Backup power supplies--service life?

[ultrarunner]

Ae have alot of ups's at work most APC's and I don't under stand it either but some need battery's yearly some last 3 or 4 years.
We put the same powersonic that Ultrarunner uses from battery warehouse local supplier
We stock 2 sizes in the plant that fit most common of them so I can do a quick swap when the light come's on.

Our IT guys were buying them from APC for our server room at 3x the price and same life until I started taking care of them saving some $.

tom

Battery prices vary by at least a factor of 4 in my area...

IT was paying a small fortune for APC batteries that I was able to knock almost 70% off the price... could have even gone cheaper with a no name replacement batteries.

The APC UPS in the server racks seem to last 4 years... with OEM or Powersonic.

Some of the small units have a single battery... many of the ones I service have multiple batteries... from 2 to 8 per unit.

 

[Soundguy]

more of a battery service life vs the hardware.. that is unless you get a lightning strike.

batteries? maybee 4ys.. depending.

I have been known to wire in a cr battery to a ups though

for the small jobs... like the lil 200/250va it's almost as cheap to buy a new one vs repalcing hte battery.. sad to say. once you get into the larger 400va+ models.. battery repalcement gets to be more viable as an option..

soundguy

 

[Travelover]

I notice that on Craigslist these are available by the shovelful, most "need new battery". Is it worthwhile to buy used and get new batteries, or best to just buy new?

 

[beppington]

I suspect, but cannot prove, that, like many other things these days, we're getting less for more money - I've also noticed my UPS' don't last as long as they used to.

And I've noticed my Ryobi 18V batteries from Home Depot don't last as long. That I can prove - I started writing the purchase date right on the battery. My 3 year old batteries are still good, whereas the lives of my 1 & 2 year old batteries are winding down.

Call this my conspiracy theory, but I wonder if the powers that be right now may be causing this kind of thing on purpose, to slow down what libs/ dems think is humans ruining the earth. Maybe not, who knows.

 

[Soundguy]

i know the new lithium polymere batteries come in varrying grades from REAL good and expensive.. to real BAD and not so expensive.

if you can get a backup cheap.. toss a garden tracgor batter ( 19$ ) next to it and wire over with 10awg...



soundguy

 

[ultrarunner]

I notice that on Craigslist these are available by the shovelful, most "need new battery". Is it worthwhile to buy used and get new batteries, or best to just buy new?

Can be a real bargain depending on what a new battery costs where you are...

One of the most popular 12v 7amp batteries was on sale all of last month at the wholesale house for $7.50 ea...

I've seen the same battery at the local ACE Hardware for $29...

Before I started doing the battery replacement, IT would just budget replacements every 4 years... they bought a lot pre Y2K back in 1999.

I don't have a cheap source for batteries... local stores stopped stocking tractor and 6 volt automotive last year... guess not much call in the big city... ended up paying $30 plus tax for my mower battery.

 

[tcartwri]

We changed our UPS from Gell Cell to AGM batteries and the problems went away.

I did this to an aircraft gpu, which is basically a big ups, and it produced a spectacular amount of smoke....and a ruined gpu.

agm's have a much lower internal resistance than gels, and if the charging circuit is voltage regulated rather than current regulated you may experience the same result if the battery ever gets pulled down.

 

[jonyyuma]

APC will tell you the expected service life on batteries is 3-5 years. I'm beginning to see them fail in our rack mounted UPS systems and they are about 4 years old. Guess it's a good thing my maintenance contract on them covers batteries.

The number of times you suck the batteries down will certainly effect the service life from what I've seen.

This sounds pretty close, we are going with 4 years replacements. Noticed when China took over production then Life was shorter. Everybody has afew that are exceptional lifed. Then some won't go a year. My exp. with APC, usually can stand one change, then it is a dice shoot...12v-7ah=$19.00 to39.00 here for gell cell and flame resistant..

 

[MossRoad]

We have about 20 APC ups units with fairly high loads on them. The batteries seem to go out every 3-4 years. We have also had unit failures, which is really disheartening. They were past warranty, so they got chucked. They are really only good for short power outages as they typically supply only an hour or two of run time in our setting. We use them mostly for filtering the power and to give us a window of time to shut everything down gracefully in the event of an extended outage. I have a small one at home with one battery that runs my kids fish tank filter. I also have one on our alarm system in case some genious decides to cut the power before breaking in. :laughing:

 

[ultrarunner]

The server at work with the APC rack mounted 8 small 12 volt batteries has a minimum of 2 power outages a week when the Hospital Emergency Generator Cycles...

We did have on APC unit that went bad... came in on a Monday morning and noticed the strong smell of sulfur... the charging circuit went wide open and the unit was too hot to even touch...

APC sent a new one without question and pre-paid for the old one to be returned...