CyberPower LX1500GU-FC UPS Tear-Down

[Daniel Sauvageau]

Next question, are consumer-grade UPS units like that capable of being run continuously?

I believe the answer to that is no. At least not if you want to run them at a substantial fraction of their maximum rating. Consumer UPS are only designed to run from their internal battery, relying on the fact that the battery will run out before the rest of the UPS needs to worry about overheating from heat buildup due to passive cooling and minimal case venting. With only 3-5 minutes of battery backup time under full load, the transformer(s) and heatsinks are still warming up by the time the battery cuts off. If you run it at 1/4 load, that causes 1/16th the I2R losses and the UPS might be able to run that indefinitely if you hacked external batteries into it.

When you get into higher capacity units that support external battery packs, like APC's BR1500G, you get a fan to keep things cool over the massively extended run time. Those should be able to run continuously since they are already designed to run at near 100% load long enough to reach steady operating temperature.

 

[Onus]

If I did it, I'd hack the case to remove the batteries, add active cooling using some of that space, and use external batteries.
The reason for going to all this trouble is purely a matter of cost; even a smallish Xantrex is going to be at least $250-$300.

Now there's an idea...buy a Xantrex and tear it down, comparing it to a UPS (where relevant; it won't have a charging circuit).

 

[Chetou]

Please do a PFCLCD unit next. Those are pure sine wave and wildly popular.

 

[Daniel Sauvageau]

Please do a PFCLCD unit next. Those are pure sine wave and wildly popular.

I will get around to that eventually.

 

[KaiserPhantasma]

Please do a PFCLCD unit next. Those are pure sine wave and wildly popular.

isn't it adaptive not pure sinewave?

 

[Onus]

Check out that YouTube vid that Thunder64 posted; it looks like a darn good sine wave to me.

 

[KaiserPhantasma]

Check out that YouTube vid that Thunder64 posted; it looks like a darn good sine wave to me.

thats the PFCLD series chetou is requesting to be reviews next 😉 which is adaptive sinewave from what I know not pure

 

[Onus]

What do you mean by "adaptive?" Did you see the waveform in the video? I had thought it was a clipped triangle until I saw that; it looks about perfect.

 

[Daniel Sauvageau]

I bought one on sale a few weeks ago but I already have three other stories in the publishing pipeline and at least one other in-progress that I plan to send in before I look into my PFCLCD. I did look at the waveform and there is some cheating going on there but you'll have to wait for the story to find out what I mean. (Or it could be that my unit is out of specs. Either way, something fishy is definitely going on.)