Thursday 7 July 2016

EATON 9130 2kVA (1800W) Full-conversion UPS

As I no longer service UPS, all my stock has aged and its far more cost effective to buy a brand new unit than to refurbish the old "line-interactive" units.

Two of my 1500VA units have now died and were not worth my time repairing so now I'm down to one small one for the Home Theatre and two big ones for the storm pumps.

The problem with these old units is they are NOT tolerant of operating on generator power and as their batteries age, it now costs a minimum of $480 for the small ones and $1200 for the big ones, just to buy replacement batteries!

So I decided to do something I've wanted to do for ages, that is to buy a good full-conversion Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) which will:
  • operate on the generator during extended outages so I don't need as much battery capacity
  • provide true "clean" power for all the computers and home theatre equipment
  • cost less to upgrade batteries for, in the future.
So I did lots of web research then went out an bought an EATON 9130 2kVA UPS from Power On Australia
It was promptly delivered and I powered it up.

Now understand that I've handled many UPS models and sizes, but none of that prepared me for the noise that assaulted my ears when I powered this baby up!
It was competing with some of the 10kVA systems I've worked on!

Two little 80mm cheap-as-chips case fans were managing to produce a cool 51DB of noise (at the standard 1m measuring distance)!!

In a quiet office when you're trying to have a hands-free/conference phone conversation .... nah! ... that's just not doable!

After some more Google searching I discovered this was another well-known problem (though why I didn't see it in my pre-purchase research I'm not sure)  ... wasn't expecting noise to be an issue I guess.

Long story short, I obtained permission from the supplier to swap out the fans for two "silent" high-flow equivalents, without voiding my warranty.

I've yet to press it fully into service but at-least its 'ready' now and seems to be more efficient than the  old line-interactive one it will replace  :-)  

12 comments:

Marko said...

I have identical issue and have changed fans to "Noctua 80x80x25 NF-A8 FLX". Only problem is that now UPS gives error message about fans. I suspect it's because rpm is not high enough on these.

Which fans you are using and do you get error status with them?

Col. Sanders said...

I used the Noctua Redux RF8 1800 RPM with airflow of 53.3 m3/h http://noctua.at/en/nf-r8/specification which has marginally better airflow than your A8 choice http://noctua.at/en/nf-a8-flx/specification
Theoretically the 2x RF8's will give you an extra 5.8 m3/h airflow for only 2dB extra noise

When I eventually managed to find the specs of the original fans, http://au.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Sanyo-Denki/9A0812G4D01/?qs=t9Lg9qrXjEwrseIay8utmg== I discovered they were 4,500 RPM !!! and almost double the air volume of the Noctua’s at 90 m3/h vs 53.3 m3/h
Hence so noisy and hence the UPS is seeing the 1,800 RPM of the Noctua’s as a fan-fail
Model Code:
9A=Plastic 08=80x80mm 12=12v G=SpeedCode(4,500RPM) 4=25mm D01=With-a-lock-sensor

After hours of searching I’ve discovered there is NOTHING in the 80mm fan range which will directly replace those two noisy original fans for RPM or air volume, let alone anything quieter!

The issue is that under full load, if a component fails and there is any sign of Mylar or PCB overheating, warranty will not be honored.

Col. Sanders said...

P.S. I checked with tech support and there is no supported way to override/reset the fan warning. I just live with the constant alert showing on the LanSafe console

Unknown said...

Hi, I have same UPS and repeated all you did - it works (ie sounds) fine now! Just wondering if a resistor in series with the noctua fan might fool UPS into believing original denki fan was in place? Was thinking of trying a variable 0 - 10 ohm and just dial it up until something happened... but wondering what you reckon on this.

Also, it's the alarm indicator light has today (on the UPS), rather than glowing a steady red been occasionally switching on and off while ups been making a clicking noise. Is it working through unstable input power supply perhaps - though ceiling lights not flickering !

Many thanks for initial advice about the Noctua swap !

Unknown said...

Hi, I have same UPS and repeated all you did - it works (ie sounds) fine now! Just wondering if a resistor in series with the noctua fan might fool UPS into believing original denki fan was in place? Was thinking of trying a variable 0 - 10 ohm and just dial it up until something happened... but wondering what you reckon on this.

Also, it's the alarm indicator light has today (on the UPS), rather than glowing a steady red been occasionally switching on and off while ups been making a clicking noise. Is it working through unstable input power supply perhaps - though ceiling lights not flickering !

Many thanks for initial advice about the Noctua swap !

Col. Sanders said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Col. Sanders said...

Hi Rafal Pisula
Those fans are PWM and as such count the rotational pulse rate - I cannot think how adding a resistor will help at all.
The Noctua is an 1800 RPM fan replacing a 4500 RPM fan so the UPS thinks the fans failed!

You need to investigate the changing alarm indicator light ... that is something else going on with the UPS and you need to rectify that!
Check the manual for LED error codes and check the logs.

Unknown said...

Hi, and many thanks for pointers about PWM - I learnt something here! I thought some sensor on the board measured voltage drop / current draw, instead of a tachometer type thing. There was something dodgy about that UPS, so I have got another (used) Eaton. Fan noise still annoying, so I swapped out the denki for noctua again. The lower red warning light came on once UPS fired up.

But, I noticed the other mini-denki that's attached to the big aluminium heat sink (specs say its rpm is 3800) inside has it's yellow signal wire just cut, with only power leads connected to main board. So, I just unscrewed that fan, soldered a new yellow wire to its mini pcb (under the sticker) and connected it to the where the yellow wire from noctua should connect to motherboard. The actual yellow wire from noctua is not connected and just cable tied out of the way.

Warning light has gone !

Next problem - I'm in UK, and should have 230V. The UPS is saying input V is 196V now, (having gone up from 173V 2 hours ago.......

Anonymous said...

I replaced the front fan with..

Dimension (W / H / D) 80x80x25 mm
Voltage 12 VDC
Current (AMP) 0.14A

and the back fan left it alone, The result is half of the original noise :) (much less)
I could not replace the back fan , I soon as I did it complaint with a fan failed.
Hope this help some body :)


Tom

Anonymous said...

Hi, I just bought a 9130 and noticed the noise. I opened it to check the fans and noticed that it has some kind of glue in the connector. How to remove that? Also, after running the UPS with a custom fan, did you notice any change in its operation?

Anonymous said...

I bought two Noctua NF-A8 FLX 3-wire 12 volt fans. It's incredibly quiet compared to the old 4000 rpm fan in the 9130.

The front fan is easy to get to, undo the side philips PH2 screws, then undo two tension screws. Then undo the TX10 screws on the fan itself, with a bit of effort, the little 3-pin XHP-3 (Digikey 455-2219-ND) connector from JST will pop out. I cut the 3-pin on the noctua, and crimped SXH-001T-P0.6 (Digikey 455-1135-1-ND) pins onto the wires. Yellow goes in the middle, you can see from the previous fan where black and red go.

If you do end up buying two 3-pins, and 6 of the little metal pins, it's a good idea to buy extras.. they're pretty fragile.

The back fan is literal murder... I had to twist the case to get into the fan, and pull it out. Also the goo on the connector was very thick on my 9130, so it seems I might have to redo the crimp again.. :(

Anonymous said...

Btw: The default fan is a San Cooler 80, model 9A0812G4D01, 12V, 0.38 Amp, 4500 rpm, 40 dBA, 52.97 CFM.

The Noctua nf-a8-flx is 2000 rpm, 16.1 dB(A), 29.7 cfm at 12 volts.