Sorry to take so long to summarize, but I was hoping to have this
resolved before I sent the message.
I had asked about Liebert Power supplies:
~20 wrote that are happy with various makes and models of Liebert
equipment
3 wrote that are happy with other vendors: Deltec, APC, and Merlin
All are outside (sometimes just outside) the 5 gauss line.
Several people were unhappy:
"I have not been super happy with Liebert either--the 6kva UPStation
went out, twice, after only a couple of months of operation and the result was
feeding 208 to our 220 console. The spectra went to hell although there
was no apparent permanent damage to the console. It was also a big pain
to bring in 4 wires (2 hot, ground, and neutral) to the Lieberts which
they required in order to have grounded 120 V outlets for the computers.
(Other UPS suppliers did not require this."
4.5kVA installed 6/00 failed recently- still in process of getting it
fixed
Fan problem in AP206
~2 year old 6kva unit- power turned off and back on and smoke came out.
Had to buy a new one.
UPS station died due to bad fan- fixed under warranty within 24 hours
Several people commented that too high a field could be a problem-
"since it works on a saturated core transformer technology, background
magnetic fields will screw it up and over 5 gauss is unacceptable. "
As for our problem:
About 5 months after installation, it was sounding the alarm and
complaining about the bypass voltage. Trying to switch to battery
backup lost all power to the console. There were inconsistent error
messages complaining about the load even when the console was off. It
took Liebert 2 weeks to get a tech in. Repeated phone calls to the
number in my manual (800-543-2378) were fruitless- they had no record of
the unit. Calls to the number provided by the local distributor
(800-BACKUPS) were more helpful. When the tech did come, he was unable
to repair it (he didn't have a spare of the part that died ("a pair of
IGBT, insulated gate bipolar transistors. I believe they generate the 60
cycle 208V off the batteries. Essentially,they produce the output. ")
This was on 22 Dec. (Friday). He promised to return on 3 Jan (UNM was closed from
23 Dec -1 Jan and Liebert was off on the 2nd). Phone calls to Liebert
with them promising to page him resulted in him showing up unannounced
on the 8th. He replaced the bad parts, but it still gave errors. It was
finally determined that the source of the error message was the neutral wire.
We did not wire it up with neutral, which is acceptable, but you have to
tell it there is no neutral. This is not set in the regular
configuration set up. It is not documented in the manual, we didn't
relize it needed to be set, and neither did any of the service reps we
had talked to.
The system is now working.
Still to be resolved is the warranty issue. The quote we ordered from
states "unpacking and installation by others Start-up service
provided." The user manual gives explicit instructions on installation.
Neither Liebert nor the local distributor contacted us regarding
installation. Liebert claims that installing it ourselves shortened the
warranty to 90 days, but I can find this written no-where. (The console
it provides power to was installed several years ago. We had some
year-end money and decided a good use would be a UPS.)
There is no spot in my lab that is below 5 gauss, but we are going to
try to move the unit as far as possible from the magnets- just to be
safe.
Should we find money to buy another unit, I would not buy Liebert. On
the other hand, the replies to my query were about 4:1 happy to
unhappy. Next time I would do a better job of documenting and verifying
little details like warranty, installation, etc.
kas
--
Karen Ann Smith karenann_at_unm.edu
Manager, NMR Facility Adj. Asst. Prof.
Dept. of Chemistry Clark Hall
University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131
505.277.4031 url: http://www.unm.edu/~karenann
May you celebrate the Winter Solstice season with
joy and happiness according to your own customs.
Received on Thu Jan 11 2001 - 10:39:17 MST