Detailed review of CyberPower PFC Sinewave UPS
Gamers with PCs with good power sources, huge ram, and powerful graphics cards cannot suddenly lose the game just because of a power outage, leaving them helpless while ganking the team. Designers and content creators with hundreds of GB of graphic and video files, it's impossible for them to have file errors due to a power outage, wasting hours of effort, working all night long, and being late for appointments with partners. Similarly, home-lab and home-server players cannot fail because of a power outage and risk losing dozens of TB of valuable data over the years. Therefore, a good UPS will definitely be an indispensable protection and insurance item for you. In this article, I will share a detailed review of the CyberPower PFC Sinewave UPS, model code CP1600EPFCLCD, a UPS model that is very suitable for individual users or small businesses who are using expensive PCs or are storing data in NAS, Servers with HDDs and SSDs that are sensitive to power failures, especially in cases of sudden power outages or voltage fluctuations or local surges (surge) right before or right after power is restored.
Technical specifications
I have linked the product home page for you to see more details, and below are some main technical specifications of UPS CP1600EPFCLCD:
In general, this UPS model has many advanced hardware features such as being able to output standard sine wave current, having automatic AVR voltage stabilization, compatible with Active PFC sources and lightning protection. These features are enough protection combo for expensive technology devices.
Convenient design
CyberPower CP1600EPFCLCD is designed in tree form, looks almost like a PC but has a quite thin width. The entire body of this UPS is hard plastic with many heat dissipation slots on both sides of the body.
These heat sinks are designed in the form of "shutters" to minimize dust accumulation and getting inside the camera body.
Most prominent on the front of the device is a color LCD screen to visually display the operating status of the device along with a system of 4 basic buttons, power on/off, up, down and enter, making this UPS very easy to set up and monitor the status, even those who have never used a UPS before can easily use and configure it.
This screen can be tilted at a maximum angle of 22 degrees, so users can easily observe in case the UPS is placed low like under a table. And can also be folded flat as usual. This is a small detail, but I appreciate CyberPower's level of concern for user experience.
Not stopping there, the manufacturer equipped with 2 additional charging ports USB-A and USB-C with fast charging with a maximum capacity of 30W which is also an extremely convenient point for users. If during a power outage the phone runs out of battery, we can plug in the charger directly from the front of the device without having to search for a charger and plug it into the back.
The USB-C port only supports PD 3.0 fast charging standard with voltage levels of 5-9-15V. In general, it's only enough for mobile devices like phones, but in case of a power outage, I think that's enough. If we need to charge devices that require greater capacity, we still have the option of using an adapter with the UPS's AC power ports.
On the back of the CyberPower CP1600EPFCLCD UPS are all the connection ports. From top to bottom we have 1 USB-B port to connect to the computer (with included USB-A - USB-B cord), 1 serial port, 1 waiting slot to plug in an additional SNMP Card, 2 RJ-45 in-out 1Gbps ports to protect lightning current for network cables, 8 NEMA 5-15R standard sockets (or more commonly, grounded flat socket, standard American socket), 1 automatic circuit breaker to protect UPS and 1 IEC C14 input port.
Equipping up to 8 output sockets is a generosity of CyberPower, which will help your setup corner be neater than ever without having to equip additional sockets to divide the power. However, using the standard 3-prong flat foot will be a small minus point for users. If this model is equipped with a multi-purpose socket, I think it will be more suitable for Vietnamese users, when most of our devices use EU plugs.
Easy to replace the battery
When reading the instruction manual of this device, I saw that there were instructions for replacing the battery with a few simple steps. So I tried it and it's really easy to do. Later when it's time for maintenance, you can absolutely order and replace the battery yourself at home.
First, you just need to lay the UPS down, remove the 2 screws at the bottom with a 4-sided screwdriver.
Then slide the entire front panel down, you will see a jack cluster for the USB-C circuit. Removing this jack is very easy and this leaves enough space to access and replace the battery.
Inside, CyberPower uses two batteries, one horizontal and one vertical on the body. The one located vertically on the body is held by a metal bracket, also fixed to the body with 2 4-sided screws, very easy to remove.
At this point, you just need to unplug the power cord and you can pull out these 2 batteries. CyberPower's genuine battery for this UPS line has the part code RBP0142, essentially 2 RBP0007 blocks connected in series together.
In terms of size and specifications, these two battery blocks are equivalent to the popular 9-10Ah models on the market, so you also have countless options if you cannot buy genuine batteries. Genuine CyberPower batteries are also processed by the Leoch brand, a Singapore battery brand established in 1999.
Overall, replacing the battery of CyberPower CP1600PFCLCD is very simple and easy. You do not need to remove the entire UPS case to replace it, you only need to remove the front panel separately, which is both simple and safe for both the user and the device. Since the battery replacement process is completely isolated from the circuit and internal components, the user does not have to worry about electrical safety issues and the internal circuit also does not have to worry about being accidentally touched by the user.
Smart software, good compatibility
This is another strong point of CyberPower, especially for individual users. For conventional UPS devices, the manufacturer only uses a very basic and very old software, ViewPower. This software has few features and is not compatible with MacOS. With CyberPower, the company has specialized software to communicate with UPS, which is PowerPanel Personal/Business/Cloud, compatible with all Linux, Windows, and Mac OS platforms. When you connect to the cloud, you can remotely monitor the UPS status via mobile devices.
The software on the computer has an intuitive interface, showing all UPS information such as input power, output power, battery capacity, actual power consumption and estimated power backup time.
There are also many advanced features such as setting a timer to turn the computer on and off, email notification if a situation occurs, being able to set the voltage level to activate the voltage stabilization feature, or switching to using battery power, being able to set the time to turn off the PC when a power outage occurs...
I tried using the safe shutdown feature when the power goes out. The application works perfectly on all operating systems, including MacOS.
For NAS players like Synology, almost all CyberPower products are on the compatibility list and just need to plug in a USB to recognize each other immediately.
In general, in terms of software, I appreciate CyberPower's solutions, modern applications and interfaces, easy to use, easy to connect and especially high cross-platform compatibility, so you will not have to worry about whether the UPS is compatible or not.
Battery backup time and charging time
According to the manufacturer's announcement, the power backup time of CyberPower CP1600EPFCLCD is about 10 minutes with 500W load and nearly 3 minutes with 1000W full load. In addition, CyberPower also announces the operating time for many other load levels, you can see below the chart, of course this is the standard published parameter, in reality there will be many factors that affect the usage time.
I tested under actual usage conditions with a home network system including NAS, modem, router, switch, total load consumption is about 6%, which is about 60W. The total power backup time of the CyberPower CP1600EPFCLCD is about 1 hour and 40 minutes before the UPS sends a command to shutdown the NAS at a battery level of about 10%. I think this usage time matches the battery capacity of the UPS.
After testing the usage time, I also tested the recharging time. From the time the battery is low (about 10%) to full, it takes about 5 hours, much faster than the 8 hours announced by the company. Maybe because I use it with a small load, not a large load, the battery is less hot, making the recharging time significantly faster.
In general, for the needs of PC, home-server, or small office, I find the capacity and backup time of UPS CyberPower CP1600EPFCLCD to be quite reasonable.
Output power quality
This is a Line Interactive UPS model, which means that under normal use conditions, the UPS will pass current through the lightning protection block, through the current voltage stabilizer block and then output to the output device. When the input voltage exceeds the safe threshold, the AVR will work to pull the voltage back to the safe threshold. If the voltage continues to go beyond the threshold where the AVR can intervene or there is a power outage, the UPS will now use power from the battery through the Inverter to generate electricity.
With the UPS allowing AC current to flow, when there is a power outage it will take switching time, like this UPS model is 8ms, this time is very small for PC and NAS devices for individuals and offices. In return, it will save more electricity, operate cooler and be less noisy than Online UPS lines. Normally with cheap Offline and Line-Interactive UPS lines, the output current when using the battery will be a simulated sine wave (Simulated Sine Wave / Modified Sine Wave), or commonly called a square wave. Wave simulation has major limitations such as:
UPS CP1600EPFCLCD has an output current when using a battery that is a standard sine wave, not a simulated sine wave, this is a huge advantage of this UPS model. In this part, I use an oscilloscope to perform the differential simulation measurement method, in which yellow channel 1 (CH1) will measure the wave of the fire wire (L - Line), blue channel 2 (CH2) will measure the wave of the neutral wire (N-Neutral), and I use the machine's Math function to get the waveform between the two channels MATH = CH1 - CH2 (purple line). The purple line will show the waveform of the UPS's output power so you can visualize the output power quality when the UPS operates in battery mode. First, I measured the grid line at my house to compare. In theory, the grid must have a standard sine wave. But in reality, due to many external influences, the power grid can suffer from harmonic interference as shown in the picture, that is, the peak of the wave is not sharp and round, exactly sinusoidal, but is beveled and flatter. The reason may be that non-linear load devices consume a lot of peak current, causing the grid current to have an instantaneous voltage drop at the peak of the wave.
For UPS when operating in grid mode, because it is not an Online UPS, the output power is identical to the grid power, the UPS will not interfere because the voltage is still within the safe threshold for electrical equipment, but you still have 2 layers of defense: lightning protection and an AVR ready to fight if the voltage goes out of the safe threshold.
The biggest difference is when the UPS operates in battery mode. When there is no more grid power, the PowerCyber UPS produces a beautiful standard sine wave, created from 2 phase-inverse sine waves produced by the internal Inverter.
Below is a comparison image with a simulated sine wave UPS, you can clearly see that the standard sine wave current is completely different.
The UPS produces a standard sine wave that will help regenerate perfect power, maintain and protect equipment for a long time, especially for current-sensitive devices such as Active PFC power supplies for PCs. You may not know, all modern Macs (including iMac, Mac mini, Mac Studio, MacBook chargers) as well as many PC/NAS/Server power supplies today, are all Active PFC (Power Factor Correction) sources. Therefore, if you have decided to use a UPS, choosing to use a standard sine wave UPS and PFC compatible is extremely advisable.
Summary
UPS CyberPower PFC Sinewave CP1600EPFCLCD is a high-end UPS model with user-friendly design, the ability to easily and safely change batteries, modern software, ease of use and high compatibility. Standard sine wave for output current is also a highlight in addition to features such as lightning protection and voltage stabilization typical of the Line-interative UPS line. Don't let your hard drive, power supply, or motherboard fail just because of one random reason: a power outage. That's the reason why gamers and self-hosts playing PC, NAS, and home-server always need UPS as a shield to protect the expensive and sensitive equipment behind them. With a relatively accessible price, about more than 6 million VND for a modern UPS model, we have a UPS from a top-tier brand in the industry. I find this a bargain compared to what we get for the cost of protecting the even priceless assets behind. The product is currently being officially distributed by XTREND distribution joint stock company, you can refer to the product at CyberPower's official booth. I have put a reference link below in the comments section. Thank you for reading Ngon Bo Twitter's article on Tinh Te, I also have a Website, Facebook, YouTube and Group Review.