Trace PS2512 drop out problems [RE-wrenches]

[Richard Perez, Home Power magazine]

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Hello Wrenches

Quoted below is a problem that an Home Power reader is having with 
his Trace PS2512. I am at a loss as to how to help him. Perhaps one 
of you Wrenches have solved this problem.

Richard
Home Power

At 12:10 -0700 12/16/2003, Jim wrote:
>We've been fighting with a problem involving a Trace PS2512 
>inverter. I thought perhaps you might offer some insight into what 
>is causing the problem and what (if anything) we can do about it.
>
>Our Moab, UT office experiences power interruptions lasting anywhere 
>from under a second to several hours. While relatively infrequent, 
>they can be quite costly to our programming effort. So, using my 
>experience at Ray Mesa Power & Light, we built a grid-tied 
>uninterruptible power supply for our software development 
>environment. Currently, the system relies entirely on the grid for 
>charging -- although we anticipate adding solar to it next year.
>
>The system (dubbed "MOAB", Mother Of All Backups -- see attached 
>photo) consists of a Trace PS2512 and about 675 AH in a 12v battery. 
>It's sourced from a single 30 amp circuit breaker thru the inverter 
>and back to a secondary breaker panel with two smaller circuits: one 
>for our server room and one for the programming office. We calculate 
>the system will carry us for about 8 hours under worst case 
>conditions. All in all, it works as intended. When we pull the 30 
>amp breaker, the inverter kicks in with no visible interruption -- 
>not even a screen flicker. Cut-over is seamless and never fails; 
>we've never had a computer go down in this situation.
>
>On the other hand, we have had several instances in which the office 
>fluorescent lights barely flicker, the inverter kicks in and 10 out 
>of 12 computers in the programming office instantly go dead. The two 
>computers that seem to ride through (both Macs) are always the same 
>two. Other nearly identical Macs on the same circuit leg as well as 
>all PC's always go down.
>
>We have called Xantrex tech support and although they admit to 
>having had the problem reported, they are unable to offer either an 
>explanation or a solution. They claim that there is no firmware 
>upgrade available (the unit is 18 months old) and don't know what to 
>suggest. I hinted that maybe they could furnish some means for us to 
>perform line monitoring to see what was actually triggering the 
>problem -- they didn't bite. We had already tightened up the grid 
>voltage limits in the hopes of catching the outage as early as 
>possible -- no help. Xantrex suggested since tightening the grid 
>voltage limits doesn't seem to work, maybe we should try widening 
>the limits. Since there's nothing to lose, we'll probably try it but 
>I'm hardly optimistic.
>
>We have discussed adding small consumer grade UPS's throughout the 
>office to provide short term ride-through but this defeats the 
>intent of our original $3000 investment. It just seems illogical to 
>us that the inverter is able to cut-over without so much as a 
>flicker when power is cut entirely but can't seem to handle short 
>blips.
>
>Have you heard of this problem? Do you have any idea what causes it 
>and if so, any suggestions for dealing with it?

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