[orion456]

I have four UPS's plugged in around the house. Suddenly we smelled some electronic burning and all the UPS's failed at the same time. They continue to supply battery power, but refuse to recognize being plugged in, even though the power is on and the power never failed or even flickered.

Could a large surge destroy several UPS at once but leave other electronics unaffected (dvd, tv, microwave etc)?

Any idea how to get the UPS to recognized being plugged in again? These are different models APC, and Belkin.


.........appears to be related to the AC line providing 140v instead of 110v..........

[mbentley]

yikes, that is very strange. i have never heard of something like that happening to anyone i know but i would most definitely get an electrician out to check everything and/or call the power company if it turns out to be something external to you causing it.

[Mpegger]

Yes, a large surge could destroy some electronics, while others take minimal damage that would go unnoticed under normal use till the next surge occurs. I too would call an electrician to find out what the problem could be.

[orion456]

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[SOLVED] My UPS said the input voltage was 140v and according to APC their UPS changes to battery power when ever the voltage is over 138v.

I phoned the power company and they had to come and fix something outside that put the power back to 115v. As soon as that fix happened, the UPS were happy again.

That was one strange night with every UPS suddenly going to battery despite what looked like full power. The strange thing is, shortly before that I noticed that the lights seemed unusually bright. I assume that was from the excess voltage as well.

I lost one power supply when I plugged it in without the UPS. It worked fine for a while but in the morning the OCZ PS was dead. I wonder if its still under warranty?

[mbentley]

yikes, glad it was fixed for you and hopefully it didn't damage anything else! had something similar happen at my parents house quite a while ago except in the opposite direction. we were only getting about 80 volts in.

[Diggrr]

If it's worth it for you...since the power company came out to make a repair, that's documented, and you may be able to get them to reimburse your cost on a replacement psu. It was their equipment that killed yours...
Call Customer Service.

[orion456]

Originally Posted by Diggrr

If it's worth it for you...since the power company came out to make a repair, that's documented, and you may be able to get them to reimburse your cost on a replacement psu. It was their equipment that killed yours...
Call Customer Service.

Good thought........I'll check into it.

[Adragontattoo]

Yes a surge can kill UPS systems..

Long ago, when the tech boom was still ongoing, I was working for a company setting up a data center. The previous occupants of the building tested Jet engines so the entire building was being reconfigured. As a result of the complete rebuild, the fire alarms went off constantly and 99.9% of the time it was a false alarm. The fire Marshal came out eventually and told everyone to ignore the fire alarms unless you see the fire department arrive, smell smoke, see flames or are on fire.

which we did.

This building was located on 2 different power grids, and the power company was going to do a test to make sure that there was no issue transferring between grids. There was.

Ever seen Industrial sized UPSs? Picture an ENTIRE room, full of metal cabinets and batteries.

Well when the switchover happened, there was (by the power company estimate) a 38KV SURGE which promptly turned the room full of batteries into a firey exploding room full of burning plastic, acid, lead and metal.

Fire alarm goes off, and we are in the data center running cables to all the racks. After about 20 minutes, local FD in FULL Chem gear comes in and promptly starts screaming at us to GT*O etc...

We go outside, and a different fire marshal immediately starts ripping us a new one. Threats of jail, fines, death, etc... After about 20 minutes he stops long enough for me to ask him where the previous fire marshal was?
"THAT DOESNT MATTER, I AM HERE! HE ISNT!"
"Well sir. He told everyone in the building to ignore the alarms unless.... We did and since we were in a closed room, with no windows, we had NO idea that it was anything more then another false alarm."
It ended up that we had to basically get everyone who had been on the job site prior to the Marshal telling us that and the Site foreman telling the on site Marshal that and threatening lawsuits before he backed down.

Re: the power co. coming out and your having overvoltage issues. Call your insurance company NOW. You need to get a claim opened, and you need to get EVERYTHING checked out. You may find out a few weeks or months from now that X died, or other issues. The longer you wait, the less likely you will get reimbursed by either the power co. OR your insurance because you will have to PROVE the overvoltage caused the issue.

[orion456]

UPDATE: the power company apologized for not coming out immediately to check the over voltage and they agreed to pay for my power supply and aquarium light. Everything else seems to be working fine.

[mbentley]

that's awesome. glad they are willing to pay for the damages without too much trouble.