OT: UPS manufacturer

On Sat, 29 Nov 2025 12:47:27 +0000 Davey snipped-for-privacy@example.invalid wrote:

This has been, as they say, a journey. I received the Eaton unit, and put it on charge as instructed. After the required 24 hrs, I moved it to its future location in the study, and turned it on. It worked for a while, then stopped. Attempts to restart it resulted in the indicator lights on the top flashing red/green/red/green a few times, then nothing at all, and certainly no power output. The online manual does not describe this light sequence, so I contacted Customer Service. They asked me to do a procedure to disconnect the battery, let it lose any programming, and then repeat the 24 hr charge, which I did, for no effect.They set up an RMA for me, without any problem. I then checked the outlet for any connection problems, but could find none, in case my house wiring, which recently passed an Electrical Certification for insurance purposes, had a problem causing this. The explanation of the light sequence I was seeing was that it indicated an internal fault. The replacement unit behaved exactly the same except it never ran at all. I did the same battery disconnect and recharge, no change. Although Eaton had never suggested that my house wiring may have a problem, I engaged my licensed electrician to check the wiring, and he gave it a full clean bill of health. I received another RMA, and the third unit was delivered. And it behaved exactly the same way, so I now have three non-functioning UPSs. I have yet to receive a response about the third. As for the first two, Eaton do not want them back, even to analyse the fault, which seems strange to me. Do they already know what the problem is? If so, why do they not fix it? They seem to have no problem issuing RMAs to send me a new unit. I have asked for my money back, as I still have no UPS.

I now would like a recommendation for a different supplier to try.

Could you try them at work, or in a neighbour's house?

I retired from work some years ago! I am now 75 years old. But I could try a neighbour's house, yes. At the moment, I am getting ready to make a video of what happens on attempted startup, at Eaton's request. They have also said that they do not give credit, but will continue this process until it works. I replied that, if it goes on much longer, I will invoke my option under the Consumer Rights Act for a refund for faulty goods, and that I will happily co-operate in sending any or all units back so they can find out what is wrong. They have expressed no interest in what is, to me, a basic troubleshooting process. My next trip to my local WEEE recycling centre will be loaded down with an excess of UPS units.

Watch this space.....

Correct approach. Document everything. What is the status of a credit card or debit card purchase? You might be able to get the transaction reversed.

what on earth could be wrong with any ones house wiring to cause this?

Dave

Various possibilities, but if an electrician has done checks they've presumably been ruled-out (L/N reversed, high impedance earth, broken N in neighbouring property or street)

JUST possibly a high impedance socket...that cannot deliver current.

How would any of these cause issues with a UPS. It MUST not pass any current down the earth wire otherwise it would trip RCDs and fail a PAT test. If there was a neutral fault everything else wouldn't work.

Its CE marked, and as continental mains sockets are reservable live/neutral interchange should also be a non-issue.

Dave

So in that case, things plugged directly into the socket wouldn't work.

Dave

Does the unit have a selector switch for voltage ?

Is it a 60Hz unit in a 50Hz environment ?

( Looking for any detail that hints they shipped the wrong unit to you... )

Some line interactive units in the past, were ferroresonant, which might mean they would not be happy if conditions were not just right for them. Those tended to run warm in any case, and they may have stopped making things like that. Line interactive, boosts the line voltage, if the line voltage is low. Check your line voltage to see if it falls within the acceptance band.

Get the exact part number off the plate on the back, and run it through a Google for review comments.

Getting two bad units in a row, hints at a systematic problem, not a random manufacturing failure. Those units should be

*******

NOTE: Some UPS ship with the battery cables DISCONNECTED. You are required to take the access panel or cover off the thing and verify it is connected. Disconnecting the battery, helps prevent reverse bias damage to the battery if it self-discharges too low.

Visually inspect the unit for damage. If the UPS punctured the cardboard box (which is normal for transit of UPS), see if the corners have been crushed by the impact.

See if the unit has a diagnostic LCD display, or a USB or RS232 port that has diagnostic capability. The computer inside it may have power, when other parts do not. The one with the flashing LEDs likely had the computer section powered.

Paul

Some might.

But the more likely ting is that Eaton have a bunch of cheap chinesium crap and are using the customer to test them all.

Since they are clearly not worth repairing.

Send em to Big Clive!

In China? Hardly.

I got a pair of brushless motors and controllers. The first one burst into flames the moment power was drawn.

I got a full refund for both items. The other one works OK.

I got 10 transistors from China. Every single one failed, My guess is that if even one person oin ten cant be arsed to get a refund its profitable

non-trivial voltage difference between N and E, fluctuating voltage

UPSes monitor the mains carefully (where normal appliances don't) I've known several that got upset by the quality of mains put out by large site-wide generators ...

Very true, it causes them to dry out. If the only charger system available, is 13.8v, what I do is have it switch on for regular short period - my car, has a charger permanently connected, but charges once per day, for 20 minutes.

When the first unit failed, the only reference in the online manual that resembled the light flashing that I saw said that a flashing red light indicated a fault with the house wiring. I wanted to be sure that that was not the case.

Ah, there are some wrinkles here. When I first looked at the Eaton unit in November, Eaton were charging £120 for it. As it was near Black Friday, I checked Amazon, and they were asking £85 for it. So I went with them.

Then, after it arrived and failed, I contacted Eaton to try to find out what the flashing light sequence meant, as it was not listed in the online manual. And this eventually resulted in the first RMA, and so on. Amazon know nothing about this, so being more than 30 days after the purchase from them might make returning one of the units for a refund difficult. I don't know. At least I have three to choose from! Strictly, Eaton don't owe me any money, Jeff Bezos does, and he can try to get it back from Eaton.

Now, I just checked the 3rd unit, and it is indeed Made in China, which supports the theory that Eaton know they have bought a bad batch, and just keep on sending them out until one finally works. Hopefully.

Very interesting. But I still do not have a working UPS.

The Eaton company is unlikely to have made this unit themselves. They went on a binge of buying other companies, which means the unit could be made just about anywhere.

But not absolutely all units are made in China. A few other countries are involved as well.

The dropout rate on units would be too high, if shipped untested. In an order of 100 UPS at the startup I worked at, 10% of the units failed, and those were purchased from "the lowest SKU", so those would be Happy Fun Ball UPS. They needed to keep the power up, for the 1 second glitches we used to get in the industrial park. We did not intend the UPS to run for two minutes or ten minutes, just ride through the glitches. I recommend to people, they buy from the next SKU up, where the fallout rate on first usage is lower.

But the story on this unit, implies something is systematically wrong. Maybe all the batteries are knackered as received. Just guessing at the least reliable part. But not having the computer light a red led that something is wrong, it should be easier for a kit of parts to succeed at doing that bit.

Paul

No.

No.

Nothing found.

These have all been already connected.

No damage on any of them.

No LCD. The lights are the only information available. There is a USB port, but it does nothing without the unit operating. At least, it didn't when I checked the first one. I might try again tomorrow, for the heck of it. Every time I boot my PC, it shows the info. box where it should display the USB's information, so the PC is ready. All three units have had exactly the same flashing LED display.

I am more and more convinced that they know there is a bad batch out there, and are happy to keep sending me new units until one finally works. I have a growing pile of WEEE fodder.

What we do...

Get a refurbed APC SmartUPS from ups-trader on ebay

Accept that the battery is a consumable, and will need replacing every 2-3 years, again from ups-trader, not APC! Just get the cells and build your own pack if you want to be cheap, after the second replacement, as you'll have the bits to hand. You can swap the battery without an outage (if you place the UPS somewhere accessible...).

Monitor it with apcupsd, not the APC PowerChute shitware.

Ensure a battery test is done every 1-2 weeks so you know when it's buggered, rather than finding out when the lights go out.

We have 5 of them keeping the servers, PCs, AV, security and lighting going here. Never had an outage caused by the UPS, and they have saved our ass many times. Just need to get a proper genny now, for when things get really bad...