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#1
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I'm losing faith in uninterruptible power supplies
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 |
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#2
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I'm losing faith in uninterruptible power supplies
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... -- https://www.createspace.com/3707686 |
#3
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I'm losing faith in uninterruptible power supplies
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. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2 Centrino Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz - 2GB - Windows XP SP3 |
#4
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I'm losing faith in uninterruptible power supplies
"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. 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. -- SC Tom |
#5
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I'm losing faith in uninterruptible power supplies
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 |
#6
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I'm losing faith in uninterruptible power supplies
"BillW50" wrote in message ... 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 My APC Back-UPS 650, (which was the cheaper version and did not come with the RS232 lead with the wierd pin-outs - bought the lead on ebay for a few pounds), must be over 20 years old, (at a guess), ...never had to put a new battery in it, ....get several short mains power outages here every winter ....never lets me down. ....so APC every time !!! regards, Richard |
#7
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I'm losing faith in uninterruptible power supplies
On 5/16/2012 3:02 PM PT, RJK typed:
My APC Back-UPS 650, (which was the cheaper version and did not come with the RS232 lead with the wierd pin-outs - bought the lead on ebay for a few pounds), must be over 20 years old, (at a guess), ...never had to put a new battery in it, ....get several short mains power outages here every winter ....never lets me down. ...so APC every time !!! Lucky you. My APC Back-UPS 650VA (BK650MC) did not last even five years: 2/12/2001 to 9/25/2005. It kept shutting down randomly when powered on a few times. So I replaced it with a new APC Back-UPS XS BX1500. That one is still kicking arse even though its battery doesn't last long with two powerful Intel quad core desktops. -- "It's like stepping on ants... I don't step on ants, Major." --Odo and Kira from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine /\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site) / /\ /\ \ Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net | |o o| | \ _ / If crediting, then use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link. ( ) If e-mailing, then axe ANT from its address if needed. Ant is currently not listening to any songs on this computer. |
#8
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I'm losing faith in uninterruptible power supplies
On 2012-05-17 00:02, RJK wrote:
wrote in message ... 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. Lead is scrap. Who killed the electric car? The lead battery. I use since 1995 photovoltaic and a lead battery to power my notebook on the beach. Same, every some years, the lead battery fails. http://laptop.pege.org/2005-photovoltaic I had my first electric scooter September 2006 to November 2009 17300 km and 3 sets of lead batteries complete scraped I have since November 2009 a new electric scooter. The battery pack was before in an other electric scooter from January 2008. 22.000 km without a problem, so now 4 times longer service life than lead I will change also my photovoltaic system to lithium iron phosphate batteries. Less weight far longer serive life Imagine a battery for a public transport bus. In average 70.000 km a year stop and go traffic in a city, every night fast charging. 10 years long. BYD sells such buses with a 324 kWh lithium iron phosphate battery designed for 6000 charging cycles, to work in buses more than 10 years. That's the ultimate challenge for battery technology. We will see lead batteries vanishing in the next 10 years like the CRT. When did You see a CRT last time in an shop? -- Roland Mösl http://www.pege.org Planetary Engineering Group Earth |
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