[mohang_j]

Originally Posted by jassi

well what i am concerned about is the replacements failing one after the other. If they are re-furbished, then i hope they should last for atleast 1-2 years and not just fail in a few months.

There are many reasons for ups failure (many many in case of invertor).
What i would suggest you that be there at home whe the engg visits your place and check properly.

[jassi]

Originally Posted by mohang_j

There are many reasons for ups failure (many many in case of invertor).
What i would suggest you that be there at home whe the engg visits your place and check properly.

i agree mohang, and each time the apc engineers come, i skip first or 2nd half of office to ensure i am there. If you have seen my posts earlier, i have wasted hours and got delayed for meetings waiting for them to turn up.
Whats irritating is that once they come, very few of them have the patience to hang around for 30-45 mins and diagnose if the replacements are working fine. There has only been 1 engineer so far who spent 1 hr trying to diagnose and point out things like dead cells in the batteries and the very next day they sent another engineer to nullify his report so that they can easily handle my allegations with 'out of warranty' statements.
Also the engineer who came yesterday was in so much hurry, that despite knowing there is a fan issue he chose not to tell me. Only after i did my test and found out inverter not taking load, i ran down and caught up with him. Downstairs itself he said 'fan issue' call apc and open another case for replacement - so he was holding this info from me, till he realised i have diagnosed and will now drag him up to see it (which i finally did anyway).

I think its been close to a year now since i reported my issues of inverter not taking load - inverter was replaced, battery was replaced twice and now again they are saying inverter has tobe replaced. I am just going around in circles fixing issues and replacements. I don't think i deserve such an experience after spending 22-25k on an inverter from a company like APC

[dadu]

Went through the thread, from where do I buy sealed battery for my APC UPS ES500 ?? how much does it cost.

[Raccoon]

While you can buy the battery from APC, I'd suggest you explore other options. There is no telling what kinda battery APC will give you... it it very likely wont be cheap either. Rather, try Base Terminal/Panasonic. UPS batteres are usually available in battery shops. If you cant find BT anywhere, you can contact the company thru their website and ask them. Make sure you get a battery of same rating, size, etc. If I were you, I would not touch Exide, Amco, etc.

[mohang_j]

Originally Posted by jassi

Whats irritating is that once they come, very few of them have the patience to hang around for 30-45 mins and diagnose if the replacements are working fine.

Most of the engineers are not really qualified to troubleshoot the problems on site. They always try to bluff and convince (confuse) you and push off from the site.

Also the engineer who came yesterday was in so much hurry, that despite knowing there is a fan issue he chose not to tell me.

I don't know the current setup but APC had different teams for service and replacement. May be in your case he is from replacement team so he was not willing / skill to solve the issue.

I I don't think i deserve such an experience after spending 22-25k on an inverter from a company like APC

Write a strong letter to the APC management (not to support team) with all engineer visit details and your previous letter, it may help. Give them the deadline and tell them you will go to consumer forum (if your product still under replacement warranty not service warranty)

[Jaguar]

Update, the service guys came back with the replacement battery and guess what, they have got Amco. I refused to accept it, stating that I want only Prestolite as replacement for my Prestolite battery. The SE tried to convince me that Amco is good and if I ask for another replacement, it would take another week as they have to request APC etc. Finally he took in writing from me that I don't want Amco and left. I called up APC customer support with the complaint number and informed them about the same as well as mentioned about this thread. The result, I got the replacement Prestolite in less than 24 hours. Hope this battery is good.

[benbsb29]

An update about my friend who uses an APC:

His inverter was replaced twice, and batteries which were initially 80Ah replaced by 100Ah, claiming this was the reason it wasnt able to take the load. Now that he is out of warranty, he says he has his fingers crossed.

[jassi]

^^ jaguar and bensb - good to see your experiences ending with something meaningful - hope the replacements last well beyond warranty period.
I am still struggling with APC and their out of context replies. Despite my original escalation, which led to battery replacement (with more refurbished batteries), they now have a new engineer reply to me everyday and i have to explain my whole 1 year of issues again to bring things back into context.
My inverter with the newly replaced refurbished batteries is worse than before now as it takes load only for few seconds to a minute before shutting down.

Mohang_j - i have been writing to support so far (not management), and i am not sure if any of the replacements are still under replacement warranty. In today morning's reply, they said they will charge me for sending an engineer to check the newly replaced refurbished batteries! I believe, if they are replacing something, they need to ensure things are in working order as part of that same request vs requiring me to ask for another engineer to visit to do the checkup and then pay for that visit too. Its their replacement parts which are not working from day 1, and they need to fix it.

[mohang_j]

Did you check with and without load? or try with min load (may be a TV or Fan etc) and sending mails to the support group at this stage is useless. You should escilate this issue now.

[jassi]

with min load (my wireless router) things work, with a tv 30% load it lasts for 5-10 mins and with 75% load (tv and ps3) it lasts for 1-2 mins and with 100% load it conks off in 30secs. This is just an worsened version of my original issue which was reported 1 yr back. After 1 year, 2 battery replacements, 1 inverter replacement, its only detiorated. Everything worked fine in the same setup during the initial ownership period across 2 houses - so no issues with my gadgets or house supply. I also have a second apc 800va which is supplying the rest of the house and another tv and xbox and that is working fine!
I did get a call from support just now, saying that they will discuss with my original escalation point (mr. SA Ganesh) and revert on next steps. So lets see if things move, else will need to email management.

Originally Posted by mohang_j

Did you check with and without load? or try with min load (may be a TV or Fan etc) and sending mails to the support group at this stage is useless. You should escilate this issue now.

[jassi]

All - would you belive it, my problem is still going on. After escalating so many times, I have had a total of 4 inverter replacements and 3 battery changes. Today is the 4th battery replacement and there is a brand new engineer from Central Data Systems all excited about checking my date of installation, warranty status, etc etc all over again despite having told him I am under replacement warranty (all replacements have happened in last 2 months)
In my book APC or wherever these refurbished replacements are coming from (their support partners perhaps?) have no quality checks at all. APC has agreed to improve the quality of replacement parts in one of the emails.
The other problem is the replacement guy who comes, has no interest (or maybe skill?) to check the replacement in conjunction with the whole unit and so the cyclic process of changing inverters and batteries goes on.
Lets hope today is a better day!

[jassi]

Update - after my last post, I have 2 more replacements of inverter and batteries from APC. The batteries have failed again in less than 3 months - I think I am ready to give up on this :-)



Edit - The specific problem I had was the 1kva models use two batteries and if even one battery has some issue, the other battery gets loaded and starts failing and losing cells. This is a cyclic process and then both batteries fail in few months. I have 7-8 battery replacements from APC and equal number (if not more) of inverter replacements!
So UPS or sine-wave inverter, buy something which has 1 battery only (dunno if that is possible with loads greater of 1kva and more)

[jassi]

some apc reviews which might help decision makers :-)
APC INVERTER Review, APC INVERTER Price, Parts, India - MouthShut.com

[nairrk]

I was using APC 800va 2 battery Inverter in my chennai Flat (between 2004 and 2007) and never had any problems. Their technicians used to visit once every 3 months to check the water levels and input/output of battery /inverter etc. Never ever had any problem, till I left the Flat.

What went wrong with apc as I am seeing so many complaints (as above)?

[jassi]

update - i sent another email today with all details and entire 3 year history of replacements to APC escalation. An APC engineer (from sigma) came in immediately. He checked and confirmed again that the refurbished battery fitted 2 months back has a dead cell now, which is causing problems (4 min backup on 75% load).
He also mentioned that APC will never be able to fix this problem, as they can only provide refurbished replacements and refurbished batteries will always die in 3 months or so due to dead cells.
He suggested a 2 nos. of univercell 90AH tubular battery (non-smf) with 30 months warranty (for 14k) and hinted that amaron and other smf batteries are not reliable for ups application. He also offered AMC on inverter for 1.3k per annum. I am thinking there is no point wasting time with APC anymore, I will pay for the replacements and get an AMC and save myself the tension.

Also I checked if it is possible to put one battery instead of 2 (which is what has caused issues), but he indicated that my inverter requires total of 24v from two 12v batteries. There is no 24v battery!!

I am not very sure about battery vendors OR tubular vs flat OR smf vs non-smf OR 2X12v vs 1X24v. Any ideas would be great.


Edit - this is my email

Dear Rsoodi,

This is with respect to my APC inverter model Bi1000i. The serial number at time of purchase was BB0702036324, date of purchase was 24th march 2007 and dealer was Pai Electronics in bangalore.

1) Right after initial purchase, I was told by APC installation personnel, that I have been giving wrong tubular batteries instead of amco 80ah flat batteries. After pursuing various people in APC the batteries were replaced. The same APC installation person diligently performed distilled water check/replacements every 3 months.
2) In 2008, while still in warranty, I started experiencing backup issues (less time of backup) and opened a case in mid 2008. After multiple follow up calls, it was established on 6th dec 2008, that the inverter needed to be replaced and was replaced on 8th dec 2008 with serial number BB0713011498 (case C1-1192658401).
3) However the problems still did not resolve and after repeated follow up on 2nd Feb 2009 (case C1-819380595) both the batteries were declared dead and APC admitted that the earlier inverter replacement was in error, when it was really the batteries that were failing. On 13th Feb 2009, both batteries were replaced by APC personnel ( old battery serial numbers WP17156298/WPC8186427 and new serial numbers VPC7181322/VPC7181309)
4) However after 2 months of battery replacement, the same problems started again. My backup times started dropping and after repeated requests, finally on 17th aug 2008, it was declared that 1 battery has dead cells and this is causing failure of other battery (case c1-1138109372). APC personnel admitted that the replacement batteries had 1-2 dead cells which caused overall failure.
5) On 20th August 2008, APC said that last personnel was in error and they sent another person to re-check the problem (same case c1-1138109372). This visit the APC person's only agenda was to prove last APC person wrong. After much analysis, he said as it is out of warranty, I need to send battery for boost charge. I promptly sent the battery for boost charge and the battery shop declared that battery has dead cells which is a manufacturing defect and cannot be fixed by boost charging.
6) After much arguments with APC, on 2nd Sep 2009 (case c1-1156871276), both batteries were again replaced on account of previous ones having manufacturing defect. New serial numbers AQJ58117214/WPI7156733.
7) However the problems still persisted and after few reminders and emails to saganesh@apcc.com, the apc team came onsite on 11th sep 2009 and declared batteries fine but the replacement inverter fan was dead and that caused all battery charging problems (case c1-1174767588). On 14 sep 2009, the inverter was again replaced with new serial number BB0727001050.
8) However after inverter replacement the less backup times still continued and inverter will shutdown in 15 mins even on 50% load. On 22nd Sep 2009, APC person finally came and declared battery dead again. However the very next day on 23 sep 2009, the inverter was once again replaced (!!) with new serial number BB0825012766 and no reason was given (case c1-1192658401)
9) As the problem was battery related as diagnosed earlier, the less backup times continued. After multiple escalations, APC person came onsite on 3rd oct 2009 and declared batteries dead completely (4 mins backup time) as they were not holding voltage. On 12th oct 2009, this was rechecked with entire case history.
10) On 16th oct 2009, despite previously diagnosed as battery issues, once again inverter was replaced as it was suspected a fault in replacement inverters was causing battery not to charge. The new serial number of inverter was now BB0702037745 (case c1-1235297159)
11) The problems still continued and after 2 months of follow up, finally the batteries were replaced on 3rd dec 2009 (case c1-1326657870). The new serial number was WP08180585/JP064168.
12) Over the last 2 months backup times have once again being steadily reducing from 2hrs in dec 2009 to 1hr in 2010 to 1 min in feb 2010. After calling APC again, I have been told to send an email to rsoodi@apcc.com, which is why this email!!

The above is just a factual recount with timelines of the problem of less/no backup which I have been facing since 2008 (when in warranty). This, however, in no way represents the agony I have gone through after buying your product. Replacements after replacements and multiple wrong diagnosis and APC has still not solved the original problem reported in 2008 when under warranty. I am a person who travels a lot for work and in between my travels it gets difficult following up with APC and each time explaining the same case history over and over again to every new APC person who handles my call/case. At this point I have almost given up on this solution and APC. As I too work for a global MNC and share some of the service partners with APC, I have even personally reached out to APC partner like Central Data Systems, etc. All to no avail and APC has till date no clue on how to fix my problem. I have been updated my troubles on various public forums (eg - follow thread at http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/gadget...ml#post1444300 and moutshut, etc) and have been suggested things like consumer court, etc. which I seriously don't have time or patience for a 25k INR product. I have also been told APC competition charges 1/2 your price and gives better service and better quality. Did i really make a big mistake by buying an APC product (and suggesting it to friends and family) or can APC correctly diagnose and fix my problem with good quality replacements for once!!

Do let me know if something can be done vs me simply throwing the product out of my house and buying something from some other reliable vendor.

regards,