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Pricey UPS Accessories

Former Community Member
Former Community Member
Hi there,


Long-time reader here posting for the first time. I quite enjoyed the discussion about audiophile fuses and while this isn't anywhere as ridiculous something seems off about the price of UPS power accessories.


I have just purchased a UPS for my home office having suffered some hard-drive damage from frequent 'brownouts'. This is an APC 1400va - 700 Watt with 6 x IEC C13 outputs at the back, enough to get me over the brief outages unscathed. As some of the devices being attached have a transformer I need a short extension from an IEC C14 to a BS 1363 Socket. So far so good and some air between the UPS and transformer is helpful.


I found them online at about £40 each which seems excessive when the component parts are readily available at a fraction of that cost. For example: https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/power-distribution-accessories/7794159/ Other UPS power accessories have similarly questionable markup.


My question is, can you folks see any reason why such a simple accessory is so expensive? For the life of me, I can't, so for the price of one of these, I plan to buy the parts to make six.


Now, I'm off to use the saving to buy a gold-plated plug for my stereo!


Neil





  • 0

    My question is, can you folks see any reason why such a simple accessory is so expensive?



    Presumably because there are enough people out there willing to pay such prices. Possibly due to a lack of technical knowledge to realise that generic parts would serve just as well and so want the reassurance of 'approved by the manufacturer'.


    Seems to be a common theme in the spares market - if you bought all the "original" parts to make up a machine it would cost a couple of orders of magnitude more than the original machine.


       - Andy.

  • 0
    The UPS maker will not enjoy the advantages of scale, the company that makes just the connectors do, and hand wiring anything is dominated by the labour costs. HAving something photographed, put in the catalogue, stocked posted out in small quantities is surprisingly expensive too,

    Quite a while ago I worked at a place where we reckoned that to book an empty cardboard box into stores, label it and keep it on inventory for a week, then wrap it up and post it out unaltered, would have been about £50.

    It's probably  gone up since.
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    Hi Neil, I just looked on ebay searching for 'iec to socket 13a' and the first listing is £3.99!
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    Call me old-fashioned, but I never even thought of looking to ebay. £3.99 is what I would call reasonable but I would have to register for PayPal, wait a few weeks for delivery and then have to return the Hugo Boss knock-off that they delivered instead :o)


    Mapj1 is likely on the money. It's a relatively bulky item and the cost probably has more to do with non-material costs. 


    Thank you for the responses. I thought it prudent to ask the question as I couldn't square that circle and being unfamiliar with UPS I would like to avoid a hot mess!
  • 0

    mapj1:

    Quite a while ago I worked at a place where we reckoned that to book an empty cardboard box into stores, label it and keep it on inventory for a week, then wrap it up and post it out unaltered, would have been about £50.




    Sometimes RS (remember the yellow packets with the orange/brown writing?) seems very expensive; sometimes it is very competitive. My last order from them was some Duraplugs.


    What I cannot understand is the "free" delivery, which seems to bear little relationship to the cost of the order. And it always comes next day (Royal Mail) between 09:00 and 09:30. I asked postie whether it was the next order after 09:00 guaranteed, but that is not the case. I do not think that any supplier could do any better. ?


    And if I really was in a rush, I could collect from Hedge End (but petrol would be more than the "postage") though in fact the orders come from the Midlands.

  • 0
    I use many cheap adaptors and notice that most get quite warm on currents of less than 1/2 the design current. I have had a few 13A four ways fail (melt) when taking anything approaching 13A even for short durations.  So in a situation requiring reliability I would go for the more expensive branded option and hope they have just not made an excessive markup on the cheap dodgy import.
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    https://cpc.farnell.com/pro-power/pel01253/iec-c14-plug-to-13a-socket-black/dp/PL15014

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    kfh:

    So in a situation requiring reliability I would go for the more expensive branded option and hope they have just not made an excessive markup on the cheap dodgy import. 




    Oh no! Developing a brand costs money, and a brand is a valuable intangible asset to a company. Dilute it at your peril! ?


    In other words (lest anybody misunderstand me) I agree with kfh.


    INHO, branded goods are best value, but I do recognise that not everybody can afford the best ones.


    Whirlpool anybody? ?

  • 0

    £3.99 is what I would call reasonable but I would have to register for PayPal, wait a few weeks for delivery and then have to return the Hugo Boss knock-off that they delivered instead :o)




    Perhaps, worth restricting the search to sellers in the UK if you want speedy delivery, and looking at what else that person sells, so if they only have 3 of the leads you want, and then lots of random clothing and nail varnish or other unconnected tat, you can assume they are just clearing stock ends of other companies and container sweepings  and have no idea what they are selling - Caveat Emptor.

    Someone with a wide range of electrical bits that is organised  more like a hardware shop with an on-line section is a safer bet. And if it is so cheap it is unbelievable, maybe it should not be believed.

    You can check out as a guest with PayPal, so no sign up needed and  they do not keep your details.
    UK Vendor with a UK adress  and the rest of that Ebay shop

    or go for a real vendor  CPC Farnell for example


    No connection to me except as a customer.

     


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    Chris Pearson:



    Sometimes RS (remember the yellow packets with the orange/brown writing?) seems very expensive; sometimes it is very competitive.





    I often use RS when I need say one or two of a particular odd connector or whatever and I need it now - or at least the following morning!


    Even if the item itself is slightly more expensive than my usual supplier, the free delivery often makes it cheaper overall than ordering the same item from my usual supplier and having to pay a delivery charge because it doesn't meet their free delivery threshold.


    Same as yourself, I normally always receive what I have ordered from RS by lunchtime, even when I have only placed the order very late on the previous day!

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