Everybody Staze...

Nobody leavz...

You are here: Home / Archives for UPS

American Battery Company

By

Update 1: Got an email from the ABC manager asking what he could do to make it right, again stating their “We’re the only company to warranty our products for 2 years”, which, statistically, means nothing. I would imagine after looking at failure rates, they saw >80% of SLA batteries they source failed after 2 years, so there was no reason to not increase their warranty. Anyway, I responded that they could offer a discount on a new product, or at the very least, adjust their process so they’re not asking out of warranty customers to fill out an RMA form. I’ll post another update if I hear more…

Update 2: Okay, they’ve redeemed themselves. The manager that got ahold of me yesterday got back to me today and said he was shipping me a replacement today. He did apologize for rigamarole that I went through. So yes, the original post is moot. Thank you ABC for coming through on this.

Update 3: Got the battery. Interestingly, looks like it’s better built than the original. Thanks ABC!

ABC RBC7Just over two years ago, I purchased a replacement battery for my APC Smart-UPS 1400. I’d used ABC batteries in the past, and hadn’t really seen anything wrong with them (or right, they just worked). Over the weekend, however, the battery that was, quite literally, a month and a half past it’s 2 year warranty, triggered an alert that it needed to be replaced.

I contacted ABC, and they said they’d consider the warranty, and had me fill out an RMA request. At this point, I had already told them when it was purchased, and that it was less than 2 months outside warranty. So, I filled out the request, and expected something positive to come of it (at least the option for a discounted replacement purchase). Instead, an hour later, I got a reply from the same person that had told me to fill out the RMA request, that they wouldn’t be able to help me. So, why the hell did they have me fill out the RMA request?

Needless to say, I have a very thin tolerance for shitty customer service (see some previous posts). When there are probably a solid dozen non-OEM battery companies out there wanting to get my business, why should I keep giving it to a company that doesn’t back their product when it fails JUST outside warranty, and doesn’t give any recourse, at all. I think Tommy Boy summed up this experience pretty well.

So, ABC is no longer someone I will be able to recommend, nor will I do business with them again.

APC Back-Ups Connect (BGE70)

By

APC Back-Ups Connect BGE70Since moving off my Airport Extreme to the Asus RT-N16, I’ve been concerned about the lack of backup power in the case of a power outage (my cable modem has a backup battery, but my router doesn’t). I’ve been looking fro a small UPS for some time now, but all I’ve ever found were the power strip style ones. Then, a few weeks back, I found a stack of these BGE70‘s at the local Goodwill (brand new), for $20 each. Knowing they wouldn’t sell fast, I decided to wait a until they fell to half price, and pick one up then.

4 weeks later, their color came around, and I picked one up for $10. Awesome. I brought it home, hooked up the negative battery terminal, and plugged it in. It powered right up, and seemed to work great. It does output a simple square wave (which doesn’t matter (much) to most digital gear, or their switching power supplies), and provides about 75W of capacity. I’m only loading it to about 15W, so I should get at least 100 minutes of uptime. =) The unit has two screw slots on the backside that allow wall mounting, which was easy to do where my cable modem and router are in the garage.

The unit doesn’t have grounded power outlets (nor is it’s input grounded), so it’s really meant for routers, cable modems, access points, etc. It’s not a computer UPS (though, I suppose you COULD use it for something like an LED backlit LCD TV).

My only complaint about the unit, and it’s minor, is the rather bright green LED on the power button. The unit is in the garage, so it doesn’t matter, but if I had my router and cable modem in my office still, I’d find the light overly bright. But, some tape or round white labels would fix that quickly.

Overall, very happy, and certainly worth the $10 (probably worth the $50 that they retail for, even).

[xrr rating=5/5]

How to use the Xserve Serial port for outgoing connections

By

I have a UPS that I want to configure, and a lack of any DB9-USB adapters here at work. But, I’ve got a dozen Xserve’s with serial ports just asking to be used for this purpose.

The problem is, by default, Xserve’s are set up to be on the receiving end of a serial connection (you can use a serial terminal to get into them if they’re sideways somehow).

Googling turned up a few answers, but none that said “this is it”. So, share the wealth!

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.xserve.serial-ports.plist from the terminal. That’ll stop getty, and you should then be able to use ZTerm (thankfully just updated to be a Universal App for Lion) to initiate a connection.

Good luck!