In ,
SC Tom wrote on Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:51:28 -0400:
"BillW50" wrote in message
...
In ,
philo wrote:
On 04/24/2012 11:05 AM, BillW50 wrote:
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.

You really need to get a good quality UPS if you want it to last.
I have four commercial grade UPS's and they have been working
trouble-free for years...but you are right concerning the batteries.
The small gel-cells rarely last more than 4 or 5 years...

I do like UPS, so don't get me wrong. But if one is running
laptops/netbooks and has plenty of spare batteries for the machines
anyway... an UPS seems somewhat pointless for them anyway.

The power supply part of it may be worthless (in essence) on a
laptop, but the surge protection is nice to have. I'd rather replace
a cheap (by comparison) UPS after a large surge than try to find
parts to fix a laptop's power circuit, especially the ones that don't
have the external brick.

Laptops as well as desktop power supplies have been using power
switching supplies for about the last 15 years now. And they can easily
handle an unstable AC input and still work fine in the 85 to 264VAC
range. And they continue to put out power even if the AC is interrupted
for 10 to 20ms. They are also very forgiving of surges on the AC as
well.

And out of over 20 laptops I have since '84, not a single one has the
power supply ever failed yet. I did have one Toshiba T1950CS ('94) that
the power circuit inside of the laptop failed after 5 years. But that
had nothing to do with the input AC. As it was a design problem and they
all normally died due to too much heat. They didn't sport a fan either
and that would have helped a lot.

My CyberPower 800AVR UPS does nothing if the input AC is fine. It only
does something if it goes too high or too low. And the software keeps a
log of the times that it does. And in the last five years, it never
logged of any high voltage.

And yes, I did worry about power surges for decades. But I am not
worried about them anymore. I have too many backups that all hell could
break loose here and I am still covered with lots of backup laptops
anyway. People without hardware backups probably should worry.

I have a CyberPower 800AVR that I replaced the battery a couple of
years ago. IIRC, the trick to getting the two halves apart was to
unplug the cables that linked each half, change the battery, then
plug the cables back while working the halves back together. I kinda
recall it took a lot longer than the APC's and TrippLite's we had at
work.

I didn't get it apart enough to see all of the cables yet. One end
lifted about an inch to an inch and a half and things started to bind.
The other end seemed like it was hinged (it I don't think it is, but
something there is holding it where the two halves fit).

I am sure if I spent a few hours to a day I could figure it all out. But
I stopped because I know at some point it just isn't worth the time and
money for me. Maybe when I have some time to kill, I'll take another
look at it and much thanks. ;-)

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