CyberPower 1500VA UPS Battery Backup with Surge Protection

Does what it’s supposed to do – all the time
UPDATE: (September 2nd, 2015): We took a major lightning strike to the house while I was away.I was over in Singapore at the time, and could not connect back home to my network – which is very unusual since my network NEVER goes down. When I got home I discovered a palm tree right next to the house took a direct hit from a bolt of lightning, and it blew out two circuit breakers in the house – including the one that the UPS is on – as well as my GFCI down in the garage.The good news is that the CP1500AVR protected all of my equipment. Apparently the CyberPower drained itself all the way down and then shut down the server (which is is attached to). I reset all the house breakers, and everything came back up again, but alas, the batteries would no longer take a charge, and were failing the self-test.So I ordered a new set of batteries ExpertPower ® 12v 9ah Sealed Lead Acid Battery with F2 Terminals (.250″) / 2 Pack and replaced them today. All is back up and running, and the UPS performed a successful self-test. Fully expect to get another 4 years out of this product.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~UPDATE (June 8th, 2013): This product is still going strong. It has protected me over and over, and has NEVER let me down. I live in Florida, and we’re getting ready to come into the thunderstorm and hurricane season again, and I’m confident that this UPS will not let me down.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~UPDATE (August 21st, 2013): We’ve been getting our summer thunderstorms rolling through here at full throttle, and it’s still protecting my devices – in fact, it JUST KICKED IN AGAIN as I’m typing this! I just checked the log, and in the past 12 weeks I’ve had 9 instances where the UPS had kicked in to protect my equipment. Still 5 STARS.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~UPDATE: June 6′ 2015. I’ve had this device for over 4 years now, and it has saved my office electronics countless times since then. Yesterday we had 4 instances where we took power hits where it kicked in – each time it just kept all my equipment running without a single problem. STILL 5 STARS!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I purchased this product last August (2011) to ensure that my home office server and all networking gear stayed on the air in the event of power outages.It works perfectly.The device powers all of my critical home office equipment: server, workstation, cable modem, router, switch, KVM, IP phones, monitor. In the past 24 weeks I’ve had over 19 “Invert” episodes: 4 power outages, 3 under voltages, and 12 over voltages. Not a single hiccup.I have silenced the alarm so that I never hear anything when it happens; I read about it in the log. The software is simple yet efficient. It tells me what I need to know. All of those devices described above draw a combined 165 watts. My estimated run time (per the software) is about 37 minutes.Don’t be put off by all the negative reviews about this. It works.

This 1500 watt battery backup UPS delivers. I wish to share my experience with it for those of you who may decide to integrate one of these into your home.First, I bought the unit with the intention of putting it into my wall, literally. So, warranty is void obviously and I did have to buy additional components to do this job. The goal for me was to provide and protect my network connection and lighting during a power outage. The Cyberpower 1500 watt UPS provides a sufficient amount of run time should we have a power black out and its surge protection safeguards the network equipment connected to it.I considered that the general space between wall studs gives me about 14.5 inches, but where this was going I only had 10.5 and 2×4 studs are 3.5” wide so the casing for the UPS had to go. I protected the circuit board and transformer of the UPS in smaller project boxes, and after replacing the battery wires with longer ones and lengthening the wires to the transformer, the unit was almost ready to install into my wall. It was powered by the kitchen light switch (replaced by a tamper proof switch that needs a key to turn on or off, so it is always on and cannot be accidentally shut off). The UPS provides power to the wifi kitchen LED lights which are un turn operated through a voice assistant. The voice assistant also is powered by the UPS and the wifi booster is also powered by it as well.The front panel of the UPS case I kept intact and mounted to a piece of black acrylic plastic I had left over from a similar project. This “panel” was mounted over the cut out I put in the wall and another wood cover was placed over the battery area I cut out lower from the panel. The whole project took a few days to prepare and then a few hours to install into the existing wiring of the house. Now, the UPS is inside of the wall, and function perfectly.The series of photos show the unit disassembled, then I checked to see how it fit into the project boxes. After that it was just mounting, soldering, wiring, and then modifying the house wall and wiring, to place the unit before the kitchen lights, but after the switch power. The one with the wood panel and vent is a cover for the battery compartment. Last are a couple of finishing photos, one showing the lights with 100% brightness, the other at 25% brightness. The estimated run time is on the Cyberpower display and the load image above is blank because the LED lights draw almost nothing for power when running.Our home’s kitchen lights are now able to run for as much as 460 minutes at 25% brightness, or as much as 160 minutes at full brightness. The goal was achieved and I am very pleased with the Cyberpower UPS as it does exactly what we need it to.The unit had the ability to surge protect your cable, and RJ-45 (Ethernet) connections, but I removed these as they were not needed. I hope that whether you use it as is or you modify it yourself, you enjoy the protection it offerers for many years to come.

It has a smaller profile than I thought it would – very happy to not have it take up too much space under my desk.It is thoughtfully designed and has clearly benefited from undergoing many iterations. It has all the features you would expect of a pricier model (like the LCD panel) but it remains off by default.The back is well organized – for example having the USB and ethernet ports towards the top lends itself nicely to using shorter patch cables from an ethernet port to a PC without having to criss-cross cables down to the floor and back.It has good capacity. I’ve got two monitors, a beefy PC, a laptop and powered docking station all plugged into it, and provides 24 minutes of battery time – which is not only enough time to shut things down cleanly, but even to wait out a temporary outage and see if the power comes back without having to stop what you’re doing. As far as cost for the capacity goes, the price war will wage on, but this is the best value device I could find at the time.The software (CyberPower PowerPanel Personal) appears to be of a good quality and even has a few advanced features that a you may have a use for, such as automatically powering off and on attached equipment on a schedule. You can also adjust how long it will run on battery before it automatically asks your computer to shut down. The software doesn’t come with an install CD or anything – but it’s easy enough to find online. I’ll dock a point for “Easy to Install” for this one, since I’ve seen similar devices capable of launching an installer right when you plug them in as USB devices.Well made, no real complaints. Hopefully these attached pictures help you make a decision for yourself.