Testing a UPS

[Tedster]

I bought a used UPS that the battery is old and flakey. It will charge to 100% but won't hold a load. I even tested it on just a house lamp. The lamp stayed lit for about 15 seconds on battery power.


I know I have to replace the battery. Easy enough. The question is how often do I have to deep cycle UPS batteries?

The UPS was $50, a replacement battery $30. A new UPS is $120 for the same wattage (500). So I guess I saved a few bucks.

Its a APC Back-UPS pro 500 with USB interface made in 1999.

 

[nein]

I bought a used UPS that the battery is old and flakey. It will charge to 100% but won't hold a load. I even tested it on just a house lamp. The lamp stayed lit for about 15 seconds on battery power.


I know I have to replace the battery. Easy enough. The question is how often do I have to deep cycle UPS batteries?

The UPS was $50, a replacement battery $30. A new UPS is $120 for the same wattage (500). So I guess I saved a few bucks.

Its a APC Back-UPS pro 500 with USB interface made in 1999.

If the battery is something other than lead-acid battery, then you deep-cycled whenever it became flaky, not holding a sufficient charge.

If it is a lead-acid battery which most of the heavy duty UPS batteries are then you don't deep-cycled it at all.

 

[Tedster]

it's definately a lead battery. My understanding is lead batteries develop a memory.
Correct me if I'm wrong. I was told a long time ago to drain an UPS at least once a month.

 

[zephead]

i thought is was nickel-cadmium (ni-cad) batteries that had a 'memory' and required calibration. is it a sealed lead-acid battery?

 

[nein]

it's definately a lead battery. My understanding is lead batteries develop a memory.
Correct me if I'm wrong. I was told a long time ago to drain an UPS at least once a month.

All of them do to one degree or another, lead-acid is a special case - you have to know the specific how-to and have to have the patience required to do a deep-cycled properly. Most people don't know the how-to and neither had the patience which ruined the batteries every time they tried.

Essentially all lead-acid chargers nowaday have included built-in deep-cycled charging algorithm to do it for you, therefore no one really further needed to know the how-to nor the patience required.

If your car lead-acid battery no longer hold a charge properly, don't bother with deep-cycled charging on your own.

 

[Tedster]

yes, it is sealed.

 

[Tedster]

supposedly APC has a program to do this special type of deep-cycling with a hardware adaptor. of course they charge for it. Not worth it for me. If all I have to do is drain it completely once a month or every other month, that's ok for me.

 

[poertner_1274]

Heh, I use my UPS simply as a surge protector. I have the UPS 500 as well, but I have both my machines hooked up to it, I get about 4 or 5 seconds of backup. But it is a very nice surge protector nonetheless.

 

[Tedster]

4 or 5 seconds? Windows takes longer than that! heh heh....

kind of an expensive surge protector huh?

pssst... wanna bad a USED flakey battery!

hahahaha :grinthumb

 

[poertner_1274]

I got it for free, so I'm not complaining And it does the job. Sure windows doesn't get shut down, but it still saves my components.

 

[Tedster]

like king of the hill...... yup