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Possible to revive UPS batteries?

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  • Possible to revive UPS batteries?

    On Sunday we had a powercut. By the time I realised the batteries on my APC Smart-UPS 600 were exhausted and everything was dead. The batteries are only ~1 year old and have only been ever been on trickle since new (well maybe the odd glitch, but they've never been drained).

    When power came back, I tried starting up again, but I kept getting the overload light flashing and it shutting down. So, I rerouted everything to normal sockets. Today I thought I would see about just leaving the UPS on with no-load to see if the batteries would come back. After several hours I still can't get passed the 'Replace Battery' alarm.

    Any ideas, or is this thing so poorly designed that one full usage kills it?

    TIA

    T.

    PS, no I didn't have the shut-down PowerChute s/w running. This is mainly to keep my CM up so my IP doesn't change, and to ride brownouts.
    FT.

  • #2
    If no one here has answers (I don't ), you might want to have a look over at www.dansdata.com, and when the info there isn't enough for you, or too technical or something, ask him.

    AZ
    There's an Opera in my macbook.

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    • #3
      Actually, I'll try to dig up the VERY nice instructions I have somewhere for making a perfectly good UPS out of a marine battery and a surge suppressor. Lasts about 48 hours of runtime.

      - Gurm
      The Internet - where men are men, women are men, and teenage girls are FBI agents!

      I'm the least you could do
      If only life were as easy as you
      I'm the least you could do, oh yeah
      If only life were as easy as you
      I would still get screwed

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      • #4
        while therte is a good chance 1 or more cells have died, there may be a chance that may be resurrected.

        there are a 3 possibilties

        1. its discharged so far that the charging circuit is tripping out as soon as it starts to begin charging(very unlikely...but). to fix remove the battery/s from the case and try chargeing on an external charger (eg car battery charger)


        2. a cell has reversed...not really likely on a lead/acid battery....this may mean permanent dammage has been done, attemptint to charge it at a higher voltage than normal(for a short time) *may* fix the cell and get it chargeing again(or it may finish the job off killing it)

        3. its cactus, simple shorted or faulty cell. replace the battery

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        • #5
          I think it's worse than dead batteries Jim. It's detecting an overload even with nothing connected If I hold in the reset switch while turning it on, it behaves in the way described for an overload on the APC KB.

          Thanks anyway.

          T.
          FT.

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          • #6
            Ask Dan - or APC customer support

            AZ
            There's an Opera in my macbook.

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            • #7
              APC's normally come with a 2 year warranty, so as Az says give their Tech Support a call
              When you own your own business you only have to work half a day. You can do anything you want with the other twelve hours.

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              • #8
                yep, rma time. or you can buy a new battery.

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                • #9
                  Don't buy a new battery until you've talked with APC tech support. You may be wasting your money. If it is defective, they will replace it without any hassle.

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                  • #10
                    Thanks for all the advice.

                    The UPS is second hand - I was given it and had to buy new batteries (only cost ~£20 from Farnell) before I could use it. It certainly won't have any warranty, but I will email APC for advice.

                    Cheers

                    T.
                    FT.

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                    • #11
                      Any word on those instructions yet Gurm? I would like to build my own UPS.

                      DJ

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                      • #12
                        Don't wanna ruin Gurm's Party, but Dan from www.dansdata.com has a nice article on building your own UPS - though not as big as what Gurm promised, and more or less a generic article on the basics of UPSes. It's worth a read, I think (Though I might be a bit biased, I think most of his stuff is worth a read, if only for his amusing writing style).

                        AZ
                        There's an Opera in my macbook.

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                        • #13
                          Hey Gurm,
                          Did you ever dig up those instructions for the adhoc UPS? I would like to take a crack at it.
                          Perspective cannot be taught. It must be learned.

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                          • #14
                            I would think:
                            a car battery
                            a trickle charger
                            a relay set to go on when the trickle charger failed
                            and a 500w power inverter would do the trick.
                            Yeah, well I'm gonna build my own lunar space lander! With blackjack aaaaannd Hookers! Actually, forget the space lander, and the blackjack. Ahhhh forget the whole thing!

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