar steel core transformer for avr function but the main inverter is made from small high frequency transformer that does battery voltage to 380v dc then that dc is converted to ac with a full mosfet bridge.
Why the blatant lies? Do you work for Eaton/TrippLite or something? APC 1500VA UPSes are hardly $100 units. The batteries are standard lead acid batteries and last about 5 years in standby operation, just like all other cheap lead acid batteries. The batteries are completely user replacable, as you clearly saw in this video - no need to replace the entire unit. They're ridiculously overpriced from APC, but you can use any old brand - there's nothing special about them.
Wow! I had an APC ups fail similarly to this one just last week. Now I wanna really go and take a look at that transformer. It's the second or third APC that fails almost new and I now have switched to a different brand. I take it was a good decision. Thank you for this very interesting diagnosis!
Please let everybody know which brand you switched to. I'm on a warranty replacement of a "Pro 1500 S" that failed. My new one is 'version 2' of that model. They wanted about $80 for another 3-year warranty. But I figured that if this one fails, then I'm just switching to another brand. Someone mentioned switching to CyberPower, which I was thinking of myself - but that's because I don't know of many other brands.... I've had a Belkin fail before, so I'd be weary of getting another of that brand.
The title should be "Mr. Carlson Learns Planned Obsolescence". This is a common practice as the oxide layer takes about 2 years to break down, and coincidently the warranty is at most 1 year. That's why we stick with good old tech!
@@thighdude7 Get a used rack-mount corporate UPS from ebay. They usually need batteries replaced but the total cost comes out under these cheap-ass back-UPS units. Being corporate focused they are generally designed to run 5+ years at the minimum.
@thighdude7 I was referring to vintage radios and electronics as is most commonly showcased on this channel. If it isn't made completely from metal and uses vacuum tubes, it's no good!
Huh whut no! This isn't an oxide layer breaking down, having the oxide layer isn't a problem on the exterior and shouldn't be there on the interior of the joint, breaking down is just not what is happening. What you wrote simply makes no sense.
@@thighdude7 Unlike Mr Carlson, repair what you have. Replace the faulty component with an improved one and if that's the transformer, then it's the transformer. There is some time savings and logic in just buying another brand new, but, what if they got aluminum wound transformers from same supplier too? It wouldn't be surprising if they are competing on same capacity/price-point. Autopsy your dead unit and decide what to do from there. Until these aluminum wound transformers came along, they were a pretty rare failure point so you may just need a switching transistor or something, fried from a power surge for example.
Oh that’s unsettling. I’ve got several of these in my home broadcast studio. Time to replace those. I though the receipt paper on the side was also kinda weird too, and also left it.
What's the model number or date on these APC Back-UPS 1500 units? This is a shocking find and I'm sure more people should be aware of it. Also, what unit did you replace these with?
I stopped buying APC years ago when their reliability and quality went screaming over a cliff . The only thing surprising is that the unit somehow managed to not incinerate your lab .
i have like 6 ups, where i live the electricity is not reliable. My first 2 where apc and both failed after less than 2 years, after that i purchased cyberpower, i can say they are just way better, they have been with me for at least 7 years and i have just change the battery packs. Watching this video now tells me why the APC keep failing. great video man thank you for showing this
I was wondering what could caused that failure and never would have expected this. Now I'm going back to my failed unit of APC just looking like yours and checking... Thank you for this video.
Had the same transformer problem a few years back with another model of APC consumer UPS. I'm avoiding APC since then. They say APC pro versions should be fine, but for my use case way to expensive. Using Eaton UPS now and it's still working after three years 🤞
Hi Mr. Carlson, I love your work and I spent uncounted hours listening to your excellent methodical fault analysis. From my practice on aluminium: Aluminium is to be soldered with the correct flux. The German company Stannol provides ALU1, a specially filled soldering wire. It works fine, even with aluminium heat sinks. Although I only have Smart, UPS and no Back UPS out, I believe the video is about a production flaw and not a design fault. Michael
Transformer: More than meets the eye! 😁 I've used APC for decades. Every one of them lasted at least 10 years, and one lasted 20, excepting battery replacements. (The one running this PC right now dates to ~2012.) I know Schneider bought APC. If this is indicative of the quality we can expect under their ownership, I might not be buying APC ever again. Maybe let us know (perhaps on Patreon) what you selected to replace it?
Thanks for the autopsy on your UPS. I have several APC's in use and have never had a problem other than an eventual battery replacement. My guess is that the transformer had a marginal connection from the get-go. However, that doesn't make anyone feel any better about the quality.
I have several UPS devices running in my house as well mainly APC Back-UPS 1500/1300 models and I find they all pretty much fail after a couple battery change intervals when their internally circuitry fails. They commonly either stop charging their batteries or overcharge their batteries and the entire UPS has to be replaced. If they last 6-7 years I am happy...................
APC made really great stuff back in the day. I still have two that are in metal cases and use regular wall receptacles in the rear panel. The much newer computer I am typing on is protected by one of them. It is truely a shame to see a good product cheapened. Aluminum windings in a transformer are really too much. I know there is a risk that something like a MOV could be bad, but it has never let me down...just change the battery every four years or so.
I just fixed an APC BX1000M where the copper was crimped to three aluminum windings with some type of solder as well. It was over 2k ohms resistance, I guess it oxidized. I pulled apart all the windings, crimped on ferrules to the winding and soldering it all back together. Now works like a charm again. It was throwing an F04 code, nothing else damaged expect the transformer.
I would have guessed mosfet driver, but I see they have cheaped out on the transformer as well. I bought some old used APC Backups for an electronics surplus store back in 2008 900va and they take two 12V 11AH batteries each and a 1200 va that takes two 12V 17AH batteries. All of those are still working. I bought 10 of the new style APC 1500's (which also used two 12V 11AH batteries) where I used to work around the same time and three of them failed by 2014 when I left the company.
APC (American Power Conversion) was a premier UPS manufacturing company. When they were bought by Schneider Electric in about 2006 or so their product line started going downhill fast. I stopped using and recommending their products shortly thereafter due to low reliability and many manufacturing shortcuts such as the one you found.
Fun fact: the transformers in all of these consumer-grade units is almost always sized way too small to handle the sticker-rated loads. They depend on the pathetic drop-out of the weak lead-acid batteries they put in these units to be the weakest link in the chain, draining before the transformer can heat up enough to cook itself and start a fire. Wire any of these consumer-grade units up to a bigger battery or DC source at the same/correct voltage, put >60-70% of the rated sticker load on them and watch them go up in smoke & flames. No joke. Works every time.
That's called doing proper design. They're designed and marketed to only run for about 7 minutes. There is no active cooling in any of these consumer UPSes. Once the heat sink gets hot, it's game over. Why would you think they'd be designed for continuous operation? Isn't that just a little unreasonable?
Haven't finished the video, but those QC passed receipts are attached to all APC UPSs I've ever come across. They even have them on their rack mount equipment we put in networking closets.
I've been using this exact model in my recording studio for over 5 years through several power failures, brownouts and surges and it has never failed. But MAN did APC cheap out! You can solder to aluminum, but it takes special equipment, which obviously they didn't use. I've never seen an aluminum winding in a transformer. What brand/model did you switch to?
I've had several SpartUPS fail with that exact T04 trouble code. Like many here, I don't buy APC any more. I switched to sine wave Cyberpower units, and they have been going strong for more than 10 years. I do have some very old APC Smart UPS still in use, but they are all from before the 2007 buy out. I have my network rack on one, and my fiber modem off another. I was a big LAN party person in the early 2000s, and I won't run a PC without a UPS. Too many mental scars of reinstalling Win98SE at a LAN while all my UPS equipped friends were still fine.
I have to admit that that is very concerning to me. I can't go into full detail, Yet we use APC (Commercial Grade) quite often in the field in the work that I do in security access control and surveillance systems. I have noticed recently we've had a lot of failures with the newer APC units then expected. I just wanted to say thank you for bringing this to my attention on what the problem on some of the units that we've installed within the last two years. Keep up the great work you're doing.
All the APC UPS's we've brought over the years always have the test printout taped on the unit. We mainly brought the 19" rack types. I think its just how they ship them.
I own an identical unit and mine also came with a test receipt like yours. My unit has survived dozens of power failures without issue but its only handling a 600W load. Ive always wanted to look inside it. Thanks for sharing your experience. I definitely wont trust it with anything important.
The facts is probably more in the way that we consumers don't like to pay for quality anymore.. Everything have to be as cheap as possible, we get what we pay for.. Easy as that..
I recently had an APC XS1000 fail in a curious way. It was outputting 136V (not on battery) and switching to battery more often than usual. The software monitoring (APC Powerchute) was showing a 88V input voltage when actual voltage at the outlet was 123V. I realized the AVR must be boosting the voltage because the UPS was no longer correctly reading the input voltage and then switching to battery after it was outside its AVR range. This unit is from 2005 and it's interesting how much larger the circuit board is than the one you show and how many more large aluminum heat sinks are in the old one.
I find this video fascinatingly funny. I was given an APC Smart UPS 700. It worked great!! Can hook it up to a PC to monitor the state of the batteries. I used it to power a CCTV DVR camera set-up. In the last two years it has been "melting" the batteries. I would have to replace the two 12-volt SLA's every year (or less). After watching this I think I will just get another APC in another brand before it burns my house down when I am not at home.
I worked on a lot of APC UPS when I serviced Medical Grade diagnostic equipment. Usually 20-25KVA 208-30 amp systems. Every APC UPS had the "cash register" print out tag as part of APC' QC when brand new out of the box. Overall the APC units were pretty good. Some models better than others. One thing about APC was the devices were pre-planned obsolete after a certain amount of time and when that clock ran out.... No more parts for them. I enjoy your in depth coverage on diagnosing and explanations of various circuitry
China loves aluminum wire! All they would have had to do is put a crimp ferral over those connections and they would have lasted years. Great video as always Mr C.
@Bruce Havourd Nothing shows the transformer itself to be a bad one but those wire connections are questionable. Bad connections cause FRICTION! The burning was indeed as show by Paul to be at the crimp!
@@hestheMaster There wasn't even a crimp on those connections. They literally just folded the copper wire over the aluminum wires and blobbed solder on it and hoped it would stay connected. I'm curious to see the other transformers from the rest of the APC units. I wouldn't be surprised if the other transformers had proper crimps and if this particular unit had a fault and was hastily slapped back together by someone and thrown into a the UPS unit. A real crimp would have been faster than the lazy job performed here.
Had the same unit fail on my son when power was restored. Arcing sound and smoke. Glad he was home to notice it and shut it down. I found the same F04 code. Since it was under warranty it was replaced. As a retired electronic engineer I'm shocked at what you found.
wow - aluminum windings in a transformer - from such a well known and "trusted"' brand? APC UPSes aren't cheap price wise - so, I now see where they're getting their profit from. Wish I had known this before my recent UPS purchase. Thanks for the teardown - very informative!
Mr Carlson me da envidia tu laboratorio. Me gusta la electrónica y sobre todo reparar y reconstruir radios antigüos o radios viejos. Alguna vez tuve una colección de aproximadamente 20 radios portátiles viejitos pero con el tiempo los regale a mis amigos y ahora me arrepiento. Aún así solo tengo actualmente dos o tres pero con ellos me divierto. Un saludo Mr Carlson a Tí y las amables personas que participan en el canal. Saludos a todos ¡¡¡¡l
Thanks for this video. This explains all of the early failures with these units. I have one of these in use myself but I haven had an issue, so maybe they had a batch of these go out with bad connections in the transformer. All of this could have been avoided of they didn't cheap out. Like you said, the transformer should be the most robust thing in this unit...
I have had two APC UPSs fail in a similar manner to what you described, and with the same error code that you had. I didn't open up either of them. I pulled the battery and threw it in the electronics waste bin. Maybe I should have opened them, but I was concerned that I would get hurt on it.
Thank you for the dissection and diagnosis. I doubt the weak crimp/solder connection passed the design requirements. Although the unit passed the final test requirements. Hopefully, this video will cause APC to review its standards.
From the very beginning of my career in 2006 as an IT guy, I was seeing that APC constantly are reviewing their standards ...to make things cheaper to the point of absurdity.
Told a friend to get an APC, as mine are all about 10 years old and work fine with a replacement battery on occasion. What a difference in the new one: half the weight and with a smaller battery than mine. Hasn't gone bad yet but I don't have the same faith in it.
Nice video, thanks. Purely by chance, one of my Cyberpower 1300va ups' just started the arc welding buzzing when the power dropped out and I happened to be walking past it. Within 30 seconds it was venting a lot of smoke. The thing is fine running line interactive with the mains, but when it cuts over to inverting, all hell breaks loose as though it's inverting all the power it can possibly muster from the battery. Very thankful I just happened to be there, probably would have set the house on fire but for that coincidence. Edit: I'll try to grab some video of my Cyberpower in a couple of weeks when I'm back, but deeply suspicious that I've had the same failure mode on the transformer. Buzzed like mad, heated up a lot and released a lot of smoke....no scorch marks anywhere on the board. Only swelling on a bulk cap next to the heatsinks for the FETs...I never would have suspected the transformer! Will definitely check it when I'm back!
Insane. Apparently the purpose of the solder was just to make the stranded lead wire stiff enough to crimp around the end of the winding! I wonder if the UPS manufacturer even knew what was inside the nice-looking transformers their supplier was sending them.
They most assuredly know what those transformers are filled with. As long as it runs past the warranty time or even 3-4 yrs.. and saves them a dollar or 2 over copper windings..the bean counters are tickled poopless. Be assured that when they started using cheaper transformers.. they certainly didnt pass the savings along to the end users.
@@starlite528 right everyone is complaining about aluminium wire but what they should be complaining about is bad design using aluminium wire. I'm sure it can be used properly.
I had a new one I just took out of the box yesterday. Plugged it in and it came on by itself. Tried to turn it off and the switch wasn't working. Removed the front cover, then 6 screws to remove the front plate. There is a circuit board attached to the front plate that is held in place with two screws. Neither screw was tightened down so when the power button was pushed it just pushed the entire PCB back. Tightened the screws to hold the board securely and it works fine now. I have been using APC UPS systems since the 90s and have never seen anything like this.
There is flux based paste which must be used for soldering on aluminum, but does not seems to be used here. This is very common point of failure among budget music system that uses 12v or 24v aluminum based transformers.
Thanks for the video. I work in IT and one of my customer has had the exact same issue and we sent it under warranty back to APC. But this shows it's a major flaw and I already informed my team and i'm guessing we will simply drop APC Products
Revealing and astounding discovery. Note to self: Research UPS before buying new product. Thanks Mr C for this very unusual finding. Has opened a lot of eyes for sure. I am now wondering about my Cyber Power units. See you next time. 73
I've enjoyed every second of the video, Paul. The new lab setup looks so slick. Every man's dream. Short videos, long videos, I just love them all. Keep up the nice work my friend, much love from germany 😍✌️.
Paul, I am as surprised by APC as you are. I always took APC UPS units as one of the top of the line stuff. Thanks for sticking with that tear down. Makes me now wonder about my APC UPS (s) here. I have 1 out of the 3 that I own fail. Fortunately for me, that one was only the battery. What is the KVA rating of those particular units?
I've never been to this channel before, but TH-cam recommended this to me, weird because I have the same back up, thankfully haven't had an issue yet, and mines been through about 5 power failures in the almost 2 years I've had mine, but I did have an arcing issue with an amazon basics backup that I have since tore down and thrown the bad parts of away. But in that one a relay had somehow managed to arc from one side to the other frying the control side of the board when it tried to get back on grid power after a power outage, definitely never getting an amazon one again lol
It’s not often I get to watch one of your videos and know what’s up “before” you! ^__^ In a past life, I serviced these. And I instantly knew it was ether the MOSFETs or the transformer the second you described it. APC’s are, or well USED to be, EXTREMELY reliable. I have two sitting next to me right now that are almost 20 years old. And every one I have ever installed came with that receipt. Though it seems they are starting to contract out the production of the transformers to a lower quality suppler. Seems the bean counters got a hold of the BOM…. Sad day.. :/
No, APC has always been more hype than quality, even the old units weren't that great. I have an old SU2000 unit I've been meaning to throw out that lets you know the batteries are bad by shutting off and dumping the load.
@@uzlonewolf Yep, and the whole bunch of the models that preceded that vintage would routinely overcharge the batteries and kill them way prematurely. The failure mode was always the same: the batteries would swell up so much you had to disassemble the unit to pull them out by force. I had a dozen of those beige-front rack mount units and all did that. They otherwise lasted forever but I got tired of replacing the damn batteries every two years so they wouldn’t swell up and make a mess.
Probably didn't notice they did something very wrong. They used the same guage of aluminum wire as copper. They should have gone with a wire guage one size larger and that would have solved the problem. Why you say? Because the thermal expansion of aluminum is greater than copper and that one tiny change makes it safe. Of course we are talking a joint between two dissimilar metals using a crimp. If the aluminum wire is not connected to a crimp tightly enough it causes friction and heat, so much so it can melt solder around around the crimp. I disagree with the correction below because it is a comparsion only to wires sizes and the respective resistive differences of the metals . That is not why the joint failed!
@@hestheMaster the larger wirde diameter is to compensate for alunimiums higer specific resistance and has nothing to do with the thermal expansion and corrosion issues.
@@lukahierl9857 Two years ago YTer Russian Sparky did a video called "Is Aluminum Wiring Bad? How to connect copper and aluminum wires safely" I defer to his analysis in regards to use of aluminum wire.
@@hestheMaster That was a big issue in manufactured homes (like double wides) years ago. Tiny micro expansions and contractions at the outlet box, until there be a big problem. I think in those cases they used aluminum for the price and also for the weight. A bit easier to haul down the interstate if it was lighter.
Hi Mr. Carlson, thoroughly enjoy your videos. Very educational. One thing I noticed in your videos is that you don't seem to have a fire Extinguisher near-by. You need to invest in one for every lab you work in. just to be safe. Thank you for the video. I just got rid of my APC! It was acting up, Battery disconnect error. Happened several times so I unplugged it and I have my computer on a surge protector but no battery backup.
I've had a couple older ones from APC fail and a few of the smaller variety also fail...makes you go hum. I have a few Liebert and Tripplite units going these days. One of the Lieberts was ancient and I took it out of a thrift store...was a pain to take apart but eventually got to the problem and make it work. The other two Lieberts are big units I bought at a gov surplus that were "defective"...they've worked without skipping a beat for $10 each including batteries that I've never replaced.
I had an APC UPS that died after about a year as well - it sounded like it was arcing too. I hope APC see this and give an answer - it seems clear that they are value engineering - or their suppliers are.
Larry - good to see you back. Great job re-engineering the filament string and the cabinet looks great now after a thorough cleaning. Hope the remaining repairs go well and it’s playing again real soon. All the best. Don
Soldering to aluminum is definitely possible Mr. Carlson, all comes down to the flux and getting rid of that oxide layer on top! Phosphoric acid works, I've seen it done with oil and sandpaper too
On almost all of the UPC's I've worked on, it was almost ALWAYS the switching Mosfets or IBGT's that would be blown, and the usual driver circuitry woes that come along with those types of failures.
Thank you for this. The Eaton folks have told me that new models of double conversion units from Tripplite will be good and effectively replacing the Powerware models that were affordable before they bought that brand and moved it out of the home/ small business market. They are evidently not impressed with the existing Tripplite line and neither is an engineer friend of mine who looked at a few I picked up.
Tripplite? Wow. Just no. In my 34 years in I.T. I've seen only a handful of failed UPSes but Tripplite are the only ones that caused fires. Unless Eaton completely changes the product. We all know the Cisco sticker on Linksys crap routers didn't improve anything.
@@SteveMasonCanada Tripplite was good many decades ago so I imagine Eaton wanted it for the name recognition. Until I was given a couple of units a few years ago, I didn't know it had become garbage but the fire is an added feature, I suppose.
The company I work for just moved their servers to a datacenter so there were some rackmount UPS units up for grabs so I just today switched the little desktop one I was using to a big commercial 2000VA/1540W unit (after removing the rack ears.) Seems very substantial in comparison! I did have to use a adapter to go from its 20A plug to a household 15A plug but I won't be drawing anywhere near 15A with my computer.
We have two 5KVA APC UPS' in our server room at work. Constant battery issues and then a spectacular failure similar to what was described here with loud bangs and some visual sparks. Never thought something that was designed to improve uptime could be so unreliable.
That was really interesting. I've used almost nothing but APC UPSes, and never had any problems with them, despite a couple of them being 5-10 years old. None of them were the newer model you had fail, although two were older versions of the same size and shape. I wonder if they had to get transformers from a different source due to all the supply shortages lately, and ended up with something that was an unexpectedly crappy design as a result? I sure hope it wasn't a deliberate choice.
I have this same unit. Don't know if it was arcing or not. Twice I came home to find the alarm blaring and the equipment plugged into it off. Battery was full. I had been noticing a slight burned odor the last few days. Took mine apart the same way as shown. Don't appear to have a lose wire like this. But the smell has gone now so this must have been having an issue. Glad I found this video.
Thank you for the autopsy ! I have been told numerous times how hard it is to transition from aluminium wiring to copper wiring and I never really understood why. Until I watched this video. The aluminium wire not taking solder no matter what left me speechless. Every electronics teacher should be demonstrating what you just did!
That is the exact same issue I had w/ 1 of my 5 APC Back UPS 1500. My failed unit was connected to my primary desktop HW. I opened the UPS, andx found the same aluminum transformer windings. I have replaced each APC w/ a different brand. Interesting to me as well was the lack of any burns/poped capacitors on the boards.
In the mid 60's & 70s When copper prices soared Aluminum house wiring was used and ended after numerous houses burned down. I see entries in NEC code about copper/aluminum wire which appears to be what you had in the transformer windings. I guess it'll take a few more houses to burn down before they decide that was a bad idea.
As I recall it wasn't the fact that aluminum wiring was used as it was connected to brass or steel screws in outlets and switches as if it was copper . They used the SAME size wire gauge instead of going up one size larger. So if you had a wire guage for a home at 12 gauge copper they should use 10 gauge aluminun wire to compensate for the aluminum's expansion factor. It expands and contracts more than copper. Note the feeder wires into most homes today going to the main electrical boxes are stranded aluminum wiring! Aluminum wiring got a bad rap because few paid attention to what the installers did back then did with it to cut costs even more!
@@hestheMaster I think it has less to do with expansion/contraction and more to do with its higher resistance so you need a larger wire to compensate..............
Mine came with the paper taped to it also. I assumed they were just there to show off their QA process. Thank you so much for the info, even though its a bit of a bummer because I just bought one a few months ago.
To learn electronics in a very different and effective way, and gain access to Mr Carlson's personal designs and inventions, visit the Mr Carlson's Lab Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/MrCarlsonsLab
you can solder aluminum to copper wire with standard solder and special flux for aluminum, sadly more and more devices like transformers and motors are wound with aluminum wire today
I have of the exact same UPS in use in my shop, all within 2 years old, maybe the oldest one is three. One is inside my locked server cabinet (tight fit). So far, all four have been great. The last one is well past its return to Amazon time. I guess I just have to keep my fingers crossed.
I see those "receipts" on APC surge protectors and PDUs as well if that helps. Might be a common feature of the industry
@@unmanaged he just showed you the failure 🙄 f02 warning for a fuse or relay? Presumably for a fuse or relay directly in line with the solid state transformer winding failed connection.. that he just showed you
Copper Clad Aluminum no doubt. I personally have had rack mount APC brand equipment fail in a data center. The transformers are garbage. At least the technology is smart enough to fail safe.
Ok, that was shocking. APC went from a company I could trust to one I now cannot. That was quick. Thanks for the teardown lad. Great stuff!
I was wondering if APC knew or was deceived by a component vendor. From what you're reporting, the choice seems to have been made by APC.
@@KJ6EAD Agreed.
@@KJ6EAD vendor is just part of the equation, APC engineers should perform tests to every component that goes to the BOM
Given the supply chain, I can see why this sort of thing can happen. I'll bet someone thought they were saving 20 cents per transformer.
I doubt it's just APC cheaping out... you really can't trust ANY consumer-grade products these days.
That's extremely unprofessional and dangerous for them to have done that, glad you caught it quickly. Also thanks for sharing with us.
welcome to the consumerist society of fleecing the people and the sheeple.
Made in china
APC is owned by schneider
Yeah, this seems like typical "x supplier is out of transformers so we're going with y" bargain bin stuff. I have seen some hokey stuff, but this is next level.
NEVER try to improperly attach copper to aluminum in an electrical cuircuit. This thing was a fire waiting to happen.
The QC/inspection printout on the side is pretty common with APC's consumer & smaller APCs. It's there to show that it's been through QC, and they've been sticking it to their hardware for a long time. We've stopped selling APCs altogether now. Their quality declined precipitously after Schneider Electric bought them out. And their inverter boards never seemed to do all that well down here in Florida anyway.
for sure I have older ones of theirs that are still in use !
@@richardbrobeck2384 hopefully, with new batteries. They're only reliable for a few years.
Schneider Electric is another one of those garbage globocorps we're the only thing they care about is the bottom line, therefore everything they touch turns into the brown stuff that humans excrete as waste.
Eaton aren't much better, I've killed 2 eaton 9px 2200's in 2 years. They last about 13-15 months, so you get the first one replaced under warranty, and then the second one runs just out of warranty before it goes bang.
Good news is they both failed in different ways so now I have one working UPS and a pile of spare parts.... for now.
@@freman Strange. We've been really happy with our 9PX 6ks. That said, across the board quality has gotten pretty crap of late.
Oh my, as the owner of an IT shop, this was a shock -- Our "meat n' potatoes" UPS is the APC BR1500MS2 1500VA unit. In the next 48 hours we are ripping apart the transformers of this unit and the equiv from CyberPower and Triplite. Whomever has copper windings on the xformers is the winner to me. Regardless, APC is OUT...this is unforgivable.
MASSIVE thanks to Mr. Carlson for bringing this issue to light.
So what were the findings?
@@MesoTroniK Oops, me bad, should have posted -- The Cyber stuff and the Triplite stuff we use have copper windings. I wanted to check some of the 2000VA and 3000VA units too but I balk at tearing away insulation to expose wires on those spendy beasts. The only saving grace for APC is that their standby power use is lower than the equiv Triplite and Cyber we use, but meh, electrons are cheap, for now.
@@ronsingh Thank you! And that confirms what I believed, that CyberPower makes a superior product. At the least I have never had any issues with a multitude of their sine wave pfc1500 units.
@@MesoTroniK Yes! That CP1500PFCLCD is the model we roll out with all pretty much every desktop for our clients. Great unit. I have been a stanch supporter of everything APC since the mid-80s and for them to betray the trust consumers have placed in them is truly disheartening, such a shame.
@ronsingh just added to cart on Amazon. Do you think they are genuine or counterfeit? Amazon has become notorious for that!
This is the first time I've ever seen Aluminum wire used in a transformer! I noticed a very steep decline in the quality of APC units roughly 10 years ago despite their premium price. After I had a few fail only a couple years into service, I replaced every single APC UPS I had with units from Cyberpower and couldn't be happier.
Standard distribution transformers used in buildings for 460/208/120 have aluminum windings unless you specify and pay more for copper.
Seems like the old lie about aluminum wiring being bad and causes fires and shorts out is coming back when
the size of copper wires versus the aluminum is the real problem. You need LARGER guage wiring for aluminum
compared to copper and that's all . They work well in household electronics if simple rules are followed like using
a proper flux to joint aluminum to copper for instance.
its common and in that transformer it's supposed to be Aluminum with plated copper then you can solder to it.
There are lots of aluminum windings on transformers and motors, if aluminum wires are the correct size and crimped correctly using proper hardware they can last indefinitely, although they do not withstand temperatures as high as copper because aluminum conducts heat worse than copper and temperatures can rise too much in the innermost part of the windings burning the insulation.
Isn't Cyberpower the same thing? The units look too much like APC to be coming from a different factory - at least as far as the case.
APC devices were really top of the line and were extremely reliable, at least when they were made by American Power Conversion. In 2007, Schneider Electric acquired APC and the quality has gone steadily downhill ever since.
Even things like their stud and electrical cable detectors look like cheap Chinese garbage. To think these guys make massive industrial electrical hardware is shocking. Honeywell have gone the same. Cost cutting to increase profits superficially.
One has to wonder how many other little hidden shortcuts lurk in all the cheap garbage electronics we are surrounded with. Awful LED lamps and their power supplies come to mind. Good job, Mr. C! At first I wondered why you'd soil yourself on this junk, but it ended up being informative and ....revealing. Thanks!
Well, ask the Chinese embassy.
If you want tôsee numerous cheap led lamps dismantled, look at Bigclive here on youtube. Surprisingly, at least when it comes to bulbs, most are not great, mostly drivng the actual LED chips harder than healthy for them to last, but rarely electrically terrible. when it comes to led fixtures, the picture is a bit more mixed, sometimes even literally shocking...
ut this was a useful video, as I was in the market for a small size UPS. Well guess which brand just went out of the window...
@@spvillano American greed.... China will build to whatever spec you desire. Thats one of the reasons The US is terrified. China builds very high quality that a lot of the US cant or wont. "APC, a flagship brand of Schneider Electric - APC USA" Some flagship...
@@guym6093 some may be terrified, but quite a few of us remembers history of nations industrialization.
As for a flagship, the Titanic was also a flagship for a company.
@@spvillano that's the problem... Memories gone by. The counters have taken over in the US. US quality will never be.
Failure analysis videos are the best.
My father used to say: "During my days, things were made to last". How true he was.
In the name of "value engineering", core engineering takes a back seat.
Absolutely! I have transformers from the 1930's that are fine. Its enameled copper, insulation material, and a core. It's amazing how they can make something so simple (nowadays) fail.
My grandfather was a TV repairman, used to be his "gopher" on house calls for those big old wooden console tube sets, running to the car trunk to dig up a tube or something he didn't have in his "common stuff" case he brought in. Between him & my dad I learned basic electronics repair (and I remember drooling over the 1974(?) R-E article on the Altair 8800, which led to me reading the TTL handbook probably cover to cover and eventually my IT career).
Even today I've got an old 1959 Zenith tube clock radio by my bed (was my uncle's), and I look to repair things before buying something new. My old job in the 90s I'd grab older computers and dead monitors off the "scrap" pile going to computer recycling, fix them up and basically give them to friends who wanted "to get on that new internet thing" (had them cover the modem card cost basically).
I still tend to look at things I buy from a "serviceability" standpoint, I don't like buying things that are obviously designed to be "throwaway"... Like I look for lithium battery things that have replaceable 18650 cells rather than those gel-pack batteries - not that I generally can't open it up and replace it, but I know that's designed to have most people just scrap it when it dies rather than just replace the battery, and I'd rather not encourage that. That's my biggest beef in recent years - like the new iPhones where you can't even replace the battery without sending it back to Apple for expensive service, when that's probably the main "wear item" and should be easy to replace.
But... That's the old "designed to fail" thing, to drive you to buy new ones and keep them making money.
Back then, things were simple, heavy, and made by a company that cares about their image. Today, they're very complicated and made in an endless race to the bottom.
@@captainz9 Back then you needed a tv repairman because tv's required constant service and ir maintenance. When I was a kid in the 60's vacuum tube tv's didn't last all that long. You could change tubes, potentiometers and channel selector had moving parts that quickly wore out and needed to be replaced, but the tv was thrown out if the crt went. The average tv probably lasted 5 years and not without regular service. Solid state didn't need vacuum tubes replaced but potentiometers and channel selectors were still a high service item and you still threw the tv out if the crt went. Still 5 year lifespan. I have a 17 year old 42" lcd tv that has never required service and works like brand new still and hangs on the wall instead of taking up half the room. I also have a 50" led, ditto except it is only 10 years old. You say new tvs can't be fixed, I say they don't need to be fixed because they don't break.
@@captainz9 I AGREE, absolutely. Things today, are made for easy assembly at the makers' plants. B U T, just try to take apart, and REPAIR THEM ? THEY'RE MOSTLY MADE, to last only a short time; NOT really engineered, to 30 % over the ratings. JUST make warranty time, then, kaput ; throw it away, buy another one. An item of interest: the other night, while dumpster snooping, i found an old Bell and Howell slide projector. A square plastic box, about 10 inches square, maybe 7 inches high or so. Took it apart, and WOW. WHAT QUAILITY OF THINGS, USED. THE LAMP HOLDER, THE COOLING FAN, THE MIRRORS AND LENSES/MAGNIFIER ARE AWESOMELY MADE ! unlike todays' junk..... HANG IN THERE, Captain Z. (no zees, for us old fixer guys.....i guess. )
That’s sad. I used to use APC all the time for smaller data centers but it seems like they’ve really gone cheap. The silly thing is that if they had used the proper connection Im sure it would hav been just fine. That was such shoddy work, I hope you sent pics to APC just to document the hazard.
Thanks for the autopsy of this UPS. I've had several of these same units fail along with the warranty replacements. Either firmware issues or seeing the outer case actually melting because the transformer overheated. Even with a small load! APC demands a premium price, but IMHO, their product is far from premium anymore.
When I was an IT manager, we used these specific devices. They have an absolutely ATROCIOUS failure rate… They fail in the most spectacular fashion also, usually with sparks and smoke (which made for some very interesting helpdesk tickets). I did autopsies on a few of them. Often it would be those voltage regulators (the ones attached to the 4 heat sinks) which would explode. I can’t emphasize this enough: AVOID THESE!
Aren't those mosfets?
@@motosk8er2 Probably, or maybe IGBTS;...(most are under rated, for the surges/spikey/ noisy power , very shoddy chinese design....
now that i have some many, i wonder if they upgraded with higher specced VRMs,
@@motosk8er2 yep, they are, and there's not a single diode protecting the inputs from shorting or reversing or anything that happens to the battery
@@cdoublejj This isn't a computer. There are no "VRM's".
This seems to be a new trend over the last 5-6 years or so with cheaper electronics in general. The bean counters are working overtime. I've been finding aluminum wire in chokes/inductors in switching power supplies as well, and they will coat it to look like copper. One quick test I'll sometimes do now on a power supply is to just nick one of the wires on a large inductor inside with my cutters or a knife, just to check for aluminum. Also really common on cheaper budget and mid range ATX power supplies.
How does this crap even pass UL?! This is insane at this point. Then again tri-level homes in my neighborhood are all full of aluminum romex and they were all built in the early 70s.
Happening throughout the IT industry, too. (my well-known It employer was just taken private by a vulture private equity firm). All the new owners care about is extracting as much cash as possible and eventually they'll throw away the dead carcass that's left). Cut quality, raise prices, and don't give a damn about anyone except the top few customers. It's the "in thing" nowadays....
@@wonderbars36 UL certification costs money and time and UL always has a backlog of customers. Most of these cheap import manufacturers are either not going to bother or just put a counterfeit UL logo and number on the product and hope it gets through US Customs, and it usually will as they don't have the manpower to inspect everything. Customs rejects electronic products all the time for violations and the shipments get returned to China (where they will just turn it around and try to send it back again eventually), but they barely catch a fraction of it. I work in an office in shipping/logistics for a large carrier, and do sometimes handle customs bonding and duties paperwork for import/export shipments. None of this is uncommon.
If it's copper clad or copper plated it can be soldered just like copper wire.
@@robert20770 lol nope. Tried this too on CCC-type wire. It acts like it's covered in grease despite being totally cleaned up.
Glad that you brought this to our attention.
I stopped using APC products quite some time ago...had several fail catastrophically (lots of smoke & sparking).
If you want one that will last look at server rack design ones there more robust and large but gonna pay lots for them.
While i am no electrical expert, i have installed thousands of UPS batteries over the years. Often when failing you can hear them switch quickly back and forth from line to battery which is a fast clicking sound that can also certainly sound like arcing. All the larger APC models come with their so called QC report taped to the side like you had there, that is normal when they are new. Thanks for the great videos!
Those wire connections are frightening. I wonder how many house fires are caused by hidden sub-standard connections like this
In many states Aluminum wire was used to wire entire homes, from the breaker box to the outlets. Here in California in some places back in the 80s this was very common. Entire subdivisions were wired with aluminum wire. Unfortunately.. Aluminum wire doesnt crimp properly under outlet screws..tighten them up, come back in a year and they are loose as a goose, tighten them up again.. wait a year.. loose again. Wash, rinse and repeat. A lot of house fires happened as a result. And rewiring a home from the box to the outlets is a nearly impossible job without running wire duct or pulling off the sheet rock. Given that southern homes seldom have a basement or a crawl space... brrr! Ive seen a Bunch of homes gutted and rewired, then resheet rocked back again. Really.. really expensive.
@@GunnerAsch1 Aluminum wire is still used in the larger gauges such as between a panel and sub panel and certainly service entrance. If terminated properly using the correct hardware it is just fine. It was the smaller gauges used to connect outlets and switches that caused the fires, probably due to improper hardware not designed for aluminum and lack of training and experience using aluminum.
Electricity gets most of the way to your house on aluminum wire used by utilities and even in some of their big transformers. Aluminum is probably still not worth the trouble for branch circuits due to the larger size wire needed and extra fire risk if poorly terminated. It looks like it's not so great in UPS transformers either for the same reason!
Really big electric transmission lines are "ACSR". Aluminum conductor steel reinforced. ACSR is a steel cable for tensile strength surrounded by aluminum for conductivity. Not any copper at all.
On the other end of wire size scale I tried to solder cable TV wire once. Nope! Had to get a crimp tool!
@@GunnerAsch1 since WAGO invented their understanding of propper wireing there is light in the dark---sorry for that---
The thing on the side is a factory testing protocol, and you get that with every APC UPS, or at least every half decent one. It is there to tell you the unit passed QC and works, so you can be (relatively) sure that it won't cause a power outage itself.
Yeah, what he says. Every APC comes with that label for some reason. Really makes no sense, since they wouldn't send out out with any 'FAILED' on it.
@@centauri61032 I think it is there to make sure you didn't accidentally receive someting that didn't pass QC and put that thing into a critical application. So if they mixed the units up, threw a good one out and gave you the bad one, you can show them that it says "failed", and they will give you a new one. This protocol follows the unit through the entire QC and shiping process. Some car manufactureres also do this, so that a worker can't accidentally skip a step in the assembly, and you don't end up getting a car without a horn or a muffler because someone forgot to install it. Some even take this to an extreme, using electric screwdrivers that track which screws are tightened, so they can't forget a screw or leave it loose, causing stuff to rattle or fall off.
I used to procure 100’s of these things at a time for call centers, that test sheet comes on them always
yep, they have done this for a long time
It's ironic in this case.
Wow... This is unbelievable and extremely dangerous. In what Chinese basement those transformers were made, and how did APC end up using them? APC used to make the most reliable UPS. I have a whole bunch of old models that have worked for over 10 years. APC should have recalled these, I'm pretty sure it's not the only failed one.
I'm totally stunned that they use aluminium, horrible. I'm guessing for cost, weight and thermal properties during very short overloads, but if you're going to use it, then terminate it correctly lol.... I would be uncomfortable buying APC now, very sad. Great video as always
its common but it's supposed to be Aluminum plated with copper then you can solder to it.
Money !! some Bean counter !
Probably not for weight reasons.
It’s a commonly held belief that these kind of things are supposed to be heavy. They will literally put concrete bricks or cast chinesium in cheap stuff to make them feel higher quality.
@@richardbrobeck2384 Made In China, a warning label.
@@Mr_Meowingtons there's a flux one uses to remove the passivation layer from the aluminum (aluminum quickly forms an oxide layer, called a passivation layer to protect it from further oxidation).
So, copper cladding isn't necessary, but cheaper than the flux.
Wow, total eye opener there! Thanks for doing this. I had recommended APC for years. This was the last thing I would have expected to find. Just, wow.
As Stated before they were Bought out for the Brand Name Several years ago..Now just total China Junk
I used to stand by APC as I figured that they were reasonable quality, outside of, say a data center grade brand or model. Perhaps APC now stands for A Piece of Crud?
Sadly, I can''t say I'm surprised to see another failed APC. We've had 4 failures on the 3 units we installed. Yip, the warrantee replacement failed too. My theory is that they see their products as IT equipment, and due to be replaced every 4 years, not infrastructure that needs to last 40. And these were their R60 000 SmartUPS series.
Do not recommend.
Being in South Africa (three power failures/day, on average) we now install proper infrastructure grade hybrid inverters (Victron, etc.) and Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries.
Got an old APC750XL I got as free, dead battery packs, and use it with 4 car batteries externally. It works well, and I get 2 years out of the cheap flooded batteries, though I do have a monthly reminder to service them, which means checking the electrolyte level and filling it up, as APC really loves to fast charge the batteries, so you get back to full charge in 4 hours, though they take 8 to fully float charge. Toasts the SLA packs, but the flooded cells do not really mind, as this is a lot lower stress than being in a car engine bay. Just buy the cheap batteries and use them.
@@SeanBZA Back in the old days, we sometimes would modify rackmount APC UPS's to lower the charging voltage a bit for this very reason. They were notorious for cooking SLA cells and they'd expand to the point where you might need a crowbar to even get them out of the aluminum frame.
@@SeanBZA It wasn't the batteries that died, it was the UPS. Also, nobody uses lead acid in this country anymore,
@@johnalexander2349 True, but it has use where you only go to 10% down per load shed cycle, or where cost is a driver.as they are a third the price of the lithium iron ones. Also the lithium iron are hard to get, always out of stock.
I've recently done the same for my small home office - ditched my APC SmartUPS (which itself was a replacement for one that cooked its batteries and was almost too hot to touch when I found it) for a Victron Multiplus II 24/3000 inverter and 2x LIfePo4 batteries. So far I'm very impressed - also helps that I've now got 2x400W solar panels hooked up so the office should be pretty much off-grid all summer, and I can now power the entire office for probably a couple of days if the power drops, rather than just my PC and some networking gear for ~20 minutes. To be fair it was just a little more expensive than the APC UPS but worth it I think.
APC used to make very good consumer grade UPSs and I have owned several of them. My older ones (7-10 years old) are still performing great and my only maintenance has been battery changes; but the newer two (1-3 years old) both failed just about after one year. I believe that APC has started sourcing cheaper parts from China and your aluminum wound X-former is likely one of them. I gave APC the boot a few years ago and I now own CyberPower units that are operating flawlessly.
everything's made in china, it just depends on if you get it from the good factories or the discount ones
APC was a competitor of my former company (retired last year). They flooded the market for years with cheap offline boxes such as this one. My guess is yours was a 500-700VA machine. In the US they are in the $100 a unit range and many users presume these machines disposable. They are used until the battery fails (about a year) and then the entire unit is replaced. That practice makes me crazy, but that's how the market views these machines.
The Chinese make almost all of these units to the designers specifications. Some are better than others but they are about the same. We always specified copper windings in our transformers which made our machines a bit more reliable and costly (few dollars) but the market doesn't really care. Since all small UPSs are viewed the same, APC maximized their profits by reducing costs.
It seems like APC UPS devices used to be built better, I wonder if their buyout caused quality to diminish............
Omg, how ironic to find you here. I guess we think alike. DB.
Gxt5, baby.
Apc makes units all over the world. Older units of them were mostly made in india or philippines. All 5 of my units are made in India. The last one being from 2020. I have not any problems with them. The only time i had to do some repairs was when a lightning strike killed some of the mosfets. It did not explode but it did got very hot and burnt the pcb. Nothing a few jumper wires could not fix 😂.
Their lower end units like this one is made cheaply. I have a 500va model from 2003 & it is twice as heavy as a 1100va model from 2017. The 2003 model's transformer is twice as big as the 1100va model from 2017. & As such when i replaced the lead acid battery with lithium which has much more capacity & longer run time than leadacid. The transformer thermal fuse melted after 5mins into a full load test at 600w. The original battery were supposed to run for only a minute at this load. But the new lithium battery should have ran it for 15mins. But the ups failed earlier than that.
I have another 1000va model from the pro lineup and it has a smps type inverter. And that unit is meant to run with external battery packs and so it did not fail even after i ran it overloaded (50w above rated) for 15mins.
Most of the units sold in usa are made in china. , Most of the units sold in Europe and asia are made in India.
The only ups worth buying from them are the smart models and the online models.
Regular back ups is made with cheap components. Anytime you see a model using low frequency transformer on the inverter section. Do not buy it.
Smps design is much more reliable. Even though those models still contain a similar steel core transformer for avr function but the main inverter is made from small high frequency transformer that does battery voltage to 380v dc then that dc is converted to ac with a full mosfet bridge.
Why the blatant lies? Do you work for Eaton/TrippLite or something? APC 1500VA UPSes are hardly $100 units. The batteries are standard lead acid batteries and last about 5 years in standby operation, just like all other cheap lead acid batteries. The batteries are completely user replacable, as you clearly saw in this video - no need to replace the entire unit. They're ridiculously overpriced from APC, but you can use any old brand - there's nothing special about them.
Good job on the teardown! I am working on my breadmaker yesterday. Belt broke. Then my lawnmower today. Spring blade retention broke.
Wow! I had an APC ups fail similarly to this one just last week. Now I wanna really go and take a look at that transformer.
It's the second or third APC that fails almost new and I now have switched to a different brand. I take it was a good decision. Thank you for this very interesting diagnosis!
Please let everybody know which brand you switched to. I'm on a warranty replacement of a "Pro 1500 S" that failed. My new one is 'version 2' of that model. They wanted about $80 for another 3-year warranty. But I figured that if this one fails, then I'm just switching to another brand.
Someone mentioned switching to CyberPower, which I was thinking of myself - but that's because I don't know of many other brands.... I've had a Belkin fail before, so I'd be weary of getting another of that brand.
The title should be "Mr. Carlson Learns Planned Obsolescence". This is a common practice as the oxide layer takes about 2 years to break down, and coincidently the warranty is at most 1 year. That's why we stick with good old tech!
But where can you get (good old tech)? I have a failed APC UPS and am wondering where to turn now that my unit has died!?
@@thighdude7 Get a used rack-mount corporate UPS from ebay. They usually need batteries replaced but the total cost comes out under these cheap-ass back-UPS units.
Being corporate focused they are generally designed to run 5+ years at the minimum.
@thighdude7 I was referring to vintage radios and electronics as is most commonly showcased on this channel. If it isn't made completely from metal and uses vacuum tubes, it's no good!
Huh whut no! This isn't an oxide layer breaking down, having the oxide layer isn't a problem on the exterior and shouldn't be there on the interior of the joint, breaking down is just not what is happening. What you wrote simply makes no sense.
@@thighdude7 Unlike Mr Carlson, repair what you have. Replace the faulty component with an improved one and if that's the transformer, then it's the transformer. There is some time savings and logic in just buying another brand new, but, what if they got aluminum wound transformers from same supplier too? It wouldn't be surprising if they are competing on same capacity/price-point.
Autopsy your dead unit and decide what to do from there. Until these aluminum wound transformers came along, they were a pretty rare failure point so you may just need a switching transistor or something, fried from a power surge for example.
Oh that’s unsettling. I’ve got several of these in my home broadcast studio. Time to replace those. I though the receipt paper on the side was also kinda weird too, and also left it.
What's the model number or date on these APC Back-UPS 1500 units? This is a shocking find and I'm sure more people should be aware of it.
Also, what unit did you replace these with?
can we have the model number / series ? :) @MrCarlsonsLab (do not know if the tagging is work though :)(
I stopped buying APC years ago when their reliability and quality went screaming over a cliff .
The only thing surprising is that the unit somehow managed to not incinerate your lab .
i have like 6 ups, where i live the electricity is not reliable. My first 2 where apc and both failed after less than 2 years, after that i purchased cyberpower, i can say they are just way better, they have been with me for at least 7 years and i have just change the battery packs. Watching this video now tells me why the APC keep failing. great video man thank you for showing this
I was wondering what could caused that failure and never would have expected this. Now I'm going back to my failed unit of APC just looking like yours and checking... Thank you for this video.
Had the same transformer problem a few years back with another model of APC consumer UPS. I'm avoiding APC since then.
They say APC pro versions should be fine, but for my use case way to expensive. Using Eaton UPS now and it's still working after three years 🤞
Wow, thank you for this video. I was about to get some new APC's for my home lab and this has absolutely changed my mind.
They're good if you get the really expensive ones but definitely don't get the consumer rated crap.
Hi Mr. Carlson,
I love your work and I spent uncounted hours listening to your excellent methodical fault analysis.
From my practice on aluminium:
Aluminium is to be soldered with the correct flux. The German company Stannol provides ALU1, a specially filled soldering wire.
It works fine, even with aluminium heat sinks.
Although I only have Smart, UPS and no Back UPS out, I believe the video is about a production flaw and not a design fault.
Michael
Transformer: More than meets the eye! 😁 I've used APC for decades. Every one of them lasted at least 10 years, and one lasted 20, excepting battery replacements. (The one running this PC right now dates to ~2012.) I know Schneider bought APC. If this is indicative of the quality we can expect under their ownership, I might not be buying APC ever again. Maybe let us know (perhaps on Patreon) what you selected to replace it?
Good job. Greetings from Poland to Mr. Carlson
Thanks for the autopsy on your UPS. I have several APC's in use and have never had a problem other than an eventual battery replacement. My guess is that the transformer had a marginal connection from the get-go. However, that doesn't make anyone feel any better about the quality.
They are 'marginal' connections because standard lead/tin solder doesn't adhere to aluminum.
I have several UPS devices running in my house as well mainly APC Back-UPS 1500/1300 models and I find they all pretty much fail after a couple battery change intervals when their internally circuitry fails. They commonly either stop charging their batteries or overcharge their batteries and the entire UPS has to be replaced. If they last 6-7 years I am happy...................
Great teardown, APC was always my goto UPS for the past 20 years...not anymore.
APC made really great stuff back in the day. I still have two that are in metal cases and use regular wall receptacles in the rear panel. The much newer computer I am typing on is protected by one of them. It is truely a shame to see a good product cheapened. Aluminum windings in a transformer are really too much. I know there is a risk that something like a MOV could be bad, but it has never let me down...just change the battery every four years or so.
I just fixed an APC BX1000M where the copper was crimped to three aluminum windings with some type of solder as well. It was over 2k ohms resistance, I guess it oxidized. I pulled apart all the windings, crimped on ferrules to the winding and soldering it all back together. Now works like a charm again. It was throwing an F04 code, nothing else damaged expect the transformer.
I would have guessed mosfet driver, but I see they have cheaped out on the transformer as well. I bought some old used APC Backups for an electronics surplus store back in 2008 900va and they take two 12V 11AH batteries each and a 1200 va that takes two 12V 17AH batteries. All of those are still working. I bought 10 of the new style APC 1500's (which also used two 12V 11AH batteries) where I used to work around the same time and three of them failed by 2014 when I left the company.
APC (American Power Conversion) was a premier UPS manufacturing company. When they were bought by Schneider Electric in about 2006 or so their product line started going downhill fast. I stopped using and recommending their products shortly thereafter due to low reliability and many manufacturing shortcuts such as the one you found.
Fun fact: the transformers in all of these consumer-grade units is almost always sized way too small to handle the sticker-rated loads. They depend on the pathetic drop-out of the weak lead-acid batteries they put in these units to be the weakest link in the chain, draining before the transformer can heat up enough to cook itself and start a fire. Wire any of these consumer-grade units up to a bigger battery or DC source at the same/correct voltage, put >60-70% of the rated sticker load on them and watch them go up in smoke & flames. No joke. Works every time.
That's called doing proper design. They're designed and marketed to only run for about 7 minutes. There is no active cooling in any of these consumer UPSes. Once the heat sink gets hot, it's game over. Why would you think they'd be designed for continuous operation? Isn't that just a little unreasonable?
Haven't finished the video, but those QC passed receipts are attached to all APC UPSs I've ever come across. They even have them on their rack mount equipment we put in networking closets.
I've been using this exact model in my recording studio for over 5 years through several power failures, brownouts and surges and it has never failed.
But MAN did APC cheap out! You can solder to aluminum, but it takes special equipment, which obviously they didn't use. I've never seen an aluminum winding in a transformer.
What brand/model did you switch to?
I've had several SpartUPS fail with that exact T04 trouble code. Like many here, I don't buy APC any more. I switched to sine wave Cyberpower units, and they have been going strong for more than 10 years. I do have some very old APC Smart UPS still in use, but they are all from before the 2007 buy out. I have my network rack on one, and my fiber modem off another.
I was a big LAN party person in the early 2000s, and I won't run a PC without a UPS. Too many mental scars of reinstalling Win98SE at a LAN while all my UPS equipped friends were still fine.
I have to admit that that is very concerning to me.
I can't go into full detail, Yet we use APC (Commercial Grade) quite often in the field in the work that I do in security access control and surveillance systems.
I have noticed recently we've had a lot of failures with the newer APC units then expected.
I just wanted to say thank you for bringing this to my attention on what the problem on some of the units that we've installed within the last two years.
Keep up the great work you're doing.
I’ve been dealing with APC and their total disregard for quality design for 20 years! Now throw away units!
Thanks for the vid.
All the APC UPS's we've brought over the years always have the test printout taped on the unit. We mainly brought the 19" rack types. I think its just how they ship them.
I own an identical unit and mine also came with a test receipt like yours. My unit has survived dozens of power failures without issue but its only handling a 600W load. Ive always wanted to look inside it. Thanks for sharing your experience. I definitely wont trust it with anything important.
UPDATE! 3 days after commenting on how long lived my UPS 1500 has been it went kablooey just like Mr. Carlson's! 😂
Thanks for this discovery, I have removed both of my APC USPes and am trying a CyberPower UPS as a replacement. I hope they're made better.
Another excellent video, Paul. This just proves that manufacturers, will always take shortcuts to increase their profits!
It only has to last past the warranty period!
@@davidmccarthy6061 Yep!
The facts is probably more in the way that we consumers don't like to pay for quality anymore..
Everything have to be as cheap as possible, we get what we pay for..
Easy as that..
@@jada1173...YOU SUMMED IT UP PRETTY WELL-(!)
Shocking.. I have one of these running the wood stove fan thanks for the heads up
Good morning, Mr Carlson. Hell yeah. Not an electrician or engineer, but I use electricity every single day.
Nice statement of qualifications. You are now allowed to comment. 😁
I'd be even more impressed if you'd come to youtube with a purely mechanical browser.
I recently had an APC XS1000 fail in a curious way. It was outputting 136V (not on battery) and switching to battery more often than usual. The software monitoring (APC Powerchute) was showing a 88V input voltage when actual voltage at the outlet was 123V. I realized the AVR must be boosting the voltage because the UPS was no longer correctly reading the input voltage and then switching to battery after it was outside its AVR range. This unit is from 2005 and it's interesting how much larger the circuit board is than the one you show and how many more large aluminum heat sinks are in the old one.
I find this video fascinatingly funny. I was given an APC Smart UPS 700. It worked great!! Can hook it up to a PC to monitor the state of the batteries. I used it to power a CCTV DVR camera set-up. In the last two years it has been "melting" the batteries. I would have to replace the two 12-volt SLA's every year (or less). After watching this I think I will just get another APC in another brand before it burns my house down when I am not at home.
I worked on a lot of APC UPS when I serviced Medical Grade diagnostic equipment. Usually 20-25KVA 208-30 amp systems.
Every APC UPS had the "cash register" print out tag as part of APC' QC when brand new out of the box. Overall the APC units were pretty good. Some models better than others. One thing about APC was the devices were pre-planned obsolete after a certain amount of time and when that clock ran out.... No more parts for them. I enjoy your in depth coverage on diagnosing and explanations of various circuitry
China loves aluminum wire! All they would have had to do is put a crimp ferral over those connections and they would have lasted years. Great video as always Mr C.
True. A bad crimp connection was probably the likely culprit here.
@Bruce Havourd Nothing shows the transformer itself to be a bad one but those wire connections are questionable. Bad connections cause FRICTION!
The burning was indeed as show by Paul to be at the crimp!
@@hestheMaster There wasn't even a crimp on those connections. They literally just folded the copper wire over the aluminum wires and blobbed solder on it and hoped it would stay connected. I'm curious to see the other transformers from the rest of the APC units. I wouldn't be surprised if the other transformers had proper crimps and if this particular unit had a fault and was hastily slapped back together by someone and thrown into a the UPS unit. A real crimp would have been faster than the lazy job performed here.
@@redemptusrenatus5336 Then that would be a major mistake!
But that would be more time consuming.
Had the same unit fail on my son when power was restored. Arcing sound and smoke. Glad he was home to notice it and shut it down. I found the same F04 code. Since it was under warranty it was replaced. As a retired electronic engineer I'm shocked at what you found.
wow - aluminum windings in a transformer - from such a well known and "trusted"' brand? APC UPSes aren't cheap price wise - so, I now see where they're getting their profit from. Wish I had known this before my recent UPS purchase. Thanks for the teardown - very informative!
Mr Carlson me da envidia tu laboratorio. Me gusta la electrónica y sobre todo reparar y reconstruir radios antigüos o radios viejos. Alguna vez tuve una colección de aproximadamente 20 radios portátiles viejitos pero con el tiempo los regale a mis amigos y ahora me arrepiento. Aún así solo tengo actualmente dos o tres pero con ellos me divierto. Un saludo Mr Carlson a Tí y las amables personas que participan en el canal. Saludos a todos ¡¡¡¡l
Thanks for this video. This explains all of the early failures with these units. I have one of these in use myself but I haven had an issue, so maybe they had a batch of these go out with bad connections in the transformer. All of this could have been avoided of they didn't cheap out. Like you said, the transformer should be the most robust thing in this unit...
It's intentional they want to make you buy a new one. You know for the end of racism and save the climate.
I have had two APC UPSs fail in a similar manner to what you described, and with the same error code that you had. I didn't open up either of them. I pulled the battery and threw it in the electronics waste bin. Maybe I should have opened them, but I was concerned that I would get hurt on it.
Thank you for the dissection and diagnosis. I doubt the weak crimp/solder connection passed the design requirements. Although the unit passed the final test requirements. Hopefully, this video will cause APC to review its standards.
...MORE LIKELY, THIS VIDEO WILL CAUSE MORE APC CUSTOMERS TO TAKE THEIR BUSINESS ELSEWHERE-(?)
JUST SAYING...
From the very beginning of my career in 2006 as an IT guy, I was seeing that APC constantly are reviewing their standards ...to make things cheaper to the point of absurdity.
Told a friend to get an APC, as mine are all about 10 years old and work fine with a replacement battery on occasion. What a difference in the new one: half the weight and with a smaller battery than mine. Hasn't gone bad yet but I don't have the same faith in it.
Nice video, thanks. Purely by chance, one of my Cyberpower 1300va ups' just started the arc welding buzzing when the power dropped out and I happened to be walking past it. Within 30 seconds it was venting a lot of smoke. The thing is fine running line interactive with the mains, but when it cuts over to inverting, all hell breaks loose as though it's inverting all the power it can possibly muster from the battery. Very thankful I just happened to be there, probably would have set the house on fire but for that coincidence.
Edit: I'll try to grab some video of my Cyberpower in a couple of weeks when I'm back, but deeply suspicious that I've had the same failure mode on the transformer. Buzzed like mad, heated up a lot and released a lot of smoke....no scorch marks anywhere on the board. Only swelling on a bulk cap next to the heatsinks for the FETs...I never would have suspected the transformer!
Will definitely check it when I'm back!
those solder connection at the transformer you discovered were hilarious !
Insane. Apparently the purpose of the solder was just to make the stranded lead wire stiff enough to crimp around the end of the winding! I wonder if the UPS manufacturer even knew what was inside the nice-looking transformers their supplier was sending them.
I wonder this myself.
They most assuredly know what those transformers are filled with. As long as it runs past the warranty time or even 3-4 yrs.. and saves them a dollar or 2 over copper windings..the bean counters are tickled poopless. Be assured that when they started using cheaper transformers.. they certainly didnt pass the savings along to the end users.
They should know. You'd think the would at least pull one unit out of stock and do a tear down like this to find out what they are buying from China.
I wonder if they had used a ferrule to crimp it would it be ok as a final product?
@@starlite528 right everyone is complaining about aluminium wire but what they should be complaining about is bad design using aluminium wire. I'm sure it can be used properly.
I had a new one I just took out of the box yesterday. Plugged it in and it came on by itself. Tried to turn it off and the switch wasn't working. Removed the front cover, then 6 screws to remove the front plate. There is a circuit board attached to the front plate that is held in place with two screws. Neither screw was tightened down so when the power button was pushed it just pushed the entire PCB back. Tightened the screws to hold the board securely and it works fine now. I have been using APC UPS systems since the 90s and have never seen anything like this.
There is flux based paste which must be used for soldering on aluminum, but does not seems to be used here. This is very common point of failure among budget music system that uses 12v or 24v aluminum based transformers.
Thanks for the video. I work in IT and one of my customer has had the exact same issue and we sent it under warranty back to APC. But this shows it's a major flaw and I already informed my team and i'm guessing we will simply drop APC Products
Revealing and astounding discovery. Note to self: Research UPS before buying new product. Thanks Mr C for this very unusual finding. Has opened a lot of eyes for sure. I am now wondering about my Cyber Power units. See you next time. 73
how would the research reveal a defect like this one? unless someone had torn one down like he did
@@donsurlylyte It wouldn't have, but now that I've seen Paul's video.... Cheers
Right away, there’s *one of my favorite HeathKits* on the bench!
I've enjoyed every second of the video, Paul. The new lab setup looks so slick. Every man's dream. Short videos, long videos, I just love them all. Keep up the nice work my friend, much love from germany 😍✌️.
Thanks for your kind feedback!
And more than a few women's dreams...
Paul,
I am as surprised by APC as you are. I always took APC UPS units as one of the top of the line stuff. Thanks for sticking with that tear down. Makes me now wonder about my APC UPS (s) here. I have 1 out of the 3 that I own fail. Fortunately for me, that one was only the battery. What is the KVA rating of those particular units?
1500VA I had one that I sent back 3 times for the same issue when these units first came out.
I've never been to this channel before, but TH-cam recommended this to me, weird because I have the same back up, thankfully haven't had an issue yet, and mines been through about 5 power failures in the almost 2 years I've had mine, but I did have an arcing issue with an amazon basics backup that I have since tore down and thrown the bad parts of away. But in that one a relay had somehow managed to arc from one side to the other frying the control side of the board when it tried to get back on grid power after a power outage, definitely never getting an amazon one again lol
It’s not often I get to watch one of your videos and know what’s up “before” you! ^__^ In a past life, I serviced these. And I instantly knew it was ether the MOSFETs or the transformer the second you described it.
APC’s are, or well USED to be, EXTREMELY reliable. I have two sitting next to me right now that are almost 20 years old. And every one I have ever installed came with that receipt. Though it seems they are starting to contract out the production of the transformers to a lower quality suppler. Seems the bean counters got a hold of the BOM…. Sad day.. :/
No, APC has always been more hype than quality, even the old units weren't that great. I have an old SU2000 unit I've been meaning to throw out that lets you know the batteries are bad by shutting off and dumping the load.
@@uzlonewolf Yep, and the whole bunch of the models that preceded that vintage would routinely overcharge the batteries and kill them way prematurely. The failure mode was always the same: the batteries would swell up so much you had to disassemble the unit to pull them out by force. I had a dozen of those beige-front rack mount units and all did that. They otherwise lasted forever but I got tired of replacing the damn batteries every two years so they wouldn’t swell up and make a mess.
In case it hasn't been mentioned already, APC Error code 'F04' is a "clamp short", according to Google.
I LITERALLY just brought one of these home tonight… looking forwards to your results.
I remember fuse boxes with aluminum wire that just became loose where the screws tightened against them and would ark and spark. Good video thanks!
Probably didn't notice they did something very wrong. They used the same guage of aluminum wire as copper.
They should have gone with a wire guage one size larger and that would have solved the problem. Why you say?
Because the thermal expansion of aluminum is greater than copper and that one tiny change makes it safe. Of
course we are talking a joint between two dissimilar metals using a crimp. If the aluminum wire is not connected to a crimp tightly enough it causes friction and heat, so much so it can melt solder around around the crimp. I disagree
with the correction below because it is a comparsion only to wires sizes and the respective resistive differences of
the metals . That is not why the joint failed!
@@hestheMaster the larger wirde diameter is to compensate for alunimiums higer specific resistance and has nothing to do with the thermal expansion and corrosion issues.
@@lukahierl9857 Two years ago YTer Russian Sparky did a video called "Is Aluminum Wiring Bad? How to connect copper and aluminum wires safely" I defer to his analysis in regards to use of aluminum wire.
@@hestheMaster That was a big issue in manufactured homes (like double wides) years ago. Tiny micro expansions and contractions at the outlet box, until there be a big problem. I think in those cases they used aluminum for the price and also for the weight. A bit easier to haul down the interstate if it was lighter.
Hi Mr. Carlson, thoroughly enjoy your videos. Very educational. One thing I noticed in your videos is that you don't seem to have a fire Extinguisher near-by. You need to invest in one for every lab you work in. just to be safe. Thank you for the video. I just got rid of my APC! It was acting up, Battery disconnect error. Happened several times so I unplugged it and I have my computer on a surge protector but no battery backup.
All APC UPSs I have ever seen came with the QC results taped to them like you have. It is just what they do.
I've had a couple older ones from APC fail and a few of the smaller variety also fail...makes you go hum. I have a few Liebert and Tripplite units going these days. One of the Lieberts was ancient and I took it out of a thrift store...was a pain to take apart but eventually got to the problem and make it work. The other two Lieberts are big units I bought at a gov surplus that were "defective"...they've worked without skipping a beat for $10 each including batteries that I've never replaced.
9:03 On mine, the two components on the heatsinks with the blue and brown wires blew off on the second power outage.
I had an APC UPS that died after about a year as well - it sounded like it was arcing too.
I hope APC see this and give an answer - it seems clear that they are value engineering - or their suppliers are.
Larry - good to see you back. Great job re-engineering the filament string and the cabinet looks great now after a thorough cleaning. Hope the remaining repairs go well and it’s playing again real soon. All the best. Don
Soldering to aluminum is definitely possible Mr. Carlson, all comes down to the flux and getting rid of that oxide layer on top! Phosphoric acid works, I've seen it done with oil and sandpaper too
It's still garbage.
Yes, but the transformer manufacturer clearly couldn't be bothered, using a wrap of standard wire as a mechanical fixation instead.
On almost all of the UPC's I've worked on, it was almost ALWAYS the switching Mosfets or IBGT's that would be blown, and the usual driver circuitry woes that come along with those types of failures.
Blessed love Doc, you are one of the best of the best, great video bro watching from Jamaica west Indies !!
Thank you for this. The Eaton folks have told me that new models of double conversion units from Tripplite will be good and effectively replacing the Powerware models that were affordable before they bought that brand and moved it out of the home/ small business market. They are evidently not impressed with the existing Tripplite line and neither is an engineer friend of mine who looked at a few I picked up.
Tripplite? Wow. Just no. In my 34 years in I.T. I've seen only a handful of failed UPSes but Tripplite are the only ones that caused fires. Unless Eaton completely changes the product. We all know the Cisco sticker on Linksys crap routers didn't improve anything.
@@SteveMasonCanada Tripplite was good many decades ago so I imagine Eaton wanted it for the name recognition. Until I was given a couple of units a few years ago, I didn't know it had become garbage but the fire is an added feature, I suppose.
The company I work for just moved their servers to a datacenter so there were some rackmount UPS units up for grabs so I just today switched the little desktop one I was using to a big commercial 2000VA/1540W unit (after removing the rack ears.) Seems very substantial in comparison! I did have to use a adapter to go from its 20A plug to a household 15A plug but I won't be drawing anywhere near 15A with my computer.
We have two 5KVA APC UPS' in our server room at work. Constant battery issues and then a spectacular failure similar to what was described here with loud bangs and some visual sparks. Never thought something that was designed to improve uptime could be so unreliable.
That was really interesting. I've used almost nothing but APC UPSes, and never had any problems with them, despite a couple of them being 5-10 years old. None of them were the newer model you had fail, although two were older versions of the same size and shape.
I wonder if they had to get transformers from a different source due to all the supply shortages lately, and ended up with something that was an unexpectedly crappy design as a result? I sure hope it wasn't a deliberate choice.
Oh my gosh Paul, they have got to be kidding with that transformer, don't they???
I have this same unit. Don't know if it was arcing or not. Twice I came home to find the alarm blaring and the equipment plugged into it off. Battery was full. I had been noticing a slight burned odor the last few days. Took mine apart the same way as shown. Don't appear to have a lose wire like this. But the smell has gone now so this must have been having an issue. Glad I found this video.
Thank you for the autopsy ! I have been told numerous times how hard it is to transition from aluminium wiring to copper wiring and I never really understood why. Until I watched this video. The aluminium wire not taking solder no matter what left me speechless. Every electronics teacher should be demonstrating what you just did!
That is the exact same issue I had w/ 1 of my 5 APC Back UPS 1500. My failed unit was connected to my primary desktop HW. I opened the UPS, andx found the same aluminum transformer windings. I have replaced each APC w/ a different brand. Interesting to me as well was the lack of any burns/poped capacitors on the boards.
In the mid 60's & 70s When copper prices soared Aluminum house wiring was used and ended after numerous houses burned down. I see entries in NEC code about copper/aluminum wire which appears to be what you had in the transformer windings. I guess it'll take a few more houses to burn down before they decide that was a bad idea.
As I recall it wasn't the fact that aluminum wiring was used as it was connected to brass or steel screws in outlets and switches as if it was copper . They used the SAME size wire gauge instead of going up one size larger. So if
you had a wire guage for a home at 12 gauge copper they should use 10 gauge aluminun wire to compensate for the aluminum's expansion factor. It expands and contracts more than copper. Note the feeder wires into most homes today going to the main electrical boxes are stranded aluminum wiring! Aluminum wiring got a bad rap because few paid attention to what the installers did back then did with it to cut costs even more!
@@hestheMaster I think it has less to do with expansion/contraction and more to do with its higher resistance so you need a larger wire to compensate..............
@@jaycahow4667 OK
Mine came with the paper taped to it also. I assumed they were just there to show off their QA process. Thank you so much for the info, even though its a bit of a bummer because I just bought one a few months ago.