CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD PFC Sinewave UPS Review

The CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD PFC Sinewave Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) is a battery backup & surge protector that offers some of the best power protection technology for sensitive electronic equipment and remote management all within a modest price point.

Features

Highlight summary:

• Capacity: 1500 VA / 1000 W
• Topology: Line Interactive
• Waveform: Sine Wave
• Output: 120Vac ± 5%
• Plug type & cord: NEMA 5-15P, 5 ft. cord
• Outlet types: 12 × NEMA 5-15R
• USB charge ports: 2
• Communication: USB, Relay, SNMP
• Data line protection: Network
• Management software: PowerPanel Business
• Remote management: Yes, with optional RMCARD205
• ENERGY STAR certified: Yes
• Connected Equipment Guarantee: $500,000
• Warranty: 3 year

Hardware

Constructed from a thick molded plastic, the UPS housing appears to be made of quality materials. Form factor is a mini-tower design with dimensions of 3.9"W x 11.0"H x 14.0"W and an overall weighing nearing 25lbs.

The CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD PFC Sinewave UPS has a total of twelve electrical outlets. Six of these outlets are battery & surge protected, with the remaining six being surge-only protected. Towards top of the UPS are two transformer outlets that are more widely spaced than other outlets, this is meant to accommodate transformer block adapters or other adapters that are large in size.

All electrical outlets are protected against power spikes and AC power surges with a suppression rating of 1445 joules. Bi-directional communication ports also provide surge protection to an Ethernet connection (10/100/1000 + PoE compatible).

Power Factor Correction (PFC) Sinewave provides cleaner output for sensitive equipment and corrects minor power fluctuations without switching to battery, thereby extending battery life.

Automatic Voltage Regulation (AVR) yields consistently stable incoming AC power by automatically regulating high and low voltages without resorting to battery power. This significantly increases battery life and lessens the likelihood of data loss, memory freezes, and system crashes.

The internal battery compartment can be accessed easily by simply removing two screws. Within we can see a single battery cartridge which contains two sealed lead-acid batteries. Overall capacity is 1500 VA / 1000 W, these batteries provide a runtime of 2.5 minutes under full load or 10 minutes under half load in the event of a power outage.

I should also mention that the battery cartridge is hot-swappable and user replaceable. CyberPower warranty will repair or replace a defective UPS system (including batteries) within three years of the purchase date if an issue were to arise.

Optionally available is a network management card (RMCARD205) for remote controller and monitoring via web browser, command line interface (CLI), SNMP or network management system (NMS).

A front-facing colour LCD panel displays real-time information on the UPS battery and power conditions, allowing for at-a-glance view of the current load capacity, fault alarms, battery charge percentage and estimated runtime. Screen illumination is bright and can be toggled on or off, along with several other user preferred settings, including audible alarms.

The colour LCD panel also  tilts up to 22 degrees for easy viewing, this is useful when the UPS is placed on the floor or low surfaces.

Front facing USB (Type A and Type C) provide DC 5V 3.1A power output with battery backup.

Software

PowerPanel Personal for Linux is free power management software compatible with the CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD PFC Sinewave UPS. Available for all Linux distributions in .deb, .rpm and tarball format, this command-line software bridges your system to monitor UPS activity via USB or serial port.

Version 1.3.3 64-Bit was used during my evaluation.

The pwrstatd program will run as a daemon process on start-up and communicates with the UPS to help aid unattended graceful shutdowns or execute a shell script on power related events. Additionally the software is capable of self-testing the UPS, event based logging and sending notifications.