UPS Fix

14 Dec 2010
Posted by matt

We go through periods where one of the main circuit breakers in our house keeps tripping, which was the main reason I got a UPS. Unfortunately, we've been having one such period recently and 9/10 times my UPS has been shutting down about a second after the mains is cut. I knew the battery was OK because self-testing never failed, and when it did occasionally work during a mains failure it would run off the battery for several minutes.

Anyhow, it happened again today whilst I was logged in to my Linux box at work. I had had enough, so opened it up to see what was up. I suspected an electrolytic capacitor, because during the power switch-over I had noticed it stuttering and the display flickering off (i.e. like it should be getting support from a capacitor but was not). My guess was close enough. I found a lifted track which had cracked on one side of an electrolytic. One fat blob of solder to bridge the crack, and it is back in business.

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