OT: UPS manufacturer

Nov 26, 2025 Last reply: 2 months ago 134 Replies

The battery would be SLA (sealed lead acid), and not a Lithium flammable type. For cargo planes, there can be rules about Lithium. For a Post Office, their main concern other than that, is with dimensions or weight of the item. A big UPS would likely exceed any of their available options. Even some couriers can object to carriage of a UPS, just from the weight of the thing.

For the fossil record, you should include the model number of this product in a post, in order that future generations can benefit from the discussion thread. We don't even know what SKU bracket this thing is from, cheapest (10% failure rate) level, mid-range level, or "business class extra expense" ones. A double-conversion unit with a fan that runs all the time, is the type popular in Server rooms (the switchover time on those is 0 milliseconds, versus the typical 2 cycle switching time of the SPS Standby Power Supply type popular for cheap ones). My last employer had one like that (double conversion) for our little server and the tape autoloader (that was so our single IT guy could go home at night to his wife and four kids).

If you don't want to include the model number (written on the bill), then just tell us the price before tax. That will establish its credentials as a piece of crap.

Paul

The computer in a modern UPS (even if it only has a flashing red LED for status), can have all sorts of firmware for monitoring "power quality".

If it does have such a feature, you'd want to check whatever software is offered with it, to see if any analysis it is doing, is printed out in the Application.

Paul

The software is installed on my PC, it wants to talk, but never gets the chance to establish communication.

The unit is an Eaton 3S 700B UPS. I mentioned yesterday that the cost was: list £120 from Eaton, £85 from Amazon as a Black Friday deal. Which means that Eaton must still have made a profit, so it was 'worth' maybe £70 to them. And as I said, Made in China, but that applies to just about anything electronical nowadays. I agree that the battery is probably SLA, the EVRI shipping label has a separate part that says "DO NOT SHIP BY AIR". The unit is indeed heavy, and loaded to the end with the battery,

That may be gmail being picky about your mail sender. If you have e.g. a gmail account try that.

It was sent from my gmail account. I have deleted it anyway.

Ah well, that may be a problem at Clive's end..

I have never seen that fault before anywhere else, so I couldn't be bothered to dig further.

Oh I have...but never from a mail system. Only from a browser.

It usually means your SMTP relay server is not up to date.

It is updated whenever Mozilla sends out an update. And why just that one message?

Since you mentioned gmail, presumably you're referring to firefox, but that's your client not your relay server, you're using gmail's own servers ...

One gmail user having problems sending to another gmail user, is basically gmail's problem, as you said ... if it happens again post the message

Ok. I was referring to Thunderbird, not Firefox.

Is there a different email address for him somewhere on his web site?

formatting link

The gmail one was the only one I could find. He has X, Facebook and Bluesky accounts but it doesn’t look like he’s used any of them recently (or at all). An elusive man! ;-)

Tim

the address that I did reach him on as I mentioned ... and he replied from the same addr.

As I said, I have deleted my message to him, and that is as far as I will go with this.

As I said, I have deleted my message to him, and that is as far as I will go with this.

Out of interest, I decided to see what, if anything, the PC knew about the UPS USB connection. I plugged in the cable, and the terminal 'lsusb' command produced the result: Bus 001 Device 010: ID 0463:ffff MGE UPS Systems UPS But although the box appears on the screen, it does not respond to any attempt to communicate, there are 4 tabs across the top: Status, Node, Date, Messages. None of them offer any information., just empty menu spaces. I will now read through the 'Tutorial' on Eaton's website and maybe re-install the IPP to see if that helps it communicate.

And as usual, it fails with things happening that I cannot quickly fix. The first attempt to re-install the software failed due to a file not being empty. I emptied it. The 2nd attempt appeared to succeed, although I do not now have the box onscreen. Following the tutorial again results in problems. I get to the point where it complains about an Unsafe Connection, but I can get to a Login screen. But I have no idea what it wants, entering my PC ID and PW do not work. This is not mentioned in the tutorial. I might ask them for help, or I might just not waste my time.

That turned out to be that the software I had installed was not the correct one, despite being the exact one specified in the online manual. I downloaded the different one that they specified, which was a Windows .exe file. I have Wine running, so I used that. Not only did it not work, it messed up my existing Wine setup. Luckily I managed to recover that.

The current status is that Eaton asked me to confirm the serial numbers of the three units I had been sent, which I did. They responded by saying that the more recent versions had fixed several of the problems that had been reported with the 3S units that I had been sent. So they knew there were problems.

I am now waiting for No. 4. Neither they, nor their courier, ever tells me in advance that it is on its way, so I will wait until after lunch and complain that it has still not arrived.

And today I see that Eaton has declared that the 3S is officially out of production. Well, well, I for one do not mourn its demise.

Join the Discussion

Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.

Didn't find your answer?

Ask the community — no account required