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.

Andy wrote:
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.

The battery that comes with the UPS is called SLA.
Sealed Lead Acid.

It doesn't give off hydrogen. Not unless the battery
is abused (something the UPS won't be doing to it).

*******

Car batteries on the other hand, the ones with the vent
hole on each cap, those give off hydrogen gas. If the
hydrogen collects in a room, and a little static electricity
sets it off, there will be an explosion.

My next door neighbor did that once. Left a car battery
on the charger overnight, and *closed* the garage door.
When he turned on the lights the next day, "kablooie".
Battery acid everywhere. The garage looked like a
****hole :-)

Take a careful look at the battery, and see if is
a flush surface, maintenance free type. No vents.
That's a bit safer, but not quite as safe as an SLA.
A car battery would not be my first choice. I've been
burned by hydrogen before, and that stuff makes me a
"bit nervous" so to speak. I can guarantee you'll have
a story to tell, if it happens.

I don't mind using car batteries if they're stored
outdoors while charging (which could be any time),
and heavy cables lead back to the house.
That would be OK. Treat it like a BBQ cylinder.
We don't bring propane into the house either.
For safety.

The SLA is pretty safe. The one that came with the UPS.

And Chinese replacement SLA are pretty cheap (compared to
what we used to pay for replacement UPS batteries). Even
the UPS manufacturer ships new gear with Chinese batteries
in it now. The Chinese battery has the original brand on
it, and the UPS maker just "puts a sticker on the battery"
to make it theirs.

Paul

On 01/17/2018 07:56 PM, Paul wrote:
Andy wrote:
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.

The battery that comes with the UPS is called SLA.
Sealed Lead Acid.

It doesn't give off hydrogen. Not unless the battery
is abused (something the UPS won't be doing to it).

*******

Car batteries on the other hand, the ones with the vent
hole on each cap, those give off hydrogen gas. If the
hydrogen collects in a room, and a little static electricity
sets it off, there will be an explosion.

My next door neighbor did that once. Left a car battery
on the charger overnight, and *closed* the garage door.
When he turned on the lights the next day, "kablooie".
Battery acid everywhere. The garage looked like a
****hole :-)

Take a careful look at the battery, and see if is
a flush surface, maintenance free type. No vents.
That's a bit safer, but not quite as safe as an SLA.
A car battery would not be my first choice. I've been
burned by hydrogen before, and that stuff makes me a
"bit nervous" so to speak. I can guarantee you'll have
a story to tell, if it happens.

I don't mind using car batteries if they're stored
outdoors while charging (which could be any time),
and heavy cables lead back to the house.
That would be OK. Treat it like a BBQ cylinder.
We don't bring propane into the house either.
For safety.

The SLA is pretty safe. The one that came with the UPS.

And Chinese replacement SLA are pretty cheap (compared to
what we used to pay for replacement UPS batteries). Even
the UPS manufacturer ships new gear with Chinese batteries
in it now. The Chinese battery has the original brand on
it, and the UPS maker just "puts a sticker on the battery"
to make it theirs.

Â*Â* Paul



Paul: I was in the industrial battery business for 38 year.

When I retired I was the Senior Service engineer for Enersys-Delaware.

In all those years I only blew up a battery once. I shorted a cell on a
stationary battery. There were no injuries but my ears rang for 24 hours.


Most of the UPS's would float charge the batteries, but I really like
the ones manufactured by Best.

Thye used hysteresis loop charging which I thought was very wise.

The charger would turn off entirely then kick back in when the voltage
dropped near open-circuit voltage. Batteries lasted a long time.

On Wednesday, January 17, 2018 at 8:26:08 PM UTC-6, philo wrote:
On 01/17/2018 07:56 PM, Paul wrote:
Andy wrote:
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.

The battery that comes with the UPS is called SLA.
Sealed Lead Acid.

It doesn't give off hydrogen. Not unless the battery
is abused (something the UPS won't be doing to it).

*******

Car batteries on the other hand, the ones with the vent
hole on each cap, those give off hydrogen gas. If the
hydrogen collects in a room, and a little static electricity
sets it off, there will be an explosion.

My next door neighbor did that once. Left a car battery
on the charger overnight, and *closed* the garage door.
When he turned on the lights the next day, "kablooie".
Battery acid everywhere. The garage looked like a
****hole :-)

Take a careful look at the battery, and see if is
a flush surface, maintenance free type. No vents.
That's a bit safer, but not quite as safe as an SLA.
A car battery would not be my first choice. I've been
burned by hydrogen before, and that stuff makes me a
"bit nervous" so to speak. I can guarantee you'll have
a story to tell, if it happens.

I don't mind using car batteries if they're stored
outdoors while charging (which could be any time),
and heavy cables lead back to the house.
That would be OK. Treat it like a BBQ cylinder.
We don't bring propane into the house either.
For safety.

The SLA is pretty safe. The one that came with the UPS.

And Chinese replacement SLA are pretty cheap (compared to
what we used to pay for replacement UPS batteries). Even
the UPS manufacturer ships new gear with Chinese batteries
in it now. The Chinese battery has the original brand on
it, and the UPS maker just "puts a sticker on the battery"
to make it theirs.

Â*Â* Paul



Paul: I was in the industrial battery business for 38 year.

When I retired I was the Senior Service engineer for Enersys-Delaware.

In all those years I only blew up a battery once. I shorted a cell on a
stationary battery. There were no injuries but my ears rang for 24 hours.


Most of the UPS's would float charge the batteries, but I really like
the ones manufactured by Best.

Thye used hysteresis loop charging which I thought was very wise.

The charger would turn off entirely then kick back in when the voltage
dropped near open-circuit voltage. Batteries lasted a long time.

I could not find a Best brand?

Andy

On 1/17/2018 2:31 PM, Andy wrote:
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.

Do you have experience that suggest the need for long backup time in
your location?
How long is long?

Utilities publish outage statistics. I can't provide a link, but google
should find something.
In the US, the overwhelming number of power outages last fractions of a
second.
A few last a few seconds while a breaker resets.
The rest last a very long time...far longer than you could economically
backup.

So, a UPS that lasts for a minute will save you from a huge percentage
of outages. Unless you have life support issues, it's not economical
for an ordinary home user to have enough capacity for a day of operation.
There are few outages where the real-world difference between
10 minutes and two hours backup time would make any practical
difference at all.

A power outage is a great opportunity to take a nap.

There may be heat issues with smaller backup systems.
The heat sinks may not be big enough to support continuous
operation for hours.

Sure, if you live in the third world, you can have different statistics.
YMMV.

On Wed, 17 Jan 2018 22:13:06 -0800, mike wrote:

Do you have experience that suggest the need for long backup time in
your location?
How long is long?

Utilities publish outage statistics. I can't provide a link, but google
should find something.
In the US, the overwhelming number of power outages last fractions of a
second.
A few last a few seconds while a breaker resets.
The rest last a very long time...far longer than you could economically
backup.

So, a UPS that lasts for a minute will save you from a huge percentage
of outages. Unless you have life support issues, it's not economical
for an ordinary home user to have enough capacity for a day of operation.
There are few outages where the real-world difference between
10 minutes and two hours backup time would make any practical
difference at all.

Many years back, one of my sons was completing a university assignment
when the power went off. We get three types of outage here - seconds,
minutes, or several hours. After waiting about twenty minutes, I
grabbed a pair of 100Ah AGM batteries and a 1000VA inverter (24V
input) and hooked the pooter system up to that. An hour or two later
he finished. Power came back on about 8 hours later while we were all
tucked up in bed.

The issue here was that a SOHO UPS would probably have suffered a
thermal failure after a lot less than an hour's running - they are
really intended to enable orderly shutdown, not continuous operation.

In relation to the original query, the UPS charging circuits I have
seen (and I service a lot of them) are invariably pretty crude. They
are optimised for fast recovery at the expense of battery lifetime.
Their only good aspect is that they seem to be continuously rated, and
can keep up this mistreatment with a huge external battery bank.

On Thursday, January 18, 2018 at 12:13:26 AM UTC-6, mike wrote:
On 1/17/2018 2:31 PM, Andy wrote:
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.

Do you have experience that suggest the need for long backup time in
your location?
How long is long?

Utilities publish outage statistics. I can't provide a link, but google
should find something.
In the US, the overwhelming number of power outages last fractions of a
second.
A few last a few seconds while a breaker resets.
The rest last a very long time...far longer than you could economically
backup.

So, a UPS that lasts for a minute will save you from a huge percentage
of outages. Unless you have life support issues, it's not economical
for an ordinary home user to have enough capacity for a day of operation.
There are few outages where the real-world difference between
10 minutes and two hours backup time would make any practical
difference at all.

A power outage is a great opportunity to take a nap.

There may be heat issues with smaller backup systems.
The heat sinks may not be big enough to support continuous
operation for hours.

Sure, if you live in the third world, you can have different statistics.
YMMV.

Most of my outages are in minutes.

Andy