APC Automatic Voltage Regulator, LE1200, Line-R 1200VA

This thing is heavy, which is usually a good sign for this type of product. It does what even good UPS's don't, and that's regulate your power even when it fluctuates mildly. Sure, many products will protect you from 140V+ or turn on at 90V, but that's still enough to burn out everything from a simple wall wart power brick to a DVR from dishnetwork. I know, as I've experienced such things with my crappy Los Angeles power service. In afternoons, it'll drop to 110V, and if I use the garbage disposal, a laser printer, or turn on my stereo and 2 amplifiers, voltage drops below 108V. This is enough to destroy many sensitive products over time. It's so bad in my house, that it's destroyed two UPS's by forcing them to click on and off so much and to compensate for low voltage so much they burned out! The APC LE1200 prevents this damage. It clicks on and returns voltage levels back to around 120V at a level high enough that your electronics don't get damage before they are protected (what's the point of protection that only helps once the damage is done?). I know it's working because I can hear it click on, and return power to the right levels even as my house voltage sits at 106-108V (confirmed by the voltage meter in my Panamax). I'm so impressed with the performance of this unit in my home theater that I bought 2 more, one to protect my computer (it installs between the UPS and the wall to protect the computer and the UPS), and one for my plasma TV (because it's located away from my HT equipment). At $50 a piece, this thing is a no brainer. A quality UPS is 3-5x as much and still doesn't protect your equipment as well. And it can burn out. The LE1200 has little chance of burning out, so for equipment that doesn't need battery backup, or even to feed a UPS, this product is the way to go.

For the price point this unit does very well! Highly recommend it. I use for my PA rig powering my signal processors and mixer. When used properly, it works well. Construction is cheap. Amazon needs to ship these in bigger boxes with packing material for cushion...MY FIRST ONE CAME IN WITHOUT PACKING MATERIAL AND THUS DAMAGED DURING SHIPPING. My replacement one was undamaged but packed the same way without cushion, the only difference is the shipment went via expedited, so less trans loading and handling when moved. Amazon customer service was VERY HELPFUL in arranging this expedited shipping for me, at no extra cost. I made my review about the packaging with Amazon, and they acknowledged this. Hopefully will help others. This product is not a UPS with a battery, strictly line voltage regulation. It does have surge protection rated at 702 joules. ***There seems to be confusion of when this unit will regulate voltage, and one must read the specifications to understand this. For most in the US 120 volts is the norm, so when this unit is set to that, it has a -12% to +6% range around the center voltage of 120 volts according to the specs. Most electronic device power supplies are designed to handle the range this unit regulates to. The response time this reacts to any voltage fluctuations is acceptable to (under 2 AC cycles) THAT MEANS...When set to 120 on the back and your incoming line voltage drops below 105 volts this will activate the transformer to step up the voltage back to around ~120. If you have an over voltage, it will not activate the transformer until the incoming voltage goes above 127.2 volts to step it back down.

I bought four of these. The reliability of the power here on Long Island NY has never been very good, especially with the entire grid above ground. Sandy certainly has not helped either. I have these plugged directly into the wall outlet, and then APC UPS boxes plugged into these devices. Several times since I bought these, they have kicked in and done their job, both for abnormally high and low voltages. They are silent, having no fans, and in normal usage do not get hot. The only time they make noise is when they adjust the voltage up or down, and there is a moderately loud "click" sound. The only other very minor annoyance is the plug in the AC line is not a 90 degree plug to be able to allow the cable to go straight down the wall, but for what this box does, these items are definitely not deal breakers by any means. I use these with desktop computers and living room home theater set up. I highly recommend. It is about the size of small loaf of typical mainstream supermarket bread.

I've had this unit for a couple of weeks. I tested the output with my multimeter. It stabilizes the output voltage as advertized, per the selector switch on the back of the unit. Right now, I have it set to 120V. It is quiet. I almost bought a cheaper unit by a lesser known brand. But numerous review said those units were noisy. Well the Line-R from APC does not make much of a buzz at all. My only complaint is that there was a hot-plastic smell from the unit for a few days of initial use. After that cleared up, there have been no issues. I plan to use this to power my computer systems as well when the power goes out and I use my generator. I will come back and post additional comments, or raise or lower my review at that time. So far, it seems like a quality unit. APC is a good brand. Update, 3/17/2014: I had a couple power outages and put this unit between my generator and sensitive electronics. No problems to report. Only complaint is that I think the unit is making some small amount of ozone continuously. Since it has been over two months since I have owned the unit, I do not think the ozone smell is going to go away at all. I am going to ask APC about that. Update, 4/11/2014: I had an email exchange with APC (Schneider Electric) and they indicated that the ongoing ozone smell did not sound like proper operation. They immediately offered to RMA and exchange the unit for a new one. They shipped out the replacement unit without hesitation, and I sent the original unit back to them. Overall, the service was very good. My only complaint is that I had to pay for return shipping. However, I was able to fit the unit and some padding into a flat rate USPS box so that this only cost me about $13 or so. If I used a normal box and had it shipped via weight, it would have been over $50, and not worth it. The new unit is working as well as the old and it is not making the ozone odor. I have some more peace of mind that when I run my generator, my electronics are protected against voltage under/overloads. Overall, I am still happy with this device. Leaving the review at 4 stars since the return shipping change was on me, however, as well as receiving a defective unit the first time. Thus I ended up paying more than what I originally purchased it for. Edit 6/8/14: Replacement unit working flawlessly. No ozone smell whatsoever. Edit 12/20/17: Still working well several years later. Protects and regulates as expected, even occasionally on generator power.

I have a bit of a problem: I use lots of power hungry tech that runs 24/7, but my home was built in the 1880's and the wiring was last done in the 70's. Suffice to say, certain new electronics have proven to be more sensitive to power fluctuations than others, with quite a few things breaking (such as a big screen TV) or actually catching fire (such as a bitcoin miner). This happens because the power in the home can randomly fluctuate quite a bit. Normally they go completely undetected, but sometimes it can be enough to cause the lights to flicker. It gets worse when other power hungry devices, like heaters or air conditioners, turn on along the same breaker line. When I decided to put a new computer together, which happens to rank in the top 1% of all desktop computers, I knew I needed to protect it from the voltage irregularities. I decided to have this plugged directly into the wall, with a higher rated surge protector going after (just in case) and literally everything was plugged into that. That was back in January of 2016, and in the full year since there were no problems. When there is a sudden change in voltage I can audibly hear the device adjusting briefly, but no disruption to work. On a few occasions the house voltage changed enough for the lights to flicker, and no problem. In fact, the only occasion that the computer actually shut down due to a voltage issue was when it fluctuated for more than 30 seconds and that was a borderline brown out, and that was more of a problem with not having a UPS installed. I will be adding a UPS to the chain, happening after the voltage regulator and before the extra surge protection, to address the potential problem of power outages affecting my work. I would definately buy again, even if this should someday fail, for use with others part of the house that have sensitive electronics. As far as I am concerned, this is even more important to have than a surge protector when the wiring of the house is old. Yes, I know I really should re-wire the entire house, but this is actually affordable and accomplishes the same goal.

Concerned that adding a powered sub in addition to the high currant Adcom and other components of my system, might over tax the APC H15BLK line conditioner/regulator, I bought the APC LE1200 to be used as a companion unit to supply regulated power to my sub. As it turned out the H15 had plenty of head room, but better safe than sorry. The LE1200 was a snap to put into use - just set for proper line voltage, plug and play. I regularly see either the over or the under front indicator light pop on, letting me know that it's doing it's job. Having thousands of dollars invested in Audio equipment and living where the line voltage is notoriously bad, it's nice to have a little piece of mind knowing that my equipment is protected from both surges and drops. As a bonus, using the LE1200 along with the H15 helps to clean, filter and condition the incoming power so my current system seems to have an added layer of detail and clarity with an even deeper, broader sound stage and has never sounded so good.

We have powered our expensive laptops, cable modem, wireless router, and 47-inch LCD HDTV through this voltage regulator since September 2008 and the regulator is still going strong over four years later. In 2008 we lived in southeast Florida and bought this voltage regular to hook up to a portable gasoline generator so we could safely charge our laptops and cell phones during the a power outage or hurricane. Our generator did say it had built in auto voltage regulation but I wanted extra protection. I tested the regulator with this generator and seemed to work fine. We never had a power outage that lasted long enough for me to bother with firing up the generator and running home electronics. However, we did run our ground-mounted air conditioner every day to cool house and remove the oppressive Florida humidity and noticed lights flicker when A/C cycled on. So I connected this regulator into house electrical outlet and ran it 24/7 for three years in Florida. We have now run it every day for past year in central Massachusetts, where it is subjected to storm-induced outages and old-house wiring. This AVR has lasted years longer than all the uninterruptible power supplies I have owned; of course, it is not a UPS but it still has internal battery and the battery on my UPSes used to die after about three years.

The APC LE1200 Line-R 1200VA Automatic Voltage Regulator arrived on the promised delivery date in excellent condition. Considering the size and weight, the price is a bargain. Two year warranty too. The APC regulator was bigger and much heavier than expected which had me worried. Would it fit onto my computer desk? I recently discovered that my Made in China, Nobsound 6P1 tube hi-fi amplifier requires a Chinese mains voltage of 110 Volts AC. Been running it at U.S. 120 volts for the last couple years, and am glad it wasn't fried! Chinese companies should include a note with their electrical products warning U.S. customers of this fact! Setting up the APC was easy. 1. Move the rear selector switch from 120 to 110 volts. 2. Plug it into my desktop Power*Comm power station. 3. Plug my Nobsound amplifier into the rear of the APC. 4. I leave the APC switch set in the ON position, and control it from the front panel of my Power*Comm. 5. I use the Nobsound's On/Off switch to activate the hi-fi amplifier. It is big, but I was able to conceal the APC unit behind my computer monitor. To operate the hi-fi amplifier 1. I switch on the power on my Power*Comm, as usual, and wait two seconds for the APC's relay to read and set the voltage to 110 volts. 2. The APC center white power light comes on flashing momentarily, the relay "clicks", and the upper solid yellow indicator comes on, alerting me the voltage is set correctly to 110. 3. I then turn on the amplifier and away we go! Pretty slick - eh? My amplifier is safe, the APC is a champ, and I am happier than a pig rolling in the mud! ;-) Steve Franks