Possible to revive UPS batteries?

[Fat Tone]

On Sunday we had a powercut. By the time I realised the batteries on my APC Smart-UPS 600 were exhausted and everything was dead. The batteries are only ~1 year old and have only been ever been on trickle since new (well maybe the odd glitch, but they've never been drained).

When power came back, I tried starting up again, but I kept getting the overload light flashing and it shutting down. So, I rerouted everything to normal sockets. Today I thought I would see about just leaving the UPS on with no-load to see if the batteries would come back. After several hours I still can't get passed the 'Replace Battery' alarm.

Any ideas, or is this thing so poorly designed that one full usage kills it?

TIA

T.

PS, no I didn't have the shut-down PowerChute s/w running. This is mainly to keep my CM up so my IP doesn't change, and to ride brownouts.

[az]

If no one here has answers (I don't ), you might want to have a look over at www.dansdata.com, and when the info there isn't enough for you, or too technical or something, ask him.

AZ

[Gurm]

Actually, I'll try to dig up the VERY nice instructions I have somewhere for making a perfectly good UPS out of a marine battery and a surge suppressor. Lasts about 48 hours of runtime.

- Gurm

[Marshmallowman]

while therte is a good chance 1 or more cells have died, there may be a chance that may be resurrected.

there are a 3 possibilties

1. its discharged so far that the charging circuit is tripping out as soon as it starts to begin charging(very unlikely...but). to fix remove the battery/s from the case and try chargeing on an external charger (eg car battery charger)


2. a cell has reversed...not really likely on a lead/acid battery....this may mean permanent dammage has been done, attemptint to charge it at a higher voltage than normal(for a short time) *may* fix the cell and get it chargeing again(or it may finish the job off killing it)

3. its cactus, simple shorted or faulty cell. replace the battery

[Fat Tone]

I think it's worse than dead batteries Jim. It's detecting an overload even with nothing connected If I hold in the reset switch while turning it on, it behaves in the way described for an overload on the APC KB.

Thanks anyway.

T.

[az]

Ask Dan - or APC customer support

AZ

[Taz]

APC's normally come with a 2 year warranty, so as Az says give their Tech Support a call

[Kurt]

yep, rma time. or you can buy a new battery.

[Brian R.]

Don't buy a new battery until you've talked with APC tech support. You may be wasting your money. If it is defective, they will replace it without any hassle.

[Fat Tone]

Thanks for all the advice.

The UPS is second hand - I was given it and had to buy new batteries (only cost ~£20 from Farnell) before I could use it. It certainly won't have any warranty, but I will email APC for advice.

Cheers

T.

[DJ]

Any word on those instructions yet Gurm? I would like to build my own UPS.

DJ

[az]

Don't wanna ruin Gurm's Party, but Dan from www.dansdata.com has a nice article on building your own UPS - though not as big as what Gurm promised, and more or less a generic article on the basics of UPSes. It's worth a read, I think (Though I might be a bit biased, I think most of his stuff is worth a read, if only for his amusing writing style).

AZ

[IM_Riktar]

Hey Gurm,
Did you ever dig up those instructions for the adhoc UPS? I would like to take a crack at it.

[gt40]

I would think:
a car battery
a trickle charger
a relay set to go on when the trickle charger failed
and a 500w power inverter would do the trick.