I was a huge fan of uninterruptible power supplies since the beginning
(even for laptop use). Besides the computer, you can power lots of other
things. A small lamp, cordless phones, DSL modem, alarm clock, etc. All
great of course. And I have gone through a number of UPS over the years.
Generally the battery fails after 3 to 5 years. And the batteries
generally run in the 25 to 35 buck range and they are heavy to pay for
shipping. And if you wait for a sale on UPS, you could get one for about
the same price as getting a new battery for an old one. So just get a
new one.

Well my CyberPower 685AVR UPS battery just died recently. I tried to
disassemble it and all of the parts fit into slots between the two
halves. And trying to take it apart, some are staying in one half and
some in the other half. To get it apart, all of it has to stay in one
half. But not as easy as it seems. And I have better things to do then
to fiddle with this thing all day.

I checked online and I thought I only paid about 50 bucks for this one
on sale. But nothing comes close to this one under 100 bucks. Sure I
could afford it, but that isn't the point. Why do I need one again?

Being a fan of laptops since my first one back in '84, I am also a big
fan of leaving the battery out (especially Li-Ion batteries). As the
heat and repeated charging only shortens the life of the battery even
far more than just throwing the battery in a drawer and just using it
when you really need portable power.

This all made a lot of sense to me all of these years. Although I now
have five netbook batteries for three notebooks. Nine Gateway batteries
for nine Gateway machines. And five Alienware batteries for five
Alienware machines. That is 19 batteries of only three different battery
types. And I have plenty of them nowadays. And only like three of them
have less than 95% of their rated capacity. Plus chemically, they will
become paperweights in about 10 years anyway no matter how well you take
care of them.

So I figure why not use some of them as an UPS instead? So what if one
wears out in two or three years? I can't possibly wear them all out
before they all will be so old to be any good anyway.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz - 2GB - Windows XP SP3