Are frequent brownouts damaging my UPS's?

ned4spd8875

Distinguished
Feb 2, 2009
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We have frequent brownouts, especially when it rains. I've called our electric company numerous times, but the problem still persists. We just had another one a few days ago, and now both of my higher end UPS's are acting funny.

One is starting to make a on and off again high pitched whining sound. The other keeps making the switch sound like it's going back and forth between line and battery.

One is older, but the other is only about a year old. Could my power companies crappy lines be killing these?
 

TJ Hooker

Titan
Ambassador
Apparently yes, if your UPS is cycling frequently it can reduce the lifespan:

https://blog.schneider-electric.com/it-management/2015/04/28/tips-to-maximize-the-life-expectancy-of-your-ups-system/

No idea if it should cause the kind of failure you're describing though. Brown outs are part of the intended use case for a UPS, so you'd think they wouldn't cause them to fail in weird/unexpected ways.