APC SU3000INET: Master UPS of the 90's

[@craignehring]

How sweet it is, good to see you receive see so much joy from that APC unit, warms my heart too. Thank you for taking the time to share this with us

[@FFcossag]

You're welcome as always.

[@jimwilliams8858]

Great call on replacing blue caps...but still see blue caps on the board near fan connector (towards end of video). Also, hint hint…there are two resistors on this model that heat up (thermal runaway). If you have access to a FIR camera you can spot them. I don’t have the schematic anymore to help you locate it. We replaced them with 1W metal films slightly elevated from board and all was well after that. I think when they software-designed this board, designers auto-routed the layout as much as they could without giving much consideration to component dissipation and thermodynamic.

[@FFcossag]

Hm, thanks for the tip - and I replaced those caps off-camera after finishing shooting. ;)

[@GarmnCX]

I fixed my old apc ups with replacing the caps Thanks for the advice

[@staxmotown6183]

what was wrong with them ??

[@reddragon27284]

Got one of those still in service at work. Also have 2 of the newer black versions. They’re rock solid, if you can get the management card and environmental probe it’s quite useful. I’ve just ordered 8 17ah 12v batteries to rebuild some of the packs on ours. APC do charge too much for sticking a couple of standard batteries together.

[@mxbf]

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit, that I actually still have two of these providing backup for an office wiring closet and a small (company internal use only) server cluster. They have proven extremely reliable and I have not even encountered any issues with lessened battery life, they seem to last in good condition for five or so years in my environment. Maybe that is due to that I never have used original APC battery packs but replacement cells from the local auto themed store (vink) :) I even had a third one and I regret that I gave it away.

[@staxmotown6183]

stax motown 1 seconde geleden just about reviving dried out GEL bats and these APC's these bats can be put back to life . they are mostly dried out so topping up with distilled water after taking the rubber valvecaps of , and then charging slowly over several days will bring them back to life ,to have them faster recondtioned it halps with short bursts of shortcuts , that will revive them nearly complete up to 75 or 80 % from new ! ? the problem withthese ups is that they overcharge , unless you hang lots of exterior batteries and have them dayly a short burst ( few minutes is ok to relieve the litle but of overtension ,) to work on the bats . avarge voltage of good condition and charged up set is between 53 and 57 volts peak charging kan go up to 60 volts for short time . The UPC will start showing overtension from 58 volts on but withstands 60 volts ! ( inside electrolyts are 63 Volt types ) I am running thoseUPS's on exterior 48 volt storage with 1200 AH yes READ WELL 56 BATS OF 90 AH in 14 strings of 4 serial .. they are watched by an industrial exterior charger of 80 amps and shortly with an extra Hybride OUTBACK solar convertor ! Thta's what I call full OFF GRID system ! in the backyard sist a Perkins 30KVA generator in case of failures . Waking up bats that have been standing still is slowly charging and giving them a few firm shorts this will wake em up !! ( old trick of carsalvage yards ! )

[@SidneyCritic]

Didn't know about the over charging, but the cheap LED volt displays I fitted say 13.6V on 1 battery and 13.7V on the other. I better check them with a DMM. Didn't know about the caps, maybe I should check them too.

[@FFcossag]

Always gotta do the caps on Smart-UPSes. 13,6/13,7 is fine if it's actually true.

[@CptCholo]

I brought one home today and bought new battery's, still works like charm.

[@farinaccinet]

Question I own an APC Back-UPS Pro 1100 (BP1100). I just replaced the battery but after assembling the unit back I turned it on, the green LED turns on first blinks 36 times then goes off, at the same time I get a solid amber LED, beeping 4 times (5 times with a 30 secs interval). What can I do???

[@jacksmith3951]

nice video how much hour can it run on 600 watts load i have one backups cs 350 battery life not that good that why i have inverter 1100 watts 12 volt battery 285 cranking amp but i going used 12 volt deep cycle battery 100 amp

[@tyttuut]

My dad has had a similar unit for years. It ended up in the basement, running the sump pump (which worked surprisingly well) until the batteries crapped out. It's still down there, but it's unplugged.

[@unmountablebootvolume]

You should get it out of that basement, recap it and replace the batteries. That unit will last you at least 10 years using two sets of batteries if you adjust the charge voltage. These old APC's were pretty much indestructable. (they could even run a vacuum cleaner without turning off or blowing up!)

[@Seegalgalguntijak]

You could always try and recondition/charge these lead batteries with a Re-EMF charger (which is basically the JouleThief circuit, only that it pulses high voltage/relatively low current spikes into the cells, thus "blasting" the cells free at several kHz or something like that). You find lots of videos about this circuit on KZbin, and I am still wondering why nobody made a commercial product out of it. Of course, the plain circuit would need a bit more R&D for this in order to make the commercial product actually a controlled charging/reconditioning solution, but if you don't mind cecking times and voltages yourself, it will work in a "home-gamer" setup as well.

[@FFcossag]

It doesn't work on dead UPS batteries, because they die from electrolyte depletion and plate corrosion causing them to turn into mush. Completely impossible to recover.

[@Seegalgalguntijak]

Aren't UPS batteries also just lead (gel, not acid) batteries? I think it might also work with those, although of course it works better on lead acid batteries.

[@staxmotown6183]

these bats can be put back to life . they are mostly dried out so topping up with distilled water after taking the rubber valvecaps of , and then charging slowly over several days will bring them back to life ,to have them faster recondtioned it halps with short bursts of shortcuts , that will revive them nearly complete up to 75 or 80 % from new ! ? the problem withthese ups is that they overcharge , unless you hang lots of exterior batteries and have them dayly a short burst ( few minutes is ok to relieve the litle but of overtension ,) to work on the bats . avarge voltage of good condition and charged up set is between 53 and 57 volts peak charging kan go up to 60 volts for short time . The UPC will start showing overtension from 58 volts on but withstands 60 volts ! ( inside electrolyts are 63 Volt types ) I am running thoseUPS's on exterior 48 volt storage with 1200 AH yes READ WELL 56 BATS OF 90 AH in 14 strings of 4 serial .. they are watched by an industrial exterior charger of 80 amps and shortly with an extra Hybride OUTBACK solar convertor ! Thta's what I call full OFF GRID system ! in the backyard sist a Perkins 30KVA generator in case of failures . Waking up bats that have been standing still is slowly charging and giving them a few firm shorts this will wake em up !! ( old trick of carsalvage yards ! )

[@unmountablebootvolume]

I have the 2200va unit and the only differences are the 92mm fan, the missing external battery conector and the fact that APC did not populate one more fet on every heatsink and the fourth main capacitor. Funny how mine was also made in 2003. Does anyone know where I can buy the white bottom cover with the APC logo? That part is missing on mine.

[@elkereichenberg9287]

We have the same APC 3000 in our basement. Bought our house 3 years ago and with it came the APC 3000 connected to 4 large battery packs. It is suppose to be a back up for our two sump pumps. The set up did work when we had a power outage a while ago. Our house was built in 1996 so I assume the APC set up is over 20 years old. Should we have someone come in and take a look and see if it needs maintenance? Sorry if this is a stupid question ☺. Just don't know anything about this. Thanks for any help/suggestions.

[@FFcossag]

Jst replace the batteries if they go bad.

[@elkereichenberg9287]

@@FFcossag thank you!!!

[@kiskiller3]

whats your opinion on batteries ? you seem to not like the CSB ones it has.. i really like the Yuasa'S myslef.. bnut the csbs arent too bad..

[@FFcossag]

Any good quality brand is fine, I have little preference among those.

[@ifrit05]

Love your camera work on this one. :)

[@JimWattsHereNow]

Oh yes, they were such good beasts of a ups. Great video.

[@JohnGotts]

I love APC equipment from that era.

[@twocvbloke]

You could probably stick a PC type 12v "silent" fan in there with a suitable resistor to drop the current down enough so that the fan doesn't end up burning out, would be much nicer on the ears than that drone from the original fan... :)

[@PileOfEmptyTapes]

Not even close to the original airflow though. The D12BH-24D is rated for 129.5 CFM at no less than 4000 rpm. Granted, these days you could probably do that sort of airflow at closer to 3000 rpm, but it is never going to be quiet when running full tilt. One would have to implement some sort of fan control.

[@FFcossag]

As Pileofemptytapes already pointed out, that's no good. The internal power dissipation of this is several hundred watts at full load, a dinky PC fan would cause smoke.

[@johnturner9561]

Great vid I am glad you found that unit. I have started playing with a couple of ups, I am trying to use a large 7s 18650 pack, have you ever tried this as I am trying to reduce the final charge voltage down cannt figure it out. any suggestions.

[@FFcossag]

Lithium batteries really need a more precise charger than these have.

[@staxmotown6183]

I have a few of these and they indicate to low on the bats , connected to 1250 AH 56 bats and at 52/53 volts charged ; only one bat led is lighting up and sometimes blinking .any idea where to look for ??

[@FFcossag]

Your wires might be too thin; you also need to adjust the battery constant by using the PROG mode on the UPS.

[@staxmotown6183]

@@FFcossag i have sent you a replye , don't know if it arived ; wiring is very thick and short up to 100 AMPS minimum ! one unit functions perfect ! two indicate to low .. must be somethning to do with one of the analog input channels of the analog digital convertor 838 inside . but which input ??? do you know ?? greets, Ben

[@SuperBrainAK]

That is a lovely looking beast! I have been looking at all my 24v UPS’s and figuring out which one I should use for my solar setup, they are only 750-1500VA. My setup will be 7S lithium ion and as big as I can go :)

[@tsandrew125]

Great video. I would like to create an external battery pack, how did you wire up the external pack you have available? Thanks!

[@FFcossag]

You just hook it up to the connector on the back.

[@tsandrew125]

@@FFcossag yup, I was more asking for the way the expansion batteries are hooked up. So assume it's 4 batteries paired into 2 pairs then those are paired again to make up the 48v?

[@FFcossag]

Yup. The internal batteries are just 2 24 V APC packs (RBC7 I think) that are connected individually to the UPS, and connected in series internally in the UPS.

[@zx8401ztv]

That should now be an excellent backup for most of your computers, no sudden power downs because of lost mains :-D. Looks very clean inside, and now you have prevented cap failure it should be very reliable. Dam good unit :-D

[@FFcossag]

Dam good indeed.

[@eduardoumonteiro]

Nice video, you really understand the technology very well. You've made a nice refurbish to the UPS. I also have a APC SU3000INET that was given to me by a friend 10 Years ago with swollen batteries and broken connectors. My goal is to turn it to Lithium UPS with 18650 transforming it from 432W to 2300W +/- My question / challenge to you is: Do you think it's possible it to work? I mean 8P modules * 9 per Battery, totalizing 288Cells the size are all OK, the voltage can be also OK, since Lithium can last for longer if they are charged and discharged from 90% to 20/30%, this way the life span would increase considerably the 18650 also have the cut off if a cell becomes unhealthy it can be replaced easily, my thoughts are without any modifications, only using standard parameters from UPS would we achieve this charges and discharges? If any modification is required, can you show us how in a video, more detailed one. For the 18650 holder i've bought already from this site (module 8P) 18650.lt/index.php/product/n-e-s-e-module/ 18650 Cells, i've purchased a used ones since the money comes very short www.ebay.com/itm/Panasonic-NCR18650BE-3200mah-18650-Rechargeable-Battery-High-Drain-Batteries/123863463827?hash=item1cd6d67793:m:meTyqfj5QUxibska1LtVPzg&var=424588243787 Please leave a comment!

[@smartups1]

Please explain how this beast generate Spwm sine wave I have a schematic of same model I found sine wave on DAC but don't know how it's convert into spwm please explain in new video.

[@FFcossag]

I've never dug into these that far.

[@javieratam59dotnet]

What voltage and how many of the 22uF caps need to be replaced? I have a 17 year old SU1400NET still in service and working great with external batteries. I swapped the wire out of the yellow custom anderson connector (the battery disconnect on the back of the unit) and put that jumper wire internally so now the battery disconnect is actually the external battery connector, no internal batteries.

[@FFcossag]

You're really best off looking inside your unit. I think my 22 uF caps are rated 50 V.

[@andljoy]

I have the 2200VA one in the same case. Its so so awsome . I would be more than willing to get a reconditioned one in work.

[@rubusroo68]

haven't seen you post for a while good to see a vid from you

[@FFcossag]

Indeed, I'm stuck in Portugal for the time being, and very busy, so I don't have time to do much in the way of publishing, sadly.

[@GadgetReviewVideos]

OMG, I have not seen one of these in decades. We had one on under each desk at my one job for my department. But it was the single unit, not the double stack box you have. Then I finally had one for my computer at home when they went from square to rectangle, the APC smart-ups RS 900. Today I have 3 of the APC 1500VA, one 750VA, one small Back-UPS 300, and one Back-ups 650. The only one that doesn’t have a USB remote monitoring software control is the 300. But the newer smaller 600 uses a standard USB cable. The 750VA and 1500VA units use the custom RJ45 to USB cable. I tried one cyber power and it smoked the first time I tested it with switching to battery, never again. So I stay with APC now. So far the only ones that failed on me was the first RS 900 I bought used so it was at least 15 years old before I retired it, I replaced the batteries once and it failed a second one with charging. It was failed SMD caps that leaked. And last month one of my 1500VA models failed during a power outage when it only ran 2 minutes without any warnings in the smart parachute monitoring software. My guess being my firs 1500 unit it probably a capacitor issue also pushing 10 years old. I tore down the RS 900 for parts. I haven’t looked at the 1500VA failure yet since it was a recent fail and just took it off line for now. But yes, always check those caps before waiting money in batteries. The RS 900 16V 22uf caps survived, but it had three or four 4.7uf caps, one of them supporting the microprocessor on C22 and they all leaked. So if you ever get later model 900 be sure to replace the 4.7 ones.if I didn’t destroy the transformer I could probably,h fix it and out it back online, but not worth it at this point. Nice spark gap component on the network RJ45 protection, the in and out for each port had 16 diodes, one for each RJ45 wire with another 3 working with the CITEL 06 2500V Spark gap. Great for parts if you grab one in the dumpster, lol. Have fun with your new backup, should last you another 1o years now with proper battery maintenance. Great units.

[@kiskiller3]

woohf.. been a while since i watched a video about upss.. i usually have my dose of ups stuff at work haha.. these units are really realiable theyre still in use today.. had to remplace the batteries in a 1998 with original batteries the other day.. was a pain in the butt.. has to open it drill the rivets etc etc.. we still sell alot of these.. theyre just solid beasts..

[@nerdywolfi]

Nice find. I wonder what you're gonna use it for - upgrading the solar system maybe?

[@FFcossag]

No, this thing is too pure. It shall remain untainted by my ugly hacks. I'm considering combining it and a vintage server case I have into a lovely vintage server exhibition. ;)

[@BobsEVGarage]

Hey man where do you find your UPS's?

[@FFcossag]

In the IT trash.

[@BobsEVGarage]

As in a recycling center?

[@FFcossag]

Usually I just ask around companies with big IT departments.

[@jacksat2252]

Hi, FFcossag Noctua have some 24V industrial fans arround 30 euro and they are black colour ,not that nice brown. And they are silent if you can use them with pwm signal ,but if you only can run them on 2 wire full rpm they are a bit noisy to ,but still alot quieter then most.

[@FFcossag]

Oh, I'll have to remember that. Thanks for the tip!

[@kiskiller3]

have you ever opened a APC Matrix 5000 ups ? its an old big really beefy thing.. theyre so overbuilt haha. i recycled many of them.

[@FFcossag]

Never touched one.

[@jimwilliams8858]

I must say Excellent find and Excellent video… thank you for posting…. I do relate and do have memories of this beast of beige sexiness and just like you do HIDE my tears when I see Anderson connectors with 8AWG wire links. To be honest that fan and buzzer is a bit of show killer…. (if you plan to place this near your desk area, try place a small tape over buzzer top opening and beeping becomes less annoying). But alas I became less interested as years passed when I learnt this APC was only 70% ish efficient! What? True, sadly this early 90s design that was never on par with its competitors, but nostalgia always wins so who cares.

[@metallitech]

How much power does this thing use?

[@FFcossag]

About 60 W.

[@staxmotown6183]

@@FFcossag mine are idling between 50 and 70 watts depending of the fan ...running yes or no .. and on resistive ballast ( 2000 watts heating up waterboiler , they don't come hot at all .. they just keep up fore a couple of hours with a strong battery backup exterial of coarse ( 1250 AH at 48 volts )

[@datawaresolutions6480]

Anyway to hack these 48v APCs into 24v?

[@FFcossag]

Not easily.

[@woox2k]

Got one of those beasts as well. It's only about 8 months older than yours :) Thanks for reminding to replace the caps, will do that on my unit as well.

[@Darieee]

Lovely !

[@station240]

I've personally seen an entire pallet load of dead APC batteries the exact same as these ones. Was wondering what sort of smallish UPS they came out of. Obviously been abused by too high charge voltage too, some of them were very melted, had hole blown in the casing, or lots of corrosion. I didn't know about the 22uF caps being crappy though, wonder how they managed that.

[@dosgos]

In the later 90s some people stole cap designs from the top Japanese manufacturers and took them to China. Looks like there were some errors or misunderstandings and we have a decade of terrible caps killing electronics. Look the story up on the internet...

[@brainndamage]

Nice, we have the next-gen black SUA3000RMI2U at work, they still work good. I'd like to see the XL version, curious if they have more transistors/bigger transformers or just a battery connector added.

[@FFcossag]

The black ones usually do, since they're more cost-optimised.

[@dormstories]

So no Smart protocol in these units? Guess the black units the came after these were the best from a tweaking perspective.

[@FFcossag]

They have the Smart protocol, but the charge voltage is (at least on the smaller ones) hard-coded with a resistor.

[@transdimensionalist]

haha i have the same ups sat in my room next to me, it is slightly different in that its the horizontal rack mount version, otherwise looks identical inside :)

[@FFcossag]

Nice.

[@alfoncejean8826]

I was thinking 13.5v cut-out is low has fuck (I usually go for 14.5v) then I realised those are gels.

[@FFcossag]

14.5 V is fine for a bulk charger, but not a maintenance charger. I'd be wary of ever putting that many volts into a gel cell though, at least the Sonnenschein industrlal gel cells I've dealt with are incredibly sensitive to overvoltage.

[@H4zuZazu]

But 13,8VDC is the Norminal Charging, everything over 14V is bad. Maybe useful to use Calcium-Calcium Batteries. They need a higher Charge Voltage.

[@highflowhighflow9896]

i have 5 ah sealed lead batterys they are 14,5 to 14,9 volt cycle use and standby use 13,6 to 13,8 volt thats written on the batterys so should be fine over 14 volt charge

[@Seegalgalguntijak]

Could you make a video in Finnish and put English captions onto it? Because I really love hearing the language :-) (A bit like Mastermilo82 does it with his videos in Dutch, you hear the language but you can still understand what the video is about)

[@FFcossag]

Dear god no, I'm WAY too lazy for that, lol.

[@Seegalgalguntijak]

That's too bad! Also, there is no need for the formal address ;P

[@highflowhighflow9896]

nice to see the old designs , they arnt that bad in old times

[@tookitogo]

SCSI is pronounced “scuzzy”, never spelled out! (In English.)

[@jimwilliams8858]

I think he is talking about ACSI . That was a giant mid 90s supercomputer built around few thousand Pentium Pro 200MHZ and I think one of first Intel made super computer… cough couch fail fail cough Department of Energy cough cough horrible OS cough fail ½ megawatt powersupply wasted basically was a heater.

[@FFcossag]

Indeed, my Swedish is showing.

[@56ding]

sings...You Got The Power

[@FFcossag]

I got the power.

[@Thuky0909]

Like

[@hellhound-si5oz]

I have the rock mount version of that 1 for you us

[@joshuawarrington1051]

What is it for??I know I sound stupid 🤣 but seriously

[@FFcossag]

It makes sure you have power even if the power goes out.

[@joshuawarrington1051]

FFcossag oh so is it kind off like a inverter then ?

[@unmountablebootvolume]

@@joshuawarrington1051 It's an inverter, a battery and a battery charger in one device.

[@joshuawarrington1051]

unmountable boot volume oh that’s pretty cool