UPS Batteries

If youre on a thrift mode you can covert to alum batteries by hohn bedini in YT

can go down as low as 10 v dc and use radiant charger JT RE EMF charger by RENE

If you're seeing them swell and/or run out of water then I suspect that their charge/discharge rate is too high. Time to look at the charging rate and the current draw from the UPS.

The time we had batteries swell as such at one of our warehouses off site was due to over voltage. We discovered some had been stolen hence the high charging voltage to the remaining ones.

CKP

The UPS is an APC Backups Pro 1000.

The batteries are (2, in series) Toyo-USP 6fm12 f2 12v 12A /20hr, 14.4-15.0 cycle, 13.5-13.8 standby. initial current less than 3.6A

The batteries may have been a year old when I moved to Atlanta last November. Atlanta doesn't get many outages, so the unit has been idle. I was using it to plug in a bunch of small things in my utility room, drill chargers, etc.

I won't need backup systems until we move to the boonies, so I have time to research a better battery.

I'm sorta PO'd on this, so PWS is SOL on me getting any 'dectomomys on this issue.

Thanks, RAMConsult, for the info. The connector between the batteries in series had a little bit of corrosion, and wasn't as tight as I would like. This may have fooled the charging circuit somehow.

My plan is to get two small car type batteries, maybe lawnmower batteries, what ever is economical. I can't believe how the price of batteries has gone up for cars. I'll look into putting an ammeter and voltmeter in the line, to monitor things.

I find keeping logs on things like this are educational, help in making decisions.

Careful, I know it's tempting to extend the battery leads out of the UPS, but remember, the UPS was designed with a different battery type in mind, and most importantly you may find line voltage riding on one of the DC leads if the charging circuitry is directly connected to the AC input leads.

And, if the charging circuitry is bad (AC will swell a battery, they don't like to have their charging polarity reversed) then you stand a chance of frying your even bigger and more expensive car batteries. Of course you could use a car battery charger for the batteries and just hook up the DC side of the UPS for the inverter portion, then you would have a true "always-on" UPS with zero transfer time! Have fun.

Ram, would my AC line voltage detector, (which I lovingly call 'Tweety Bird', 'cause that's what it sounds like), detect the AC riding on the DC lead?

Is this AC rider normal? A diode would cut it out, wouldn't it? (big diode, I presume).

Tweety uses capacitive coupling to detect AC line voltage, and often times will sense it even if there is no direct galvanic path to the AC source, it's one of those "better safe than sorry" devices where a false positive works in yor favor and does no harm. The only way to be sure is to see if there is a transformer between the line and the charging board, an oscilloscope would help too.

You're not the first person to try this, here's a link that I got by doing, of all things, a search on Google on "using a car battery on a UPS", about 942,000 results, now it's your turn!

Have you contacted APC about this situation at all? I have used various of their UPSs, both personally and at work, and found them to be reliable. APC's customer service has been good to work with when an issue has come up, such as needing to change out the batteries. Even if it is out of warranty, they may do something for you based on the symptoms you are having.

I would very much hesitate to swap their batteries for something different / larger. If something went wrong and you had a fire, your insurance company might not be willing to pay for it because of your modification.

Im using 5 20 ohms 10 w resistors in parallel with my meter probe for discharge test

Also desulphation in the bottom can be checked by infra red thermometer....

Usually a short in the plates and overcharging are the cause in my case...

they say 30 % of your lifetime is consumed if you have a solar/ battery system at home lol

mike k-

The last time my UPS battery died I "temporarily" replaced it with a 3 year old size 24 deep cycle battery off my sailboat. Connected it to the UPS and connected a "Battery Tender" automatic battery charger to the battery in case UPS couldn't keep up with the big battery. Sort of a long duty UPS battery. As I sometimes do, I forgot about it. UPS is on a shelf hidden by "junk" and I remembered it when straightening out the junk. UPS, battery and charger were all OK. Still use it for past 2 years. Wife wants me to use my beer money to buy a new UPS battery. The deep cycle battery will stay in use till it dies.

Good Luck, Old Salt

Lead acid batteries do NOT like deep cycling. They are happiest at full charge, 13.8 to 14.2 volts. You can pretty much measure their life by the number of cycles they've done, and how long they've sat discharged. Best behavior for you is charge them up as soon as you can, and keep them topped up. I personally would not deep cycle any lead acid battery I didn't have to. When I turn off my car, I turn off everything before I turn off the engine. My car batteries last a loooong time, the current one more than ten years. See www.batteryuniversity.com

Years ago I remember reading that 2, 6 volt golf cart batteries were better than one 12 volt deep cycle battery because the golf cart batteries were more rugged, had great capacity and would last longer. Do not know if this is still true. I did use 4 of them for several years and probably could have gotten a few more had I taken better care of them.

I connected 4 12v deep cycle batts to an APC ups and they lasted several years. (7)

If I remember right that particular apc needed 24 volt in and as my batts were 12v
I made up a "complicated" parallel and series arrangement to get the 24 volts input.

The short answer is yes, it worked fine, and I would do it again. However, please
use isolating switches and all your correctly over-spec'd well insulated leads as you
will be playing with high amps in DC with possibly unpleasant results! EXTREME CARE!

There is a mine of info. online - see

http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/technical1.html (and search CR4 - been on before)

Hope this helps. jt.

After my accident, I woke up in hospital with a pretty nurse standing over me.

She said, "You may not feel anything from the waist down."

"Fair enough," I replied, as I touched her breasts...

jt, Good point, DC can be much more hazardous than AC. Everything conductive should be insulated, everything rated for DC, quick acting fuses in the leads, and remember, unlike the SLA batteries, car batteries generate hydrogen and will boil sulphuric acid through the vents in the caps, especially if the charge/discharge rate or voltage is too high. Wear rubber gloves, eye protection, ventilate the are, and if possible put each cell in its own acid resistant battery box. It's easy to see why at 18 bucks each, SLAs are preferred.

Shipping included, the batteries would cost me $80 from Battery Bob in Florida. I haven't shopped elsewhere recently. Are all sla batteries created equal, or are there better ones than Toyo? These are 12volt, 12 amp/hr.

Have you contacted APC themselves? The last time I replaced the batteries in my APC UPSs, they were about $40 each, which included shipping and a postpaid return mailer to send the old one back to them.

Thanks, PeterT, I'd like to send old ones to be recycled. At the same time I could get APCs input on recommended brands. I'm sure there are good-better-best brands of SLA batteries, and FLA batteries. That's a list I'd like to see.

While kids hit baseballs at age 13 and 14 I was getting acid burns from relaying the cells in trays for 36 v lead-acid fooling around . Dad said the little "hairs" that short cells out over long time periods could be broken with a jolt of double the voltage to three-times for a "hit" like a tenth of a second.

Found to be true then and about 17 years later at the Radio control field, pulse chargers extended ni cad and lead acids and gels (at lower ampacity with the gels).

I was handed an old 1983 alarm battery 25AH 2 v gel, and would slam it with a crack from the car battery for like a tenth of a second , then charge at its rating. It still "came to life" until just about 2003. (used for the glow plugs of the 1/4 scale cub)

Both keeping at plate voltage and "jump-cleaning" yields a very long lead-acid, or nicad life. I never leave nicads even 20% discharged, and "slam" the ones I can with several very short touch-instant bursts of 3 to 5 x's the rated voltage.

as soon as any one cell drops below 1.045 volts, , according to GE's battery book, the rated 1.2- 1.25v rechargeable cell is being damaged. % could be correlated to the 2v.