ishium 80439
Senior Member
I got a call yesterday to look at a UPS that was malfunctioning (FWIW it was a Powerware 9170+). Apparently it was cutting out and stopping power from flowing to the connected loads. This was happening even though the utility power was still on. After talking w/ tech support they thought it sounded like a problem with the system being overloaded and it shut itself down to protect itself. His suggestion was to install another power module and sacrifice some battery capacity. That seemed somewhat reasonable but I figured before we go mucking about swapping things in and out we really need to get a handle on what the true draw is. It seems the only accurate way to do this is leave a power monitor on this panel for a week or so. I have never done this before and was looking for some input. The panel is single phase 208 (H-H-N-G). Is this as simple as connecting the leads to the panel lugs and leaving it for a week? When the test is done can I read the results or do I need to bring it back to the place I rented it from and run it through special software? Any thoughts/ input on this would be greatly appreciated.