APC smart ups 600i

[midibob]

Hi,

My trusty old UPS has got it's brains scrambled and I was wondering if anyone here has much knowledge of these vintage units?

The problems started when I changed the batteries and like an idiot I forgot it was still switched on, this caused a few sparks!
Now the UPS fires up but will only run on batteries after a few seconds of direct mains when switched on. It will quite happily run till the batteries discharge so I suspect all the hardware is OK.

On investigation it would appear that the EEPROM is possibly corrupted. Using APC's Powerchute software or apcupsd showed that it thinks it's an M model and not an I. This means the output voltage on battery is only 208v instead of 230v and consequently thinks the incoming mains is far too high hence switching immediately to battery. (at least that's my theory)

When I interrogated the EEPROM, apctest reports that it's not programmable although I have managed to write a name and battery date into it?
The other strange thing is it thinks it's a ups 250 and not a 600??

Trying to change the 'on battery' voltage in either software fails. In Powerchute it only shows 208v in the drop down box. In apctest if you try to write the new value the software says the reply received is 'NO'.

Any ideas?
I can't seem to get registered on APC's forum so I thought I'd try picking some brains here.

Thanks in advance
Midibob

[TELVM]

Re: APC smart ups 600i

Not really sure if this will help or not, but I try, here goes a pic of the PCB in my (guess more or less similar) APC PS800:

[midibob]

Re: APC smart ups 600i

Hi,

No, nothing like that. Mine's really old, early 90's I reckon. I'll post a picture of it tomorrow.

Managed to register on APC's site now so if I get any feedback there I'll post it here too.

Midibob

[midibob]

Re: APC smart ups 600i

Well, here's a picture of the old girl.

Apart from a couple of sets of new batteries, one small cap and PN2907 PNP transistor, which often blows when changing the batteries if you leave the mains plugged in, (whoops!) this has given me sterling service for the last 10 years.

Midibob

[midibob]

Re: APC smart ups 600i

Well, this little problem has taken many hours of searching the web and playing about with the unit with little success.......

Until now that is!

I've found a Russian site which has some real low level detail on these units and with the help of Google's translations have discovered that one of the pins of the ADC chip that senses the temperature has to be grounded to enable the hidden mode.
Never have found that by accident in a million years!

So, I can now change the register settings that affect the calibration of various measurements but I am still unable to change the model number.

The command sequence in this mode is a bit baffling so I need to try and find some more info.
If anyone does happen to know the correct sequence to change the firmware reported I'm all ears.

Midibob

[midibob]

Re: APC smart ups 600i

Success


There appears to be 7 registers that are adjustable or at least that's how many I've found.

Numeric keys 5, 6 and 0 are adjusted by keys 2, 3 and 4 respectively and they only shift in a round robin fashion so if you miss a setting you have to go all the way round again (00-FF)

'b' I was led to believe selected the firmware but I don't think it does as that appears to be done by 'H'

'a' and 'd' also do something but I don't know what?

Anyway for now the values of 'a', 'b' and 'd' have been left at 00.
The other values are as follows :-
5 - EA
6 - F4
0 - 9F
H - E5

'H' cycles through all the different model types 250/600/700/800/900 and various output voltages.

Anyway, I now have the UPS running at Firmware 6TI which means it now delivers 240v. Phew!!

Funny thing is there have been no replies on the APC forum and I'm certain that this is common knowledge at APC. No wonder these UPS's got binned when they lost their settings and were deemed unfixable. Quite a money making scheme too!!

Midibob