you can solder aluminum to copper wire with standard solder and special flux for aluminum, sadly more and more devices like transformers and motors are wound with aluminum wire today

I have of the exact same UPS in use in my shop, all within 2 years old, maybe the oldest one is three. One is inside my locked server cabinet (tight fit). So far, all four have been great. The last one is well past its return to Amazon time. I guess I just have to keep my fingers crossed.

I see those "receipts" on APC surge protectors and PDUs as well if that helps. Might be a common feature of the industry

@@unmanaged he just showed you the failure 🙄 f02 warning for a fuse or relay? Presumably for a fuse or relay directly in line with the solid state transformer winding failed connection.. that he just showed you

Copper Clad Aluminum no doubt. I personally have had rack mount APC brand equipment fail in a data center. The transformers are garbage. At least the technology is smart enough to fail safe.

I was wondering if APC knew or was deceived by a component vendor. From what you're reporting, the choice seems to have been made by APC.

@@KJ6EAD Agreed.

@@KJ6EAD vendor is just part of the equation, APC engineers should perform tests to every component that goes to the BOM

Given the supply chain, I can see why this sort of thing can happen. I'll bet someone thought they were saving 20 cents per transformer.

I doubt it's just APC cheaping out... you really can't trust ANY consumer-grade products these days.

for sure I have older ones of theirs that are still in use !

@@richardbrobeck2384 hopefully, with new batteries. They're only reliable for a few years.

Schneider Electric is another one of those garbage globocorps we're the only thing they care about is the bottom line, therefore everything they touch turns into the brown stuff that humans excrete as waste.

Eaton aren't much better, I've killed 2 eaton 9px 2200's in 2 years. They last about 13-15 months, so you get the first one replaced under warranty, and then the second one runs just out of warranty before it goes bang. Good news is they both failed in different ways so now I have one working UPS and a pile of spare parts.... for now.

@@freman Strange. We've been really happy with our 9PX 6ks. That said, across the board quality has gotten pretty crap of late.

welcome to the consumerist society of fleecing the people and the sheeple.

Made in china

APC is owned by schneider

@@HDXFH But units STILL made in China. However, if Schneider engages China to make these to spec, then it is THEY who chose aluminum without a proper connecting regime. And they do know about this! I've been to their forum and people are PISSED OFF! No response from the company!!!!!

Yeah, this seems like typical "x supplier is out of transformers so we're going with y" bargain bin stuff. I have seen some hokey stuff, but this is next level.

Even things like their stud and electrical cable detectors look like cheap Chinese garbage. To think these guys make massive industrial electrical hardware is shocking. Honeywell have gone the same. Cost cutting to increase profits superficially.

this is what you get with sustainabitlity, equitable, governance and all the other U>N. horsecrap.

Now known as ESG scores.

Gotta stop buying anything and everything from China

Standard distribution transformers used in buildings for 460/208/120 have aluminum windings unless you specify and pay more for copper.

Seems like the old lie about aluminum wiring being bad and causes fires and shorts out is coming back when the size of copper wires versus the aluminum is the real problem. You need LARGER guage wiring for aluminum compared to copper and that's all . They work well in household electronics if simple rules are followed like using a proper flux to joint aluminum to copper for instance.

its common and in that transformer it's supposed to be Aluminum with plated copper then you can solder to it.

There are lots of aluminum windings on transformers and motors, if aluminum wires are the correct size and crimped correctly using proper hardware they can last indefinitely, although they do not withstand temperatures as high as copper because aluminum conducts heat worse than copper and temperatures can rise too much in the innermost part of the windings burning the insulation.

Well, ask the Chinese embassy.

If you want tôsee numerous cheap led lamps dismantled, look at Bigclive here on youtube. Surprisingly, at least when it comes to bulbs, most are not great, mostly drivng the actual LED chips harder than healthy for them to last, but rarely electrically terrible. when it comes to led fixtures, the picture is a bit more mixed, sometimes even literally shocking... ut this was a useful video, as I was in the market for a small size UPS. Well guess which brand just went out of the window...

@@spvillano American greed.... China will build to whatever spec you desire. Thats one of the reasons The US is terrified. China builds very high quality that a lot of the US cant or wont. "APC, a flagship brand of Schneider Electric - APC USA" Some flagship...

@@guym6093 some may be terrified, but quite a few of us remembers history of nations industrialization. As for a flagship, the Titanic was also a flagship for a company.

@@spvillano that's the problem... Memories gone by. The counters have taken over in the US. US quality will never be.

Absolutely! I have transformers from the 1930's that are fine. Its enameled copper, insulation material, and a core. It's amazing how they can make something so simple (nowadays) fail.

My grandfather was a TV repairman, used to be his "gopher" on house calls for those big old wooden console tube sets, running to the car trunk to dig up a tube or something he didn't have in his "common stuff" case he brought in. Between him & my dad I learned basic electronics repair (and I remember drooling over the 1974(?) R-E article on the Altair 8800, which led to me reading the TTL handbook probably cover to cover and eventually my IT career). Even today I've got an old 1959 Zenith tube clock radio by my bed (was my uncle's), and I look to repair things before buying something new. My old job in the 90s I'd grab older computers and dead monitors off the "scrap" pile going to computer recycling, fix them up and basically give them to friends who wanted "to get on that new internet thing" (had them cover the modem card cost basically). I still tend to look at things I buy from a "serviceability" standpoint, I don't like buying things that are obviously designed to be "throwaway"... Like I look for lithium battery things that have replaceable 18650 cells rather than those gel-pack batteries - not that I generally can't open it up and replace it, but I know that's designed to have most people just scrap it when it dies rather than just replace the battery, and I'd rather not encourage that. That's my biggest beef in recent years - like the new iPhones where you can't even replace the battery without sending it back to Apple for expensive service, when that's probably the main "wear item" and should be easy to replace. But... That's the old "designed to fail" thing, to drive you to buy new ones and keep them making money.

Back then, things were simple, heavy, and made by a company that cares about their image. Today, they're very complicated and made in an endless race to the bottom.

@@captainz9 Back then you needed a tv repairman because tv's required constant service and ir maintenance. When I was a kid in the 60's vacuum tube tv's didn't last all that long. You could change tubes, potentiometers and channel selector had moving parts that quickly wore out and needed to be replaced, but the tv was thrown out if the crt went. The average tv probably lasted 5 years and not without regular service. Solid state didn't need vacuum tubes replaced but potentiometers and channel selectors were still a high service item and you still threw the tv out if the crt went. Still 5 year lifespan. I have a 17 year old 42" lcd tv that has never required service and works like brand new still and hangs on the wall instead of taking up half the room. I also have a 50" led, ditto except it is only 10 years old. You say new tvs can't be fixed, I say they don't need to be fixed because they don't break.

@@captainz9 I AGREE, absolutely. Things today, are made for easy assembly at the makers' plants. B U T, just try to take apart, and REPAIR THEM ? THEY'RE MOSTLY MADE, to last only a short time; NOT really engineered, to 30 % over the ratings. JUST make warranty time, then, kaput ; throw it away, buy another one. An item of interest: the other night, while dumpster snooping, i found an old Bell and Howell slide projector. A square plastic box, about 10 inches square, maybe 7 inches high or so. Took it apart, and WOW. WHAT QUAILITY OF THINGS, USED. THE LAMP HOLDER, THE COOLING FAN, THE MIRRORS AND LENSES/MAGNIFIER ARE AWESOMELY MADE ! unlike todays' junk..... HANG IN THERE, Captain Z. (no zees, for us old fixer guys.....i guess. )

How does this crap even pass UL?! This is insane at this point. Then again tri-level homes in my neighborhood are all full of aluminum romex and they were all built in the early 70s.

Happening throughout the IT industry, too. (my well-known It employer was just taken private by a vulture private equity firm). All the new owners care about is extracting as much cash as possible and eventually they'll throw away the dead carcass that's left). Cut quality, raise prices, and don't give a damn about anyone except the top few customers. It's the "in thing" nowadays....

​@@wonderbars36 UL certification costs money and time and UL always has a backlog of customers. Most of these cheap import manufacturers are either not going to bother or just put a counterfeit UL logo and number on the product and hope it gets through US Customs, and it usually will as they don't have the manpower to inspect everything. Customs rejects electronic products all the time for violations and the shipments get returned to China (where they will just turn it around and try to send it back again eventually), but they barely catch a fraction of it. I work in an office in shipping/logistics for a large carrier, and do sometimes handle customs bonding and duties paperwork for import/export shipments. None of this is uncommon.

If it's copper clad or copper plated it can be soldered just like copper wire.

@@robert20770 lol nope. Tried this too on CCC-type wire. It acts like it's covered in grease despite being totally cleaned up.

Yeah, what he says. Every APC comes with that label for some reason. Really makes no sense, since they wouldn't send out out with any 'FAILED' on it.

@@centauri61032 I think it is there to make sure you didn't accidentally receive someting that didn't pass QC and put that thing into a critical application. So if they mixed the units up, threw a good one out and gave you the bad one, you can show them that it says "failed", and they will give you a new one. This protocol follows the unit through the entire QC and shiping process. Some car manufactureres also do this, so that a worker can't accidentally skip a step in the assembly, and you don't end up getting a car without a horn or a muffler because someone forgot to install it. Some even take this to an extreme, using electric screwdrivers that track which screws are tightened, so they can't forget a screw or leave it loose, causing stuff to rattle or fall off.

I used to procure 100’s of these things at a time for call centers, that test sheet comes on them always

yep, they have done this for a long time

It's ironic in this case.

So what were the findings?

@@MesoTroniK Oops, me bad, should have posted -- The Cyber stuff and the Triplite stuff we use have copper windings. I wanted to check some of the 2000VA and 3000VA units too but I balk at tearing away insulation to expose wires on those spendy beasts. The only saving grace for APC is that their standby power use is lower than the equiv Triplite and Cyber we use, but meh, electrons are cheap, for now.

@@ronsingh Thank you! And that confirms what I believed, that CyberPower makes a superior product. At the least I have never had any issues with a multitude of their sine wave pfc1500 units.

@@MesoTroniK Yes! That CP1500PFCLCD is the model we roll out with all pretty much every desktop for our clients. Great unit. I have been a stanch supporter of everything APC since the mid-80s and for them to betray the trust consumers have placed in them is truly disheartening, such a shame.

In many states Aluminum wire was used to wire entire homes, from the breaker box to the outlets. Here in California in some places back in the 80s this was very common. Entire subdivisions were wired with aluminum wire. Unfortunately.. Aluminum wire doesnt crimp properly under outlet screws..tighten them up, come back in a year and they are loose as a goose, tighten them up again.. wait a year.. loose again. Wash, rinse and repeat. A lot of house fires happened as a result. And rewiring a home from the box to the outlets is a nearly impossible job without running wire duct or pulling off the sheet rock. Given that southern homes seldom have a basement or a crawl space... brrr! Ive seen a Bunch of homes gutted and rewired, then resheet rocked back again. Really.. really expensive.

@@GunnerAsch1 Aluminum wire is still used in the larger gauges such as between a panel and sub panel and certainly service entrance. If terminated properly using the correct hardware it is just fine. It was the smaller gauges used to connect outlets and switches that caused the fires, probably due to improper hardware not designed for aluminum and lack of training and experience using aluminum. Electricity gets most of the way to your house on aluminum wire used by utilities and even in some of their big transformers. Aluminum is probably still not worth the trouble for branch circuits due to the larger size wire needed and extra fire risk if poorly terminated. It looks like it's not so great in UPS transformers either for the same reason! Really big electric transmission lines are "ACSR". Aluminum conductor steel reinforced. ACSR is a steel cable for tensile strength surrounded by aluminum for conductivity. Not any copper at all. On the other end of wire size scale I tried to solder cable TV wire once. Nope! Had to get a crimp tool!

@@GunnerAsch1 since WAGO invented their understanding of propper wireing there is light in the dark---sorry for that---

Aren't those mosfets?

@@motosk8er2 Probably, or maybe IGBTS;...(most are under rated, for the surges/spikey/ noisy power , very shoddy chinese design....

now that i have some many, i wonder if they upgraded with higher specced VRMs,

@@motosk8er2 yep, they are, and there's not a single diode protecting the inputs from shorting or reversing or anything that happens to the battery

@@cdoublejj This isn't a computer. There are no "VRM's".

its common but it's supposed to be Aluminum plated with copper then you can solder to it.

Money !! some Bean counter !

Probably not for weight reasons. It’s a commonly held belief that these kind of things are supposed to be heavy. They will literally put concrete bricks or cast chinesium in cheap stuff to make them feel higher quality.

@@richardbrobeck2384 Made In China, a warning label.

@@Mr_Meowingtons there's a flux one uses to remove the passivation layer from the aluminum (aluminum quickly forms an oxide layer, called a passivation layer to protect it from further oxidation). So, copper cladding isn't necessary, but cheaper than the flux.

everything's made in china, it just depends on if you get it from the good factories or the discount ones

Got an old APC750XL I got as free, dead battery packs, and use it with 4 car batteries externally. It works well, and I get 2 years out of the cheap flooded batteries, though I do have a monthly reminder to service them, which means checking the electrolyte level and filling it up, as APC really loves to fast charge the batteries, so you get back to full charge in 4 hours, though they take 8 to fully float charge. Toasts the SLA packs, but the flooded cells do not really mind, as this is a lot lower stress than being in a car engine bay. Just buy the cheap batteries and use them.

@@SeanBZA Back in the old days, we sometimes would modify rackmount APC UPS's to lower the charging voltage a bit for this very reason. They were notorious for cooking SLA cells and they'd expand to the point where you might need a crowbar to even get them out of the aluminum frame.

@@SeanBZA It wasn't the batteries that died, it was the UPS. Also, nobody uses lead acid in this country anymore,

@@johnalexander2349 True, but it has use where you only go to 10% down per load shed cycle, or where cost is a driver.as they are a third the price of the lithium iron ones. Also the lithium iron are hard to get, always out of stock.

I've recently done the same for my small home office - ditched my APC SmartUPS (which itself was a replacement for one that cooked its batteries and was almost too hot to touch when I found it) for a Victron Multiplus II 24/3000 inverter and 2x LIfePo4 batteries. So far I'm very impressed - also helps that I've now got 2x400W solar panels hooked up so the office should be pretty much off-grid all summer, and I can now power the entire office for probably a couple of days if the power drops, rather than just my PC and some networking gear for ~20 minutes. To be fair it was just a little more expensive than the APC UPS but worth it I think.

So what brands don't suffer from these problems and do not use aluminum windings? Can we really trust ANY brand??

If you want one that will last look at server rack design ones there more robust and large but gonna pay lots for them.

As Stated before they were Bought out for the Brand Name Several years ago..Now just total China Junk

I used to stand by APC as I figured that they were reasonable quality, outside of, say a data center grade brand or model. Perhaps APC now stands for A Piece of Crud?

It seems like APC UPS devices used to be built better, I wonder if their buyout caused quality to diminish............

Omg, how ironic to find you here. I guess we think alike. DB.

Gxt5, baby.

Apc makes units all over the world. Older units of them were mostly made in india or philippines. All 5 of my units are made in India. The last one being from 2020. I have not any problems with them. The only time i had to do some repairs was when a lightning strike killed some of the mosfets. It did not explode but it did got very hot and burnt the pcb. Nothing a few jumper wires could not fix 😂. Their lower end units like this one is made cheaply. I have a 500va model from 2003 & it is twice as heavy as a 1100va model from 2017. The 2003 model's transformer is twice as big as the 1100va model from 2017. & As such when i replaced the lead acid battery with lithium which has much more capacity & longer run time than leadacid. The transformer thermal fuse melted after 5mins into a full load test at 600w. The original battery were supposed to run for only a minute at this load. But the new lithium battery should have ran it for 15mins. But the ups failed earlier than that. I have another 1000va model from the pro lineup and it has a smps type inverter. And that unit is meant to run with external battery packs and so it did not fail even after i ran it overloaded (50w above rated) for 15mins. Most of the units sold in usa are made in china. , Most of the units sold in Europe and asia are made in India. The only ups worth buying from them are the smart models and the online models. Regular back ups is made with cheap components. Anytime you see a model using low frequency transformer on the inverter section. Do not buy it. Smps design is much more reliable. Even though those models still contain a similar steel core transformer for avr function but the main inverter is made from small high frequency transformer that does battery voltage to 380v dc then that dc is converted to ac with a full mosfet bridge.

They're good if you get the really expensive ones but definitely don't get the consumer rated crap.

Please let everybody know which brand you switched to. I'm on a warranty replacement of a "Pro 1500 S" that failed. My new one is 'version 2' of that model. They wanted about $80 for another 3-year warranty. But I figured that if this one fails, then I'm just switching to another brand. Someone mentioned switching to CyberPower, which I was thinking of myself - but that's because I don't know of many other brands.... I've had a Belkin fail before, so I'd be weary of getting another of that brand.

But where can you get (good old tech)? I have a failed APC UPS and am wondering where to turn now that my unit has died!?

@@thighdude7 Get a used rack-mount corporate UPS from ebay. They usually need batteries replaced but the total cost comes out under these cheap-ass back-UPS units. Being corporate focused they are generally designed to run 5+ years at the minimum.

@thighdude7 I was referring to vintage radios and electronics as is most commonly showcased on this channel. If it isn't made completely from metal and uses vacuum tubes, it's no good!

Huh whut no! This isn't an oxide layer breaking down, having the oxide layer isn't a problem on the exterior and shouldn't be there on the interior of the joint, breaking down is just not what is happening. What you wrote simply makes no sense.

@@thighdude7 Unlike Mr Carlson, repair what you have. Replace the faulty component with an improved one and if that's the transformer, then it's the transformer. There is some time savings and logic in just buying another brand new, but, what if they got aluminum wound transformers from same supplier too? It wouldn't be surprising if they are competing on same capacity/price-point. Autopsy your dead unit and decide what to do from there. Until these aluminum wound transformers came along, they were a pretty rare failure point so you may just need a switching transistor or something, fried from a power surge for example.

They are 'marginal' connections because standard lead/tin solder doesn't adhere to aluminum.

I have several UPS devices running in my house as well mainly APC Back-UPS 1500/1300 models and I find they all pretty much fail after a couple battery change intervals when their internally circuitry fails. They commonly either stop charging their batteries or overcharge their batteries and the entire UPS has to be replaced. If they last 6-7 years I am happy...................

I wonder this myself.

They most assuredly know what those transformers are filled with. As long as it runs past the warranty time or even 3-4 yrs.. and saves them a dollar or 2 over copper windings..the bean counters are tickled poopless. Be assured that when they started using cheaper transformers.. they certainly didnt pass the savings along to the end users.

They should know. You'd think the would at least pull one unit out of stock and do a tear down like this to find out what they are buying from China.

I wonder if they had used a ferrule to crimp it would it be ok as a final product?

@@starlite528 right everyone is complaining about aluminium wire but what they should be complaining about is bad design using aluminium wire. I'm sure it can be used properly.

Nice statement of qualifications. You are now allowed to comment. 😁

I'd be even more impressed if you'd come to youtube with a purely mechanical browser.

...MORE LIKELY, THIS VIDEO WILL CAUSE MORE APC CUSTOMERS TO TAKE THEIR BUSINESS ELSEWHERE-(?) JUST SAYING...

From the very beginning of my career in 2006 as an IT guy, I was seeing that APC constantly are reviewing their standards ...to make things cheaper to the point of absurdity.

It's intentional they want to make you buy a new one. You know for the end of racism and save the climate.

Unless you're special flux contains magic you're not going to get 10 or lead solder to fuse to aluminum.

@@emmetmyers I don't know what they put in it, it's a liquid for soft soldering aluminum and the recommended tin is Sn90Zn - I don't have that and I solder using Sn60Pb40 or SN60Pb38Cu2 and it works great. All I know is that there is a skull on the bottle with the inscription toxic

Thanks for sharing your story BLT Labs.

@@MrCarlsonsLab I also sometimes test almost the same as BLT labs, my issue is kinda like the video where it has trouble holding it all together, If I could only figure out how to get more bacon into my test rig, but then you cannot take a bite, just too big. Thanks I will keep testing about once a week until figured out.

I had 3 CyberPower UPS all fail within a week of each other last summer, all making terrible popping noises and arcing sounds. No smoke, but they all had the bad electronics smell. No events detected on my ancient APC UPS (with its 3rd battery) connected to my computer. No clue what the heck happened, but I'll never get a CyberPower again. Sadly, I got a replacement from APC, and now I question it sitting over in the corner.

Makes me wonder: who makes UPSes that aren't fire hazards?

Wow you are so lucky. I was considering getting a UPS for my newly built gaming PC but now we're hearing two major brands having issues - APC and CyberPower. I think UPS makers need to put more safety features into these things and stop using cheap components! QC has gone downhill!

Probably didn't notice they did something very wrong. They used the same guage of aluminum wire as copper. They should have gone with a wire guage one size larger and that would have solved the problem. Why you say? Because the thermal expansion of aluminum is greater than copper and that one tiny change makes it safe. Of course we are talking a joint between two dissimilar metals using a crimp. If the aluminum wire is not connected to a crimp tightly enough it causes friction and heat, so much so it can melt solder around around the crimp. I disagree with the correction below because it is a comparsion only to wires sizes and the respective resistive differences of the metals . That is not why the joint failed!

@@hestheMaster the larger wirde diameter is to compensate for alunimiums higer specific resistance and has nothing to do with the thermal expansion and corrosion issues.

@@lukahierl9857 Two years ago YTer Russian Sparky did a video called "Is Aluminum Wiring Bad? How to connect copper and aluminum wires safely" I defer to his analysis in regards to use of aluminum wire.

@@hestheMaster That was a big issue in manufactured homes (like double wides) years ago. Tiny micro expansions and contractions at the outlet box, until there be a big problem. I think in those cases they used aluminum for the price and also for the weight. A bit easier to haul down the interstate if it was lighter.

Thanks for your kind feedback!

And more than a few women's dreams...

UPDATE! 3 days after commenting on how long lived my UPS 1500 has been it went kablooey just like Mr. Carlson's! 😂

Thanks for taking the time to write Aryon!

It only has to last past the warranty period!

@@davidmccarthy6061 Yep!

The facts is probably more in the way that we consumers don't like to pay for quality anymore.. Everything have to be as cheap as possible, we get what we pay for.. Easy as that..

@@jada1173...YOU SUMMED IT UP PRETTY WELL-(!)

True. A bad crimp connection was probably the likely culprit here.

@Bruce Havourd Nothing shows the transformer itself to be a bad one but those wire connections are questionable. Bad connections cause FRICTION! The burning was indeed as show by Paul to be at the crimp!

@@hestheMaster There wasn't even a crimp on those connections. They literally just folded the copper wire over the aluminum wires and blobbed solder on it and hoped it would stay connected. I'm curious to see the other transformers from the rest of the APC units. I wouldn't be surprised if the other transformers had proper crimps and if this particular unit had a fault and was hastily slapped back together by someone and thrown into a the UPS unit. A real crimp would have been faster than the lazy job performed here.

@@redemptusrenatus5336 Then that would be a major mistake!

But that would be more time consuming.

how would the research reveal a defect like this one? unless someone had torn one down like he did

@@donsurlylyte It wouldn't have, but now that I've seen Paul's video.... Cheers

No, APC has always been more hype than quality, even the old units weren't that great. I have an old SU2000 unit I've been meaning to throw out that lets you know the batteries are bad by shutting off and dumping the load.

@@uzlonewolf Yep, and the whole bunch of the models that preceded that vintage would routinely overcharge the batteries and kill them way prematurely. The failure mode was always the same: the batteries would swell up so much you had to disassemble the unit to pull them out by force. I had a dozen of those beige-front rack mount units and all did that. They otherwise lasted forever but I got tired of replacing the damn batteries every two years so they wouldn’t swell up and make a mess.