Some CyberPower UPSes may pose a fire hazard | Hacker News Reader

Some CyberPower UPSes may pose a fire hazard

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105 pointssmcleod96 comments

Some interesting comments from people that have experienced the same thing on reddit: https://reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/voy9kl/cyberpower_cp15...

One guy got a video of his burning up on his Ring doorbell as he rushed it outside: https://i.imgur.com/EzalwYC.mp4

Tear down: https://youtu.be/9gqBzLNMFe4

I have contacted CyberPower for more information.

Guy in the imgur said that happened after overload error and this happened after he replaced battery, giving just the benefit of the doubt that overload might have damaged the unit already. Also if anyone planning to open, I would reach out supplier rather than breaking any possible warranty. But also home safety no joke, so there is that. I got 2 x 1300, I really liked , its been half year, only the having possibility of battery leak scared the .hit out of me because new units has new iron burn smell. It goes away after few weeks.

I have one of these. I have had it for years, and even swapped out the battery pack once. I have had no other issues with it.

After I read the Reddit post and watched the tear-down video, I disconnected and opened it up and found that not only did it have the yellow glue, but patches of it had turned brown and had what looked like drops on it in places.

Now I am looking for a replacement, but from the comments here it sounds like other manufacturers have the same issue.

Also have one. Also replaced the battery. The other thing I don't like about it is that the battery is lead-acid, which is extremely toxic and extremely heavy. But when I looked into that, I could not find any manufacturer that offered a consumer grade lithium-ion product.

I'm giving some thought to brewing up my own UPS. Mostly for capacity, which is tough to get in a residential unit at any price, and quickly becomes expensive if you try. Technologically, it is not particularly difficult. You buy a halfway decent inverter/charger from a reputable manufacturer, and however much LiFePO4 capacity you want. I would not choose lithium ion; LFPs are considerably less likely to combust.

Please post a parts list if you do!

How do you achieve the X <= 10 ms switching capacity? You need this if you actually want your equipment to survive the power outage.

Also, I'm extremely sensitive to humm noise output by inverters so I can only tolerate UPSs that have that "Green mode" option which (I guess?) powers directly from AC when under quality power but still provides protection.

Capacitors or using a circuit where the battery is always supplying power (can't remember what it's called).

Could make a post-PSU UPS, then you don't need an inverter at all (also the most efficient design, no conversion losses)

My preferred inverter/charger manufacturer, Victron, has "UPS Mode" for their Multiplus units that will switch in 12ms. That's similar to many UPS's, though some of the higher end ones are sub-10.

A few years ago ESR started on an open source/hardware UPS project called Upside.[0][1] I can't vouch for the design as I haven't looked at it in a long time.

[0] http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7839

[1] https://gitlab.com/esr/upside

Food for thought: lead-acid batteries are the most recycled things on earth, at around 99%. Probably because they tend to be large, so they have a high volume to surface ratio, and are relatively simple and easy to recycle compared to more modern battery types, and many automotive related companies are required to have recycling programs for them, and they've been around for many decades ...

Fair enough. But if it is in an electrical device with shoddy glue that is likely to catch fire or explode, then it would be nice to not be given a lethal dose of lead in addition to my place burning down.

Being exposed to burning alkali metals isn't great either. I guess the chronic health problems that creates are less "silent" though.

Personally,.I would much prefer my odds as an adult in a lead poisoning/fire situation than a similar li-po situation. Going with the more complex battery is basically choosing a future of experimental medicine over treatments with long and successful track records.

Lead-acid is the better battery for something that is going to sit fully charged for long periods of time.

Asbestos is still unbeatable for fire protection.

Nah, PFLOS is more deadly, so thereby making it better

Laptops have proven Li-Ion works well enough, too

Laptops typically get replaced every 3-4 years, and a major requirement for them is to be lightweight. Lead acid batteries are far more economical for applications where weight is not a concern.

> which is extremely toxic

Lithium is toxic too and never gets recycled.

> and extremely heavy

Yea, it's like you move your UPS every day?

Toxicity is a relative concept. Lead's toxicity is measured in parts per billion. Lithium is many orders of magnitude safer.

It's not the lithium part of lithium batteries you worry about, it's everything else. Lithium hexafluorophosphate turning into hydrogen fluoride gas, for example.

I still have my lead acid batter in my UPS from... 2016? I'm not even sure when I got it.

With lithium I need to know when I got it, did it run in non-ideal lithium conditions (-20^C? No go. +34^C? No go), and the most importantly - in three years I need to replace a Li battery, but with a lead battery and a non-online UPS I can have from 3 to 10 years of lifetime from it.

I isn't lithium potentially much more dangerous, especially if the containment is breached?

The idea of a UPS catching the server room or worse yet your house on fire is absolutely terrifying.

I woke up one night to that horrible burning motherboard smell. Ran into the office and noticed it was the UPS. Somewhat freaked out (would have never expected that to go on me in this manner). I unplugged it ran downstairs and put it in the middle of the driveway. After watching it for about 10 minutes I went back to bed. Disposed of it two days later (after taking the battery out to eliminate a runaway effect.

Wow...

Yeah. If you’ve ever smelled burning electronics, you know that smell. In some ways, that’s a good thing as I knew where to go first. Of course, being the ups instead of the computer was weird to experience at 3 am. Hard to get your head to think through that when you aren’t fully awake, but starting to panic.

I just got what I think is very poor response from CyberPower who tried to discredit the people posting the videos:

"Thank you for contacting CyberPower Technical Support.

We are aware of the video and we totally understand and appreciate that you brought it to our attention to confirm this.

The person who posted the video offered no evidences to support his claims in the video as he only used assumptions.

There were no presentation of test results or industry data provided to prove his claim. CyberPower products are UL listed for safety and the rubber glue we use is also UL listed. Finally, CyberPower has thoroughly tested the rubber glue we use, and our results are aligned with industry information meaning there is no danger of the UPS catching any unfortunate events or shorting out as a result of the glue. The results debunk the claims being made in the video.

I hope I have shed a light about this concern. Rest assured that all our products are safe.

Regards, Technical Support CyberPower Systems Inc."

Same here

My response:

"Hello,

That is not at all an assuring response.

The person who has the video on YouTube discussing the poor design is an electrical engineer, he has no motive to discredit CyberPower and appeared to provide the video to help people avoid the problem.

I must say that your statement "all your products are safe" seems a somewhat hand-wavy response to what appears to be a potentially deadly design flaw that many people online have independently reported to have experienced, several with video footage.

Check the response on reddit, YouTube, ycombinator, and the engineering forum linked, accounts I have inspected and seem to be credible / legitimate people have said as such:

> "I had a CP1000PFCLCD model that did the same thing. It threw an overload error and the company said to replace the battery. Once I put the new battery in it started making odd noises and began to spew smoke. Thankfully I was home and caught it quickly. The unit was four years old."

> "Had one of these start a fire back in 2015 at my clients office. Burned the entire rack and caused 500k worth of damage to the building. They sent fire investigators from the insurance company and determined it was a faulty UPS."

<quotes from HN here>"

he has no motive to discredit CyberPower and

He does have one potential motive. Profit. From views.

I am not saying this is why he posted the video, merely that this motive does exist.

Most likely a first tier technical support person (or AI bot) will read your email, and send it to the bit bucket.

But posting it here on HN might get it read by somebody higher up.

Don't you just pay UL for the badge and listing?

This is a problem with almost all modern UPS's. I had some of the old APC's that had the aluminum case with the high quality circuit boards with adjustment pots. These units were purchased in the mid to late 90's and were rock solid, I finally retired the last one about two years ago because it ran out of adjustment on the pots.

I've have numerous later model UPS's made by APC that have gone up in smoke when they were needed most or just up and die for no good reason. The units I have now are supposed to let me know when the batteries need to be changed, but that feature is a total failure.

In summary, all modern UPS's are junk.

Yes, mine did just that last year. Popped during a power outage, they gave me a new one, no questions asked... So they probably know about this?

Did it cause a fire?

I had one pop on me during a power outage a few months ago. I was quite miffed. The only halfway decent looking UPSes have annoyingly loud fans on them. Still, the fans probably prevent the thermal issues.

When you say pop, what does that entail? Did it spark up and start a fire. Did it just smoke? I think that's an important distinction. Did it just stop working (as if lightning had ran in on it like you'd get on an unprotected device?) I don't care if the device fails at some point, I am much much more worried about it starting a fire.

Smoke, sparks and heat. Stopped providing power while on battery. If it had been left on battery, it would probably have caught fire.

Glue that breaks down over time, into something that can conduct electricity.

A forum member on that RedFlagDeals.com post says that they've seen the same epoxy compound on various electronic items from 1970s, 80s, 90s.

This is a problem of supply chain quality control. Someone decides to save $1 a liter on potting compound and buys cheapest bathroom grade acetoxy stuff, or worse uses random glue from cheapest supplier available.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTV_silicone

https://www.farnell.com/datasheets/1974040.pdf

Thanks so much for posting this. I have one of these in my office. I just turned it off and unplugged it. It will be going to the dump tomorrow.

Not having a UPS device also has risks. If you have any brownouts or surges then your electronics could be fried.

Most people assume surges are bad and use surge protectors. However, undervolts/dips/brownouts are just as much if not more damaging and people unawares don't realize that a surge only protector does nothing for them. At my house, the dips are much much more frequent and is why I have a UPS for my TV and other entertainment gear.

true, surge protectors are actual snake oil. 99% of people get em thinking it will protect em from lightning strikes ...

It does though? At some distance the surge from lightning will be weak enought to let the surge protector save the computer?

Please consider — not to preach :) — please consider recycling it rather than just dumping it. Shit from that battery will leech into the water supply for years. Most municipalities have some way to recycle batteries. Cyberpower has a page about it, too — https://www.cyberpowerpc.com/company/recycling.aspx

Most municipalities that have transfer stations (dumps) have battery disposal there.

Oh yeah, by “take to the dump” I mean pay for a disposal sticker and put it in the e-waste shipping container with the other things to be recycled (which I am reasonably sure my town actually recycles).

Would be nice to know what other people recommend for UPSs with sine-wave output.

Small APC units are pretty crappy by my own experience as well, especially if you go below 700VA.

I've used several 1000VA back-ups, smart-ups, and while the build quality is generally ok, the trip time for triggering and voltage upregulation was next to useless (passing >500ms). Many back-ups units tend to trigger the differential. The batteries you get from APC itself are just plainly overpriced.

I generally prefer to have many smaller upses nowdays, so I went with a few back-ups rs 500 and two cyberpower (cp900epfclcd).

Upregulation of the rs500 is a joke that you cannot rely on. The output quality is "passable" at best. It's also a pretty basic plastic case, pretty much like the cyberpower. When powered off, it keeps on flipping the main input relay every 10 seconds until it's fully disconnected from the mains.

On the other hand I didn't own cyberpower units for 10+ years like I did for APC, so I cannot truly comment on that.

Can somebody recommend alternatives that truly perform their duty?

The APC higher end "Smart-UPS" models might still be good, I've used them for a couple of decades without these sorts of problems, current 750 kVA one bought in 2017, just had to replace the battery at its prompting only a month ago or so (that's normal).

I can also attest their consumer level including the "Back-UPS" models are subpar. Had one bought by a parent arc inside when I was trying to diagnose what was wrong with it.

I have similar Cyberpower UPS' and started doing research finding a good alternative. I thought since I got it from Costco I was getting a decently quality item but searching on Amazon and their sponsored ads made me realize I made a mistake buying it. I'm always leery when a product is "sponsored" on Amazon.

Looking through reddit and other forums, seems like APC Prosumer highend versions are okay (so not all APCs) and Eaton/TrippLite UPS'. Some say Tripp Lite isn't as good.

I just went to CDW and bought x2 Eaton 5SC model that is sine-wave. They are much more expensive, 1500VA was $420 vs the CyberPower I got for about $180. Eaton has cheaper versions but I dont see sine-wave as a feature so I assume it might be more simulated sine.

Back when I was the Testbed Manager for the Defense Systems Information Agency DISANet LAN, one of the things we were going to be doing was deploying over 50 servers in different data centers around the world, some of which would be in classified environments. We needed some reliable UPSes for some of those environments, because not all of the data centers had reliable power.

We looked at several brands, and one of them was APC. We bought them from the various vendors, instead of having them sent to us by their sales people, so that we would have a more representative idea of what it would be like to actually own a fleet of these things. One thing that impressed me about APC was that they seemed to be smaller but more ruggedly built than any of the others we were looking at. Unfortunately, when I plugged that unit in, it sounded like a chainsaw.

So, I called up the company, and explained who I was and what we were doing. Not much reaction from the tech support person I was talking to. Then I told them what the problem was. They told me to ship it back to them (on our dime), and they'd look at it. I tried to explain again who I was and what we were doing, but they stayed on script.

Then I got a bright idea and told them to wait while I held out the phone to let them hear what it sounded like. As I was bringing the phone back to my ear, what I heard was "... pping out by Federal Express, next day air". Lo and behold, the replacement did actually arrive at the office next day, with instructions to mail back the failed unit at our leisure and all expenses paid by APC. And the replacement was quiet. We bought 50 of them -- one for each server. So far as I know, they never failed.

I've continued to be a loyal APC customer ever since 1993, and the one and only problem I've ever had with any of them over the decades has been that the batteries sometimes need to be replaced. But spares of those types are kept in stock by every Batteries Plus or Microcenter store that I've seen here in the US. Less than five minutes to replace them.

I do go for the SmartUPS line, over the BackUPS. And I buy units that I can guarantee will give me extended run times on 15amp circuits.

Worth every penny.

I did use several smartups ones at 1500VA, and the metal construction was full metal, passive cooling on the interior with ample empty space, nice battery connections. At work we have larger APC racks for server backup and so far we didn't really experience problems. But the larger enterprise sector seems to be quite different than the consumer sector.

As I wrote before, I'm not powering servers and I actually went the route to place a smaller ups close to each load individually to avoid single points of failure and also avoid complicating central cabling. Just because I'm going for smaller sizes it doesn't mean I'm trying to cheap-out, quite the contrary.

For the smaller power lineup, APC definitely is not better than cyberpower in my eyes. In fact, the back-ups rs line is almost twice as expensive as cyberpower and I'm not really satisfied at all. The cyberpower unit has actually sine wave output for the same cost, upregulation works even at very light loads, and it's also a much quieter unit compared to the APCs when idle (when driving load both units buzz loudly). When having several in the same location, this does make a difference.

Opened up, both have the same quality of construction. Which is probably adequate, I guess. But having a metal shield around the battery would have been sensible.

A different less catastrophic problem with at least the CP1500PFCLCD is that if it detects a battery or charger fault, instead of continuing to run in bypass mode, it is designed to immediately cut all power to the load until it is power cycled. As far as I know, this behaviour is not documented anywhere, so you only get to find out when it is too late.

The first place I ever saw a CyberPower was years ago on an Amazon sale. I was not familiar with that brand and much more aware of Tripplite and APC gear. I assumed it was some sort of cheap knock off available from Amazon only.

I have no idea about this company, but they were definiately part of the collateral damage of me being highly suspect of any thing on Amazon that is from a brand name I am not personally familiar. I don't know if that says more about me, Amazon, or CyberPower.

I never see people posting about Eaton units, but I bought a couple that I found for cheap and I really like them.

I had to place my unit (CP1300EPFCLCD) in an empty room for 2 weeks to let it out-gass, the smell of plastic was unbarable and was not suitable for living conditions. I found others complain on the web just as well.

After two weeks I measured the amount of VOC in the room for a couple of hours and there was still some presence but nothing to worry about.

Overall the unit works as intended ...

Yeah, I came across this when I was researching UPS models since I have a few I need to replace with sine wave units. Unfortunately the current generation of APC's consumer PFC UPSes also have a reputation for catching fire.

At least this is a cause I can pre-emptively fix ony own, I guess.

Solar "all-in-one" inverters are a good alternative to a UPS and fairly inexpensive. (~$400 for 1kw). Solar panels aren't required, just bring your own battery (lead acid or LiFePo)- you could even pull the batteries from your existing UPS.

Do they also charge and balance the batteries, or is that something that you need to do separately?

Also, do they have a config to stop pulling power, before draining the battery flat?

I guess not since this is hacking together things outside of their intended purpose.

Look in boat stores for battery charge level protection breakers.

Any references for setting this up?

have a couple of those... i guess now

step 1: exploratory surgery of UPS

step 2: finally install new smoke detectors

The real bummer it's that I got 20kw of batteries a few months ago but they don't kick in quick enough compared to ups, so need keep on using ups

Turn your setup into an in-line UPS. Have your equipment always running off of batteries, but keep them always charging. When your mains power dies the batteries will continue to discharge. There is no 'switch-over' time as the computer is always running off batteries.

This is solar/inverter/batteries system with ATS . One doesn't simply convert ATS+Inverters into in-line ups (I think)

Confirmed. The in-line kind are much more expensive, which explains why vendors sell the crappy kind that reboots your server.

the line-interactive (cheaper than on-line) in my experience play well enough with servers as long as they have pure sin wave/stated that they are pfc compatible.

In my experience they allow through transients from the supply that will often reboot servers. It likely depends on your particular supply scenario. In our case we have 10 miles of 7.5KV transmission line between us and the substation.

I was just looking up UPS models, I have the CP1500AVR, is that effected? It looks like all the complaints are on the PFC. I was getting wary when I saw some Amazon reviews mentioning fires including the EC850LCD. I've also read fire stories from APC. The Amazon site has the APC Gaming UPS even having countless reviews about it popping, smoking, or catching fire. So, I don't know which company to trust.

I have also wondered how many reviews people are getting counterfiets. It's hard to tell anymore.

I have the CP1500AVR as well. I'm nervous enough now, I'm going to unplug it and order an Eaton this weekend.

I've been looking around since reading this, the problem with the Eaton at the similar price point is that it doesn't have the features or outlets that APC and CyberPower have. The APC UPS 1500VA seems to have good reviews all around and is similar to our model. Eaton's Tripp-Lite units seem to have some similar.

I have a CP1500AVR and it caught on fire just a month ago. I had owned it for ~6 years.

Mine is getting up there, I think I will unplug it and just use a standard surge protector until I can get an adequate replacement. During my last outage I noticed it was struggling to hold the load and only lasted 10 minutes, where it used to last 30. So it needs replacement anyhow.

I have a CP1500AVR from 2013. I think it's had two battery replacements. Still going. I don't trust it to deal with aging batteries well. Just like my CP1000PFCLCD it tends to get very hot with aged batteries. My solution has been having them placed under my desk in a way that I can feel them with a bare foot. Excessive temps let me know it's time to replace. Usually 4-6 years in practice.

I just took apart my unit CP1300EPFCLCD and it indeed has the yellow silicone. There's also a lot of white silicone but only to keep wires in place.

My solution is to just inspect the unit every once a year to see if any yellow glue is turning brown just like in the video. Meh ...

Edit: A closer look showed that some parts of the glue already turned brown. It seems to be affected by heat because the parts that are brown are the parts making direct contact with the board/components.

Could this kind of issue be avoided, at home, by simply setting the connected device to shutdown on power interruption?

I have a UPS connected to a NAS and because it is non critical I shutdown after 1 minute of lost power, and I think it can turn back on automatically when power is restored. I only care about data integrity, not uptime.

Isn't it UL-certified though? I would think they'd check for hazardous glues as part of said certification.

I think UL cert is pretty much pay to play these days, could be wrong but you know - you pay for a cert for something then you can put the logo just about anywhere.

That's unfortunate.

For what it's worth, the CP1350PFCLCD I had died a strange, non-charging death where it would take about two weeks for the battery to discharge and start screaming (while being plugged in). Serves me right for cheating on APC.

I’ve had so many of these because it’s the model CostCo sells. They often fail randomly, but otherwise have been okay. I wonder if this is why they fail so often.

Guess it’s a good thing I switched to Tripplite.

My APC unit did that too.

Be sure to install extra smoke detector around your PC area.

I have one of these units. It's fortunately powered off, and have been for awhile now. Kind of concerned to turn it back on in the event I'd need it.

I too have one, but it is the 230v/50hz Australian/NZ version CP1500EPFCLCDa, I'm thinking I might have to whip the covers off this week and check for glue.

my 1x VP1200ELCD and 2x VP1600ELCD are australian models as well. Its not something I have a lot of time for atm but maybe next weekend I'll crack them open to see.

any idea how he cleans them off?

Same model here. I don't think it's worth opening for me as mine are brand new (less than 3 months old). At best I will see yellow glue which doesn't mean much. It's the presence of brown glue that indicates it's the low quality problematic stuff.

Does anyone here have a UPS for their Synology? If so, what did you choose? Do you like it?

CyberPower OR700LCDRM1U.

I was replacing hard drives every few months until I used a UPS. Once I replaced all the drives I’ve been good ever since. UPS is essential for a NAS.

Been using this model since 2019. Just replaced the batteries for the first time this week after the UPS threw code E02 and had a very hot battery compartment. The cells were bad and there was no battery backup possible anymore. Things cooled down a lot after the battery was replaced and the battery backup works again. I’m happy with it.

It connects over USB to the Synology to tell the server to shut down on low battery.

VP1600ELCD

I also have one of these on My PC and a VP1200ELCD on my wife's setup... I'm seriously considering cracking them open to have a look :-/

I also have a VP1600 (in the UK), very much in the same position. Not a fan of delving into stuff that deals with power, hoping this isn't a general problem. I'd be interested in an update if you do take a look.

so how do you go about removing/cleaning that glue?

That's what the video is showing.

no it doesn't. It just shows the location where you can find the glue. How do you actually remove it? Do you soke it in ethanol and pick it apart or how ?

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