UPS battery options

Found this. What do you think ?

I am wondering how the internal charger would react to seeing a 110 CCA battery as opposed to the internal 9 Ah battery?

< My UPS uses an external battery. It's not of a make that anyone < here would recognize. It's very basic, rather poor in external < finish and internal construction but it does the job and has been < doing it for some 13 years. < I use a small car battery of 35Ah capacity which gives me a good < backup time. I've never tested the backup time to its limit but < it's more than 1 hour when the battery's new. I used the first < battery for about 10 years by which time the backup time had < dropped to about a minute. The replacement cost around $50 and is < still going strong after 3 years.
Reply to
Andy
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I was an industrial battery service engineer and any battery used inside your house should be VRLA. Valve regulated lead acid, for safety reasons. A standard car battery emits hydrogen and could be explosive.

As far as using a battery larger than what the unit was designed for, you can do that...I do it myself. Just check the voltage periodically as it should "float" somewhere around 13.5 volts.

If it ever drops to 12.7 or below, you will need to use an external charger to boost it.

Reply to
philo

So, the internal charger of the UPS will charger a larger battery with no issues?

I have found that SLA have much shorter lifetime than reg. batteries.

Andy

Reply to
Andy

Is there any significant difference in the charging of a regular deep cycle battery and a gel cell like they use in a UPS? I am not sure I would want to use a regular starting battery since they do not like being severely discharged.

Reply to
gfretwell

The automotive maintenance-free batteries, instead of being lead-antimony are lead-calcium.

The lead-calcium battery uses much less water when being charged, but the trade off is they cannot be deeply discharged very often.

Ten deep discharges could kill one.

The deep cycle batteries are good for use in golf-carts and trolling motors for boats. They produce a fail amount of hydrogen and would not be a good idea to use inside one's house.

A gel cell requires very low current as it approaches full charge , quite a bit lower than a deep-cycle battery.

Reply to
philo

Do you have examples where a single car battery caused an explosion because it was inside a house, ie where there was enough hydrogen that built up inside the house? I've heard stories of a car battery exploding because of the hydrogen confined in it that was set off by some source, usually someone fiddling with it. But I've never heard of a room or a house blowing up from hydrogen. I've kept batteries from my boat, bike, etc in the garage and nothing ever blew up. And while using a car battery for sump pump or similar isn't a good idea from the cycling standpoint, I wouldn't be worried about blowing up the house.

Reply to
trader_4

units around the house that have LED lamps plugged into them that are on 24/7 and of course stay on when the power fails. It makes it safer for me to get around the house since it's so difficult for me to reach a light switch because of my wrecked shoulders. I could be sitting at my desk in front of my desktop computer with the TV to one side.The power would go out and the only way I'd know is the relays click and alarms on the UPS units go off. The UPS units are all salvaged and dumpster rescues from when I was still working (able to walk). The batteries would fail and people would toss the UPS units in the trash instead of replacing batteries. I'll never understand why good equipment is thrown away. o_O

The 'good' equipment is often thrown away as replacement batteries are almost as much if not more expensive than the whole device, especially during sales times.

Where I worked we had many small motors (under 1 to 2 hp) that had a gear box on them to reduce te speed. For whatever reason the motor and gearbox combination was within $ 5 for the combination vers just the motor. We always bought the whole thing instead of a motor. Labor to change the motor on the gear box (we did our own labor on this) would more than eat up that $ 5.

I have a good Nikita battery drill that the batteries went bad. I bought a new Dewalt one to replace it as it was almost the same price as new batteries for the old drill. I forgot what brand it was, but thinking some company had lifetime battery replacements for their brand of drill. Should have looked into that.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

I have never heard of such happening but I did want to mention the possibility.

In the 38 years I was on the job, I was usually very careful but one time I did blow up a battery and it was not a good experience.

Reply to
philo

I blew up a battery on a motorcycle once. The charger clip popped off while it was charging. They had the same thing happen on a golf cart at my wife's place when someone dropped a tool on the battery bank while it was on the charger. That is why they say you should take the caps off of a battery when you are manually charging it. The gas will escape fast enough not to build up. I really doubt one battery, even a real big one would produce enough gas to create an explosion hazard in a room. Hydrogen will get up and out through the smallest cracks in the "tightest" of homes. We did take care in the UPS rooms around big computer installations but it was still just fresh air make up on the HVAC in the battery room and a vent in the ceiling.

Reply to
gfretwell

A friend had a battery explode while driving down the highway. The alternator/voltage regulator hung up and over charged the battery. Doubt it was the hydrogen gas that exploded, but a build up and over pressure of some kind.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

One of my students, right after a class on battery safety,went to start his '65 Pontiac in the shop and he wore the battery down pretty bad - went to take it out to put in a different one, positive first- and hit ground with the wrench. Blew the bottom (fortunately) right out of the battery. I was cutting off a clamp on my exhaust with a cutoff wheel on a handgrinder, about 15 feet from the workbench where my brother had a motorcycle batery on charge - KaPOWW!!!. Pretty well disintegrated the battery.

One afternoon I went to start the old Massey Harris 44 on the farm. First try the starter just buzzed a bit, so I tried again - blew the one end right out of the battery. I think it had a bad internal connection that sparked.

I've seen a few others let go too.

Reply to
Clare Snyder

backup units on sale and plug in a table lamp with an LED bulb that can be left on all the time so the house isn't dark during a power outage. I think the 60w equivalent Cree LED bulb I have in one lamp draws 9.5 watts/79ma which will run for a very long time on a small battery backup unit. I have an LED bulb with a candelabra base in a night light plugged into a UPS in my bedroom at home that stays on all the time. The same UPS powers computer equipment in the bedroom including my cable modem. I have all network and computer gear on UPS units so a power hickup doesn't cause any crashes. I've even been awakened in the middle of the night by the alarms on the UPS units all over the house when there's a power outage. It sounds like a bunch of critters in a jungle at dusk. I've thought of opening the units up and disconnecting the piezoelectric sounders. ^_^

Good idea on the lamp and a LED bulb. Too bad there is not an option where the UPS does not output a voltage unless the power does go off.

I have removed the beepers on my UPS. Too much noise when the power does go off and if at night, I want to sleep and not be wakened evenif the powe does go off. They should make that an option on all the UPS.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

I'd love to kill the beepers in all my mostly medium capacity APCs.

How did you do it?

Reply to
Wade Garrett

I opened up the case and unsoldered the beeper or beeper speaker from the board and removed it. Be sure to disconnect the battery first.

If no soldering iron, I would just crush it with some big pliers.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

I put a wad of duct seal over mine.

Reply to
Bob

It doesn't really help me. My dog hears the inverter start up and barks at it.

Reply to
gfretwell

Slip a razor knife under it and pop it off.

Reply to
gfretwell

I've got an old soldering iron but back when I used it, I was known as the king of cold connections.

I think your pliers- or Bob's duct seal- are the way to go for me.

Reply to
Wade Garrett
[snip]

I have an old UPS that won't put out enough power for a computer, but it does work for some LED lights.

BTW, I call those "Lilly's lights", after a small cat. She used to sleep in the hall.

Mine has a way to silence the beeper, but that works only DURING a power outage, and next outage it's already forgotten to be silent.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

Right now I've got more UPS units around than I know what to do with. A couple 3kva inits, a couple 2 KVA units, and a couple 1kva units.

2 of the 2kva, I belioeve, have external battery packs. 2 of the 3kva units use 20 amp twist-lock plugs. Those 3kva units are HEAVY MUTHAS!!!

Then I'm running both PVRs on 500va units, my computer on an old Powerware Prestige 1000 on-line unit, my wifes on another prestige, and the internet/voip on an ancient Best Fortress 600 line interactive unit. It's about 21 years old and I believe on it's 3rd battery.

When the power goes out or we get a brownout we get chirps coming from everywhwere

I have a third Prestige sittiing in the cabinet behind me on standby (an EXT without the external pack), along with a powerware 3105 and a powerware 5105

All the rest - the big ones - are rack mounts except for one APC. They run from 24 to 96 volt battery packs, depending on the model.

Reply to
Clare Snyder

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