Smart-UPS 750VA UPS Battery Backup with Pure Sine Wave Output (SMT750) (Not Sold in Vermont)

I originally bought the APC Back-UPS XS BX1000G 1000VA Tower UPS ($125) to protect and provide emergency power for our pellet stove. Once I got it I determined with APC Tech Support help it would not be good for this purpose. So they recommended this one instead because it can handle AC Motor loads and does not change the sinewave that can damage AC Motors. This one though is a great deal more expensive and heavier. However I watched for a "Warehouse Deal" and got this for only $160.00 almost 1/2 of retail plus it included shipping. Hooked it up and it works perfect, "plug and play".For those that do not know - a pellet stove requires an exhaust fan to run in order to extract smoke to the outside. If your pellet stove is in the burn cycle and the power goes out, chances are smoke will backup in to the house. With this connected it works flawlessly and allows me to shut down the stove and not have any smoke problems. If the power outage is short term it can run the pellet stove for about 40 minutes without AC Power. There are specific systems out there that will run much longer but they are 4-5 times the money and will not power the auto igniter. With this one you don't even know it switched over... I would highly recommend it. Also if you are in a place with long term power outages you can use a generator to provide constant power to the UPS which in turn will smooth out the current and provide exactly what the stove needs. Generators have such a fluctuating current and voltage they can damage the electronics in a pellet stove (as well as any other sensitive electronics). This stops damage from happening.Also on a side note - for one money we now have our computers protected and will be protecting our TV and related electronics as well.... all around a great piece of equipment for little money!

I've had what I thought were decent low-cost UPSs like Back-ups 1300/1500, but this is a step above.My use case is with a small server in my home. I have very infrequent brown-outs and black-outs but had problems with my previous 1300/1500 units (UPS units for some reason occasionally wouldn't respond quickly enough and my server would reboot, etc. Hard drive damage occurred once, prompting me to search for a better UPS option).The SMT750 seems much more reliable and provides cleaner power (pure sine instead of stepped like my previous low-cost models). The SMT750 has been running reliably for about a year and has handled all power events without any issues.The built-in interface is more sophisticated than the cheaper models as well-- very nice.I highly recommend this (SMT750) pure sine unit over the cheaper stepped sine models. If you need more wattage, there are higher power versions available, but I'd say the price is worth it (even with infrequent outages, just one that does damage will make you wish you bought the better unit).

About two hours before leaving for a long holiday weekend, this UPS started sparking. We rushed it out of the building and it burst into flames! I cannot imagine what would have happened had no one been here.After the fire burned itself out, we plugged it in again to see if the problem would continue. Sure enough, the sparks started flying and the flames came back. Unbelievable! Goes to show it would have just kept burning worse and worse if we hadn't been there to get it out of the office. APC came a couple hours away from burning down our office building. When we called to report the problem, they couldn't care less. They offered to send a replacement (how could we trust it?!) and weren't even interesting in getting the unit back to see what went wrong. They did tell us if we wanted to send it back, we could, at our cost. Always thought APC was a leader in the UPS industry. Now we're replacing all their products.

Edit: I'll leave the review up in its entirety, but it has been brought to my attention that this UPS is not 750 watts like I thought, but 500 watts. As such, I've increased the rating to 4 stars.Short version: UPS is fine, as long as you do not draw more than ~600 watts and don't want to use the software. The unit provides many features, and is a good value for performance. Switching time is great, and this unit works fine with PFC computer power supplies. Good buy if you're looking for a solid midrange UPS for a mid-range gaming computer. If you're running a high-end computer (overclocked CPU, dual graphics cards) you will want to read further to determine if this UPS is worth your money.I will begin by saying I am an abnormal use case. At the time I realized this UPS is not as capable as I thought it was, I was already outside of the return window. This isn't an issue of degradation, but one of there not being a set standard as to how to rate UPSs. At this point, I am sure you have some idea as to what my problem is, but first a little back story.I have a computer I built myself. At the time of issue I had an Intel Core I3-2105, 8GB of RAM, an overclocked EVGA sourced nVidia GTX670, and an overclocked MSI sourced nVidia GTX 560Ti with 448 Cores. This is a fairly low-power CPU paired with two graphics cards that while not power hungry, they use a nice bit of power (think sports cars as opposed to full out race cars). All of this is being powered by an 850 watt PSU (complete overkill as you'll see in a few). With the components I have, I rarely draw more than 500 watts from the wall. For me to do this, I have to fully load both (overclocked!) graphics cards as well as the CPU with artificial stress tests. In other words, in real world usage, I'm never going to use more than 500 watts. After factoring in the other items I have on the UPS (2 monitors, a 5.1 channel receiver, cell phone charger), at maximum load I will be around 575-625 watts. Shouldn't be a problem for a 750 watt UPS, right?On this day I decided I wanted to see just how effective my computer would be with folding. In case you're unaware, I'm referring to a research project by Stanford that simulates the folding of proteins and they "farm out" the work load. If you Google search "Folding@Home" you will be able to find more information. I prepare my computer for this, start up the GPU only clients, and walk away. At this time, the GPUs are under intense load and are making a racket, so I close the door to the room to limit the noise, and do other things. I return a while later to find my computer off. Figuring there must have been something overheating, I let the machine cool for a few more minutes, and begin folding again, this time watching to see where the issue was.It turns out that even though this UPS is rated at 750 watts, you cannot exceed about 600 watts before the UPS shuts off attached loads. It does not matter whether or not you are on utility power or drawing from the battery. The UPS has a cutoff point in the 600 watt range that it decides it is going to stop outputting power and will shut down. Please note during this entire time, the UPS never attempted to switch to battery power, and the power was as problem free as utility power gets. However I will grant that this is not a common load; I am drawing more power than most. I still feel that if the UPS is rated at 750 watts, it should be able to supply 750 watts, especially while still drawing power from the wall.That issue aside, this UPS performs admirably. I previously had a UPS that was a more basic model--a stepped approximation of a sine wave, standby type UPS. This UPS would cause my computer's power supply to whine whenever it was on battery power, and would not switch back to utility power whenever the power returned to normal. This UPS has neither of those problems. Due to the different types of switching technology, it also switches to battery faster, and doesn't switch as often. It also has several features in the menu system that allow you to track power quality. The PC software is not great if you're planning on using only one of these in a home environment, but makes more sense if you are planning on deploying several of these in an office type situation. I would also appreciate the option to have the UPS just let the computer shut down hard if the battery runs all the way down, but can understand why this would not be desirable. Personally, the reason I want a UPS is more to protect against brown-outs and low-voltage situations rather than black outs or complete power outages.All that said, I want to reiterate I AM NOT A TYPICAL USER. I am using the UPS in ways most people will not. I have two upper mid-range/lower-high end graphics cards. But I still feel this product should have been capable of supporting them. I think I've covered about all I can, but if you have any questions, put them in the comment/question section and I will answer them as best I can.