I am looking to buy a rack mounted UPS that can take in 208V power and serve up 120V power. A basic APC unit that can do this is $4k. I have found a Tripp Lite model that will work for $2.5k.
Is the extra $1.5k for the APC just for the brand? Or will the Tripp Lite serve me just as well?
Thanks!
Part of our office space is leased out to another company. There are a lot of power issues at the site and obviously both companies have the same primary supply. That other company refuses to pay APC prices. Instead they opt for lower priced units of various brands. In the 15 or 16 months I've worked there that company, which only has a staff of about 20, has had 3 UPSs die as a result of the surges, spikes and dips we experience regularly. The company I work for has always used APC and so far they've never had one die. Long term it's we who are paying less. What more is there to tell?
Tripp Lite has been around for ~80 years doing power related devices. They have been making UPSes for around twenty-some years. My first power bar happened to be a Tripp Lite, and it was built like a tank, metal case, RFI/EMC filtering built-in, resettable circuit breaker. I've also owned a couple of Tripp Lite UPSes, and used them professional as well. I've always been satisfied with them.
They don't target the consumer market, as far as I know their core business is more industrial then APC, which is not a premium UPS manufacturer in my experience. Professionally, I've seen nearly twenty APC UPSes that the controller electronics or transformers die, as opposed to battery failures. The environments were harsh, with large diesel generators used for backup power source when commercial power failed, and some environments were high ambient temperature work areas (Middle East), but UPS failures shouldn't be frequent if you don't abuse (overload, not ground) them.
Brands like Leibert, or Powerware (now Eaton), or Tripp Lite are brands I prefer for over 1 kVA UPSes.
Update Jan 2015 Since writing this original answer I have seen Tripp-Lite product lines for consumer or Small Office / Home Office (SOHO) target markets. As highlighted in a Jan 2015 product teardown (slides 11-21) of cheap power bars at Tom's Hardware, these consumer oriented (price sensitive) models are not necessarily of the same quality as their industrial and enterprise product lines.
You'll have to pry my APC UPSes out of my cold dead hands. No I don't think APC is just brand differences, I think it's quality of components.
For power protection on crucial systems I always stick with APC. I have/had APCs that have been running for 5+ years with just replacement batteries. Regular desktops I have used Belkin, Tripp Lite, Eaton, APC, and others. They served me well. I just don't expect much out of the lower end models. Also APC guarantees the equipment behind plugged into it up to a certain amount. That depends on the model.
We have lots of APC's and a large Leibert. They will all Die, they all must have maintenance if you want to make sure they will work when you need them.
We have Tripp Lites in about 30 switch closets and our secondary data centers. Never had any issues except when we need to move one. Boy those things are heavy.
The Tripp Lite Management platform (unless they've made major strides in recent years) is terrible. We had all kinds of problems with the Tripp Lite Management modules. APC is VERY feature rich and can be centrally managed. We've standardized on APC across the board, from Data Center, to closet, to Desktop. No regrets. If not APC, Liebert or Best Power (now Eaton) would be my choices.
