UPS - battery bad?

mzeitlin3348

mzeitlin3348

See it and Believe
I have an older APC UPS-2200.

Recently, I noticed a blinking red light indicating battery replacement. It seems about right since it was 5 years ago I replaced all 4 of them. However, when I disconnected the loads and cycled the UPS (off, unplug) by plugging it back in, it went into charge mode and a few hours later all charge lights were lit at 100%. I plugged in the loads and put it back in service. Checking the logs and other information, the UPS reported 55.08 volts float charge across the batteries. This looked good.

An hour later, the UPS went into fault mode with the battery replacement red led blinking again. I took the unit off service and shut it down.

The next day I removed the batteries and each one measured 13.01 volts. It doesn't seem a battery is bad yet. Could it be the UPS? Or should I just replace the batteries (expensive) given that it has been 5 years.
 
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"Load Test" the batteries, my guess is that they are bad, while they show 13 volts their capacity has diminished (they show 13 volts with no load on them, how long will they maintain at that 13 volts while actually powering a reasonable load?)
 
do you happen to have a Ctek charger? Very apropos of this thread, I have an Eaton "true sine wave" UPS that I trash picked from the recycling at my last job and put new batteries in. Because it has some fault which makes the cooling fan (loud) run for several days after a power outage (I had another similar unit and the fan would only run for I'm guessing as long as the batteries were recharging) it was unplugged for a couple weeks and it was dead as a doornail when I went to power it back up (I guess it won't power on if the batteries are too low). Date scribbled on batteries is 2016 so plausible they are due for replacement. Because as you say batteries are ludicrously expensive these days (seems $25 for a bog standard PS-1270 F2 is the going rate, man I miss getting distributor pricing on them) I took some test leads and wired the batteries in parallel and then ran a "recondition" cycle on them with my Ctek charger, and that actually allowed the unit to power up and work. I know that the batteries are on their last legs, but I also feel comfortable now that it's the batteries and not the unit itself.
 
I have a Ctek charger (7002) which I could use to try and eke out more life from the batteries, but as was written above, 5 years is normal lifespan and I am there.
Since this UPS is used for my home computer closet (Internet modem, home theater computer, NAS disks and my servers (music/video), I would hate to lose power (which happens more frequently in Texas now (because we depend on windmills!@(#)*$&@#) as our electric grid degrades (I digress ....) ) .... and the UPS drop the loads because I kept the batteries beyond their useful life.

During the big Texas freeze and a few tropical storms and sudden lightening (causing spikes), these batteries have served me well. I suspect the recent power outage we had did them in (deep discharge). Mostly the UPS just keeps the power clean and steady. But if I am not around when we lose power, my standby computers will drain them down anyway.
 
Five years they are probably done. Sometimes it’s more practical to buy a new UPS.
I have two of them, one for my PC and one for the home theater. Replaced the battery in one about a year ago.
They come into play quite often around here.
 
The sad part about replacing batteries like these nowadays are finding ones that aren't crap or even trusting the good ones won't be crap and last. really stinks
 
NH-MAN said:
The sad part about replacing batteries like these nowadays are finding ones that aren't crap or even trusting the good ones won't be crap and last. really stinks
Click to expand...

Don't buy batteries specifically for UPS units, get Powersonic or Yuasa brand
 
Timely thread, our APC UPS 650 has been not picking up load during blips now, battery has been mentioned as suspect
 
I have two that need batteries. One is an APC something, fairly small unit, single 12v 7ah batt. Doesn't have any fault lights lit but if the power even blinks the computer plugged into it just shuts off immediately. Its at least 5 years old and possibly older so no surprise.

The big one has batteries that are pushing 10 years old. It shows battery faults, also no surprise. That one uses I think 4 or 6 batteries, have to open it up and check. I run that on my pellet stove to keep it from shutting off abruptly if the power goes out. If the exhaust draft stops, it will leak smoke into the house which I'm not a big fan of. The UPS will give me at least 4 hours of run time, plenty enough to either bridge the gap until the power comes back on, or if the outage is expected to be long I can either get the generator going or shut the thing down.
 
I bought a Mighty Max battery 6 years ago last month for mine and it's still working. 12V 7A.
 
I bought an APC Smart-UPS 2200VA about four years ago. It was a refurb with new, non-APC batteries. I don't have power outages often, but periodically my building will send out a notification. The time estimation from the UPS as to how long it would run with the normal load on it was 3 hours. When a power shutdown occurred, that dropped immediately to one hour. I'm in no big hurry, but know I'll be buying batteries for that thing before too long. That will be somewhere around $500 if I remember correctly.

Update: The model I have I believe is EOL (End of Life). Checked battery prices and I can get a set for $250 from APC. That's down from $425. Think I'll be buying a set pretty soon.
 
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mzeitlin3348 said:
I would hate to lose power (which happens more frequently in Texas now (because we depend on windmills!@(#)*$&@#) as our electric grid degrades
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The www says it is first increased demand then windmills which for some reason don't seem to produce at maximum level when the demand is highest. Gotta train em I guess.
 
Very interesting to read others experiences .... after I started this thread with my initial UPS battery issue (since replaced with 4 ExpertPower batteries and working like new again), 4 other batteries around my house (alarm system, smaller UPS's) all went out. Within a week!. All of these batteries lived through both hurricane Harvey and the infamous 40 hour freeze (and no power).

All have been replaced. We even had another few second power outage (big electrical storm came through), but this time, my UPS systems didn't even blink as what first alerted me I had a problem with them. Nice to have battery backup working as it should. I made a note to replace the batteries in 5 years regardless of so-called health.
 
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