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Let's Take a Trip Inside A Power Strip!

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Anonymous
a b ) Power supply
August 11, 2014 11:57:09 PM

We count on power bars to protect our expensive PC hardware, and it's easy to take them for granted. Recently, one of our writers took an APC unit apart, though, and discovered some disturbing manufacturing work. Follow along as we dig into his findings.

Let's Take a Trip Inside A Power Strip! : Read more

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a c 86 ) Power supply
August 12, 2014 7:10:29 AM

Very surprised to see the inside of that(and I have 2 APC UPSs sitting in front of me.).

Also never though of using the de-soldering braid as a patch :) 
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a c 131 ) Power supply
August 12, 2014 9:09:23 AM

It seems to me that it might be worthwhile taking a look at the innards of some more of these. This doesn't give me any warm fuzzies about APC. What happened to pride in one's products?
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August 12, 2014 9:21:43 AM

Having a fuse in addition to a breaker makes sense. A breaker takes milliseconds to react, being a mechanical device. If the fit really hits the shan, a fuse can react MUCH faster than a breaker.
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a b ) Power supply
August 12, 2014 9:22:45 AM

Onus said:
What happened to pride in one's products?

Who knows. I'm sure most of this seemed like a good idea at the time.

For the soldering, they probably put the units through automated testing and as long as everything tests ok, they send the units on their way - the ATE probably tests the live and neutral wires at 20A and the neutral with 100A pulses so in principle, if the ATE says everything is fine, the visual inspection becomes somewhat superfluous... it may not be visually pretty but as far as electrical testing goes, it appears perfectly sound.

But I agree about expecting better out of APC on that one. As noted in the conclusion though, the unit with the blown trace had none of the soldering issues found in the tear-down unit so the "lack of pride" was at least not systematic.
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August 12, 2014 10:15:25 AM

This is probably the first slideshow style of article that I totally enjoyed. Great photos, great writing, very educative!
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August 12, 2014 11:00:48 AM

i dont give a hoot about power savings anymore,intel has to start finding a way to gain 25% performance per cycle, or it will never become ideal to upgrade from sandy and ivy bridge i7's
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August 12, 2014 11:22:13 AM

Quote:
What happened to pride in one's products?


It went out the window when the manufacturing went overseas.
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August 12, 2014 11:39:45 AM

Quote:
Onus said:
What happened to pride in one's products?

Who knows. I'm sure most of this seemed like a good idea at the time.

For the soldering, they probably put the units through automated testing and as long as everything tests ok, they send the units on their way - the ATE probably tests the live and neutral wires at 20A and the neutral with 100A pulses so in principle, if the ATE says everything is fine, the visual inspection becomes somewhat superfluous... it may not be visually pretty but as far as electrical testing goes, it appears perfectly sound.

But I agree about expecting better out of APC on that one. As noted in the conclusion though, the unit with the blown trace had none of the soldering issues found in the tear-down unit so the "lack of pride" was at least not systematic.


Still regardless of if it passes electrical testing a bad solder may just die over time when the device gets bumped, moved or just gets older. It may pass the test when it was made but 10 years ahead it may become a very different story. I can tell you I do use things like this for more then 10 years because there is no reason to replace when it does still work.

This does make me wonder how my € 3 hubs hold up on the soldering department.
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August 12, 2014 11:59:10 AM

Still really dislike the slide-show layout for these articles, but other than that, this was actually really good. I didn't expect to see in-depth electronics articles like this on Toms.
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August 12, 2014 12:21:46 PM

Their quality has gone down. I remember from my old surge protector that the solder joints were good. Here is a picture:
https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2804/4448769179_decd009a...

It looks like they are purposely ignoring this issue as electrical issues like that (especially with the soldering), cannot be overlooked, someone in the assembly process should spot those issues (company likely told them to ignore it)
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August 12, 2014 1:37:40 PM

Nice article. I have 4 APC UPSs in my house and if/when/should they go I'll be taking a closer look at them myself.
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a c 131 ) Power supply
August 12, 2014 1:41:15 PM

I too have some APC UPS units, although my PCs are all on Cyberpower APFC units because of the much better waveform; even my hypersensitive SG-650 is happy with those (it will cut out on an APC UPS).
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August 12, 2014 2:32:49 PM

Quote:
Still really dislike the slide-show layout for these articles, but other than that, this was actually really good. I didn't expect to see in-depth electronics articles like this on Toms.

I always read articles on Tom's via the Print button; all pages coalesced into one for easy reading!
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August 12, 2014 4:44:42 PM

Neat idea for an "inside look" article.
Try doing the same for other popular surge protector brands. Also may be interesting to visit your local used parts store and get a couple older ones to see how they standup to the test of time.

I have 2 from monster power that are fast approaching 10yrs old. and others of indeterminate age.
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August 12, 2014 5:10:16 PM

Interesting...
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August 12, 2014 6:55:27 PM

Thanks for all the positive comments so far. I knew I would surprise people quite a bit with this sort of bare-metal picture story but I was still not expecting response to be this good.

I have sent a mail to APC requesting the modern version of the PF11 so I can do a follow-up story comparing the old with the new.

Raiding the local flea market to see if I can get a representative sample of what people might have out there and tear them apart is not a bad idea. I have a few generic bars myself but they all appear to be welded, which is not fun for tear-downs and I would not expect to see much in those. Then again, I was not expecting to spend nearly ten pages on unexpected assembly flaws and an unexpected failure between those two APC bars of mine either.
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a b ) Power supply
August 12, 2014 9:36:34 PM

There is a good chance that this was just a bad unit. I seriously doubt that all of APC's surge protectors would look like this, otherwise they would not be as well known as they are for their UPS systems and surge protection systems. Something else to consider is that this unit is over 10 years old.

I'm not condoning their poor soldering job or anything else, but I think that unless all of their units look like this, cut them some slack. I've seen Seasonic power supplies that had bad soldering on them before, but does that make Seasonic a bad power supply company? No.
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August 12, 2014 10:07:10 PM

Wow. I have been buying APC's stuff for years. The stuff works well and their warranty is fantastic, but this worries me
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August 12, 2014 10:18:30 PM

Blaise170 said:
There is a good chance that this was just a bad unit.

As I noted in the conclusion, the unit I repaired did not have any of the poor solder jobs I saw in the unit I tore down for this story. It was probably the work of a new or tired employee and in this case, there could be dozens of units from batches that passed by that same employee on that day or week with similar issues.

Unfortunately for APC, one of those units happened to fall in the hands of someone who ended up making a picture story about it roughly a decade later. When you pick a subject for a story, you work with what you have and I happened to discover a handful of manufacturing defects in the power bar I picked for this story.

Unexpected discoveries keep things interesting.
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August 12, 2014 10:21:04 PM

Shin-san said:
Wow. I have been buying APC's stuff for years. The stuff works well and their warranty is fantastic, but this worries me

I will probably do an APC UPS tear-down at some point... I might even do it with my vintage BX1000 if I get a green light on that from Adam.
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August 13, 2014 2:16:13 AM

Using solder wick (or any other 'extra') can be effective, but I always dab a little 2-part epoxy after it is all finished in place and cleaned. This is to reduce the chances of it heating up and making its way across the other hot conductors.
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August 13, 2014 4:28:07 AM

M C said:
Using solder wick (or any other 'extra') can be effective, but I always dab a little 2-part epoxy after it is all finished in place and cleaned. This is to reduce the chances of it heating up and making its way across the other hot conductors.

Between the wick itself and the solder to stiffen it, the effective gauge is probably heavier than #14. Unless the mains' breaker fails while I have over 15A worth of loads plugged into it, that patch is not going to heat up much.

That said, I agree that tying/gluing things down is generally a good idea.
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August 13, 2014 10:14:07 AM

Should a lamp be plugged into a APC UPS? My sole remaining incandescent bulb lamp caused loss of a USB connected TV tuner when switched off. It's been replaced by a new LED bulb, with no problems so far, but it is still a two prong plug.
The cold solder shown here changes my belief that larger is easier.
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August 13, 2014 11:24:59 AM

GearUp said:
Should a lamp be plugged into a APC UPS? My sole remaining incandescent bulb lamp caused loss of a USB connected TV tuner when switched off.

I have a hard time imagining how a lamp could be "responsible" for busting a TV tuner except maybe in some sort of Rube Golbergesque chain reaction.

The lamp is connected directly across live and neutral. Under normal operation, no current flows through ground so the lack of ground on your lamp makes no difference. But turning off the lamp does cause a load transient on the UPS so maybe something happened there, somehow rippled all the way to your tuner and zapped it.

Depending on where and how your coax is grounded, it is quite possible the surge that actually zapped your tuner came from elsewhere... like a ground potential difference between mains ground and coax ground.
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August 13, 2014 3:09:57 PM

Great article! I wanted to suggest Tom's do reviews on APC's and power bars. I want to get an APC but I want one with a thermal fuse that's of great quality. I have a FirePro W9100 to protect :s
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August 13, 2014 7:04:31 PM

Daniel Sauvageau said:
GearUp said:
Should a lamp be plugged into a APC UPS? My sole remaining incandescent bulb lamp caused loss of a USB connected TV tuner when switched off.

I have a hard time imagining how a lamp could be "responsible" for busting a TV tuner except maybe in some sort of Rube Golbergesque chain reaction.

The lamp is connected directly across live and neutral. Under normal operation, no current flows through ground so the lack of ground on your lamp makes no difference. But turning off the lamp does cause a load transient on the UPS so maybe something happened there, somehow rippled all the way to your tuner and zapped it.

Depending on where and how your coax is grounded, it is quite possible the surge that actually zapped your tuner came from elsewhere... like a ground potential difference between mains ground and coax ground.


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August 13, 2014 7:13:10 PM

I mean that it trips the tuner to the other tuner. This transient change is not noticed until the first tuner is needed and unavailable. Windows Media Center can be set to optimize for WMC use, which may help with using the web or playing solitaire causing the same problem. The switch of the lamp problem is reproducible with instantaneous response but may be dependent on the system stability. The power for the tuners was also from the same UPS. The USB problem is a significant one for TV tuners so I also disabled power down but that failed to help the system at the time. I don't know if automatic changes in CPU speed have a similar effect.
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a c 86 ) Power supply
August 13, 2014 7:52:59 PM

You may wish to start a thread about your TV card issues.

I know cards like the HD PVR use a trick to work with Media Center. If they power cycle for any reason(quick power out), it will not be available to media center any more. You can restart the Hauppauge Media Center service to get it back. This is much faster than trying to restart everything.

I actually have that card on an older XS1200 ups from APC(non sine wave, but the device does not seem to have any issues with it). This ensures I do not have to make sure the HD PVR never looses power.
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August 13, 2014 8:39:58 PM

I am a design engineer, and I noticed that the voltage spacing was way too small! They slotted the boards so they could get away from PCB creepage distances. Interesting. At least if you did have a bad voltage spike, the close slotted areas would flash over and crowbar the line - not letting the surge through to your stuff. But you might have a fire then!
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August 13, 2014 11:19:19 PM

Thank you for this article, although I still detest the slideshow format. I would love to know what APC has to say in response to your mail. Please let us know if you are able (legally, etc.).

Also, while this specific model of APC power tap has not yet been part of a US safety recall, as far as I am aware, about 15 million APC units sold from January 1993 through December 2002 are:
http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2014/Schneider-Electric-...
This recall affected at least three APC units I owned, and while of course even the most well respected brands can have issues, it is quite unnerving to hear that a supposedly high-end power tap is prone to melting and catching fire.
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August 14, 2014 1:37:00 AM

What a badly done product... Such things will be rejected by our QAQC... and I'm shocked that its APC...
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August 14, 2014 7:09:17 AM

chaz_music said:
Interesting. At least if you did have a bad voltage spike, the close slotted areas would flash over and crowbar the line - not letting the surge through to your stuff. But you might have a fire then!

As noted in my page about the blown traces, I think that is exactly what they intended that for: MOVs short the major surge to ground/neutral, blow the live trace and the arc switches to the ground island to relieve the MOVs if the surge is really that bad. Since you need about 1kV/mm to strike an arc through air and the MOVs themselves (20D471K) start conducting around 385V, the MOVs (or the traces connecting them) have to fail first before voltage can flash over.

If a surge is bad enough to blow the trace and cause the bar to catch on fire, imagine what it would have done to a device hat was not designed specifically to handle that sort of event.

forum111 said:
Thank you for this article, although I still detest the slideshow format. I would love to know what APC has to say in response to your mail. Please let us know if you are able (legally, etc.).

No response from APC yet.

The slideshow format is not that bad but the narrow text area can be somewhat irritating. As someone else suggested, you could view the "print" version instead - the option is on the bar off to the left. I had never thought of doing that before but if you want to read and see the whole thing without having to tab through images, it is a nice alternative.
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August 14, 2014 9:59:00 AM

nukemaster said:
You may wish to start a thread about your TV card issues.

I know cards like the HD PVR use a trick to work with Media Center. If they power cycle for any reason(quick power out), it will not be available to media center any more. You can restart the Hauppauge Media Center service to get it back. This is much faster than trying to restart everything.

I actually have that card on an older XS1200 ups from APC(non sine wave, but the device does not seem to have any issues with it). This ensures I do not have to make sure the HD PVR never looses power.


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August 14, 2014 10:08:15 AM

If I can get organized I'll post something. Your mention of sine wave is an issue I had postponed since it also involves power supplies.
The main attraction of the USB Hauppauge 2650 is the remote for live TV and programming. The SiliconDust HomeRun Prime (separate computer) is Ethernet based and has also had issues with recording some channels mostly blank for some periods. These issues are discussed on GreenButton forums but no definitive answer is found.
Since WMC can lock up when both tuners are lost the Hauppauge Service is an option but it still can require knowing it needs to be used again. Thanks for the responses and your article.
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August 15, 2014 7:53:24 AM

Got a response from APC this morning: they will be sending me one of their newer models for review in the near-future and are also planning to comment on my story.

Look forward to that in the coming weeks!
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a c 86 ) Power supply
August 15, 2014 12:21:00 PM

Good to hear.
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August 15, 2014 11:44:33 PM

Looks nothing like the one in Wreck It Ralph.... :( 
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August 17, 2014 9:17:38 AM

Great article! I am too surprised by the quality issues with that particular unit. As others have stated it could be just a bad batch at the time. I too be interested in knowing the build quality of the older units out in the field via flea markets. At work in our server room we use high end APC UPS and they all work flawlessly. Most of them are over 5 years old. At home I use the CyberPower UPS as I like the brand and their prices are reasonable, especially their pure sinewave line. I haven't taken one of these units apart to see the build quality but so far no complaints.

Keep up the great reporting!
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August 18, 2014 3:00:07 PM

My new APC power bar went through a night of lightning storms this past winter that eventually knocked out the power over great areas. It never shut the power off
even though the indoor lights were flickering and dimming - until whole system went down for 3 days due to broken power lines..
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August 18, 2014 3:04:03 PM

"Got a response from APC this morning: they will be sending me one of their newer models for review in the near-future and are also planning to comment on my story.

Look forward to that in the coming weeks! "

Yeah, well our family bought 5 of these surge arrest power strips and my guess is that they do nothing at all to protect the appliances.
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August 18, 2014 3:28:21 PM

Why not make it a better review than being set up with their selection ?
Ask them to send you a coupon so that you can buy one, rather than being set up with one that they've selected.
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a b ) Power supply
August 18, 2014 7:55:21 PM

corky1000 said:
"Got a response from APC this morning: they will be sending me one of their newer models for review in the near-future and are also planning to comment on my story.

Look forward to that in the coming weeks! "

Yeah, well our family bought 5 of these surge arrest power strips and my guess is that they do nothing at all to protect the appliances.


If they don't, APC has a $100,000 warranty on their devices.
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August 18, 2014 8:12:01 PM

Do you think my power bar should have broken off power to the appliances when the room lights looked like it was an alien landing zone, on off on off on off ?

That's why I think it does absolutely nothing.

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August 18, 2014 8:42:52 PM

I picked up one for my brother when I was at the store and we were so impressed by the design, he bought a bunch and gave us two.

My experience is only with junk power bars and none of them turned off,ever.
Maybe I'm not understanding how electricity works, but I thought that the breaker should cut off power in that kind of situation.
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August 18, 2014 9:06:58 PM

corky1000 said:
Do you think my power bar should have broken off power to the appliances when the room lights looked like it was an alien landing zone, on off on off on off ?

That's why I think it does absolutely nothing.

A surge-suppression power bar or even a panel-mount central surge suppressor does not turn power off when power is unstable; it attempts to prevent major spikes from going through by shorting them across live to ground, live to neutral and neutral to ground.

It will only cut power if some sort of catastrophic failure or overload occurs downstream, including within the bar itself or in case of a really huge surge that might blow up those sacrificial traces I mentioned in the repair slides.
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August 18, 2014 11:18:54 PM

Quote:
It seems to me that it might be worthwhile taking a look at the innards of some more of these. This doesn't give me any warm fuzzies about APC. What happened to pride in one's products?


Yes indeed!
How are other brands doing? Wouldn't surprise if they were of similar (or maybe even worse) quality. What is the difference between an expensive APC unit and a cheap no-name product and is it worthwhile paying for?
This is one of those products that is hardly ever opened and/or tested, printing paper and cables alike.
=
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August 19, 2014 12:57:54 AM

Quote:
I too have some APC UPS units, although my PCs are all on Cyberpower APFC units because of the much better waveform; even my hypersensitive SG-650 is happy with those (it will cut out on an APC UPS).

I use a pfc Cyberpower UPS as well, I had an APS but it didn't play nice with my pfc power supply.

A teardown of a cyberpower UPS would be interesting if you're able to do so.
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August 19, 2014 1:20:32 AM

Thank you Daniel !
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