Spent a whole Saturday on a DIY rack build then my PDU caught fire

I was setting up my first home rack in the basement last weekend, got all the cables neat and tidy, then plugged in my old PDU and heard a pop. Smoke started pouring out the back of the rack before I even had the server powered on. Turns out the PDU had a cracked fuse holder that I missed when I tested it - lucky I was standing right there. Ended up ripping everything out and running a temporary power strip until I can get a replacement delivered. Has anyone else had a PDU fail on you like that out of nowhere?

2 comments

2 Comments

lilyg8312d ago

Cracked fuse holder" is EXACTLY what happened to me a few months ago with an old Tripp Lite unit. I read online that this is actually a really common failure point on older PDUs because the plastic just gets brittle over time from the heat cycles. Same thing - popped and smoked before I even got anything loaded on the rack. Scared the crap out of me honestly. Now I check EVERYTHING for cracks or discoloration before I plug it in, even stuff that sat in storage for a while. Cheap insurance compared to a house fire.

the_xena12d ago

Oh man, that's rough. My old PDU basically did the same thing but I didn't even have a load on it yet, just plugged it in and poof, magic smoke show. I must have looked like a total idiot standing there with a fire extinguisher in one hand and a half-eaten bag of chips in the other. The crack in the plastic was so tiny I would have never spotted it unless I was looking for trouble. Did yours make a weird buzzing sound before it went, or did it just go straight to the smoke bomb act?