UPS Hacking in Hurricane Season? 62
kengreenebaum asks: "Perhaps not the most exciting of topic; however it is storm season and I have a couple of UPS's that need new batteries. What is the best source for high quality, long lived replacement batteries for these devices? I assume it takes a special chemistry to survive continuous trickle charging and an occasional deep cycle. Has anybody tried connecting larger capacity batteries external to the UPS enclosure to attempt longer run times? (Obviously the load capacity is based on the inverter itself and can't easily be modified) Also what software do you use for monitoring and automatic shutdown on Linux? I have collected quite a few APC and Belkin UPS's 700VA or smaller as they go on rebate/sale."
UPS' Contain Standard Gel / Sealed Batteries (Score:5, Informative)
Myself and a number of friends of mine have acquired SmartUPS' (typically >1400) for free, simply because they are 'broken', and a battery replacement costing around US$50 or so makes them like new. Oh, and a good SmartUPS is really, really nice compared to a standard passive device.
Re:UPS' Contain Standard Gel / Sealed Batteries (Score:1)
Re:UPS' Contain Standard Gel / Sealed Batteries (Score:5, Interesting)
That reminds me of how once when working retail, this guy came in and asked me how many deep cycle batteries he could chain off an APC BackUPS. He wanted literally racks and racks of them, so that he could handle his whole house. All while having things switched by that little BackUPS...
I'm not sure if you've ever been in a server room, but the UPS' to handle switching massive loads like this tend to be multiple-rack-sized, having contacts that look more like copper paperback books jutting out of the panel.
Re:UPS' Contain Standard Gel / Sealed Batteries (Score:2)
I'll weigh in with the voice of experience here.
Whether or not the switching ciruit fries depends on how much load you put on it. If you don't exceed the rated max capacity of the UPS it will be okay.
Unfortunately that's not enough to get you out of the woods because the first time the batteries discharge significantly the charging circuit will fry instead.
All that in mind, you might be able to get away with increasi
Re:UPS' Contain Standard Gel / Sealed Batteries (Score:2)
Re:UPS' Contain Standard Gel / Sealed Batteries (Score:2)
I'm not sure how the best way would be to implement that without causing conflict (ground loops, overvoltage etc) between the two systems but yeah, that might work.
Re:UPS' Contain Standard Gel / Sealed Batteries (Score:1)
I think im about to try this on an apc smartups 750 thats behaving badly with 50%+ loads anyway. The little bits of electron pusher knowledge i cling to in a ritualistic, voodoo like sense lead me to beleive it'll work. If it doesnt put "he was wrong" on a tombstone over the smoking crater.
Chaining batteries (Score:2)
how many deep cycle batteries he could chain off an APC BackUPS
Only slightly above the "toy" UPSes, APC has models that let you chain external battery units (no need to hack the hardware, which probably makes assumptions about the supported battery technology and configuration, thus limiting your options on battery choice). The last one I used had to be told through its software on the server how many external batteries it had, but then handled everything thereafter. Perhaps the original poster's units
Re:UPS' Contain Standard Gel / Sealed Batteries (Score:1)
The connection to the UPS will be best described by someone who has done it before.
Re:UPS' Contain Standard Gel / Sealed Batteries (Score:3, Informative)
Re:UPS' Contain Standard Gel / Sealed Batteries (Score:1)
Re:UPS' Contain Standard Gel / Sealed Batteries (Score:1, Informative)
If you get the kind of UPS that has 2 6 volt sealed lead-acid batteries in series, then you can replace it with an ordinary car battery.
Some things to keep in mind:
1) put the car battery in a big plastic container so it doesn't leak and ruin the floor
2) the wires have to be very thick. If you wire it up with lamp cord or less, the insulation will catch fire when the power goes out and the battery is trying to dump all that juice out.
3) More battery in the same UPS doesn't increase the numb
Re:UPS' Contain Standard Gel / Sealed Batteries (Score:2)
put the car battery in a big plastic container so it doesn't leak and ruin the floor
Make sure tis is a ventilated space. Car batteries are made to run in ventilated spaces...a and that is for a reason.
the wires have to be very thick. If you wire it up with lamp cord or less, the insulation will catch fire when the power goes out and the battery is trying to dump all that juice out.
If you ever tried this (sounds like it ) then you might not know what you are do
Re:UPS' Contain Standard Gel / Sealed Batteries (Score:4, Informative)
They also have volume discounts. We were able to replace all 64 batteries in our APC UPS unit for around 9 dollars a piece. This is a fraction of the cost APC would have charged. At the time they didn't have the 7 Amp batteries we needed, so we got 8 Amp ones instead (I think that's what it was). Anyway, great deal. Brandname batteries too.
Not sure if entire relavent (Score:3, Interesting)
But I don't know what technology, size, or how the UPSes actually using the batteries.
If I was DIY a UPS, I would have about 10 12Volt batteries (no transformers...), drive them off a full-wave rectifier, filter the power from the rectifier a bit, and then invert the power to make it back to AC and use my equipment off that. Advantage, I am always off the batteries, disadvantage, I have no monitoring ability and if I was to set the incoming voltage to the float voltage, it will probably take a while to charge.
Re:Not sure if entire relavent (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not sure if entire relavent (Score:2)
110V DC = 110V effective.
In other words, clouds of smoke, PCB BBQ and general panic... If not you are 41.42 % off voltage and maybe your PSU's tolerance deals with it, but most likely not...
Re:Not sure if entire relavent (Score:2)
All the ones I've encountered work by taking the line voltage, rectifying and smoothing it and then chopping the DC at high frequency and feeding that into a transformer. The secondaries of the transformer are then rectified and smoothed again and fed to the rest of the box except for one wi
Re:Not sure if entire relavent (Score:2)
Re:Not sure if entire relavent (Score:1)
Re:Not sure if entire relavent (Score:2)
APCUPSD (Score:4, Informative)
dont use car batteries (Score:1)
Re:dont use car batteries (Score:3, Informative)
Re:dont use car batteries (Score:2)
Some people here have warned that the UPS won't fully charge a larger-model battery, but I've been using this setup for four years now and it works fine for me.
Only prob I had was I shut it off once, during an outage, and couldn't turn it back on. I suspect something is wrong with the internal electronics, but it was rescued from the trash heap and works in all other respects, so I
Trade it in (Score:4, Informative)
APC has a nice trade in program, take ANY UPS, send it in, and get a nice discount on a new one. Check their website out for details. (I'm sure their comptition has something too)
Now I'm sure you are still paying more than just batteries. However you get a system that is designed to work, with electronics that are not used and have no seen some unknown number of surges. You don't take a chance that the charger is broken (which may or may not break the batteries)
If you really must go cheap, inverters are getting really cheap, connect a few batteries to an inverter with a standard battery charger. You don't get monitoring, but you know when the lights go out, plus you have a lot more runtime. For extra points you can make your charger a solar system and run your computers off the grid. (Note, to get a system that doesn't waste a lot of energy you must to some research, but this theory will work)
Battery info (Score:4, Informative)
Deep cycling is bad for any battery, but excercising them extends their life. I recently came across an interesting resource when doing
my own research on batteries
http://www.buchmann.ca/default.asp
apcupsd (Score:4, Informative)
Experienced advice (Score:4, Informative)
2. I usually buy gel-cells cheaply at hamfests. They last quite a long time, and used ones are often a good buy. They're heavy, and while you can buy them mailorder, shipping will add up. Better to find a local supplier if you can. Lots of places sell them online though, just google (or froogle) for "gel-cells".
3. Most small UPSs have a CPU that is programmed with the approximate capacity of it's battery. Using grossly different sized batteries will likely cause the UPS to freak out, or at least not use the batteries' full capacity. Don't connect deep cycle marine batteries to your UPS's guts, it won't work right. Heck, I once had a UPS go south just because I let it sit with no battery for 6 months and the CPU lost its memory.
4. You need to be careful, because the term UPS can refer to a pussy office UPS thats basicly a bloated power strip, or it can refer to a building full of batteries capable of running a large factory for an hour. UPS components come in all shapes and sizes. A UPS is four things, and inverter, a battery charger, a battery, and an automatic switch. You can build and or buy some or all of those components separately if you wish. Look at places that sell solar power and alternative energy systems for people off the grid. All kinds of beafy power equipment.
Happy hacking!
Re:Experienced advice (Score:3, Interesting)
At the server farm where I work, it refers to a room full of lead-acid batteries that are capable (so management claims) of powering all 10,000 systems for 14 hours, plus a diesel generator. In fact, server farms are a major air quality problem in Silicon Valley, 'cause whenever there's a brown- or blackout, dozens of them fire
Re:Experienced advice (Score:2)
Re:Experienced advice (Score:2)
Re:Experienced advice (Score:2)
Re:Experienced advice (Score:2)
Re:Experienced advice (Score:2)
It's a Gas (Score:2)
Re:Experienced advice (Score:1)
Re:Experienced advice (Score:2)
Re:Experienced advice (Score:1)
Re:Experienced advice (Score:2)
Re:Experienced advice (Score:1)
It's not that it costs more in every instance and when it does it is just in the install phase that it does. Quite a lot of people don't know that they can get NG generators for an inexpensive price.
Re:Experienced advice (Score:2)
Re:Experienced advice (Score:2)
Re:Experienced advice (Score:2)
Re:Experienced advice (Score:2)
I think there's a way around this, at least on APC UPSes. If the CPU "forgets" the ba
Batteries Plus (Score:4, Informative)
Link to DIY-UPS instructions, general info (Score:5, Informative)
For those familiar with Dan, you know that it's bound to be interesting. What he does is somewhat of the solution described in some comments.... battery charger, batteries, inverter. He also talks about the merits and pitfalls of different batteries in UPS systems.
Generic battery info (Score:3, Informative)
The primary cause to battery failure is sulfitization (sp?) where sulfer crystals form on the battery plates and block the normal battery chemical reactions. This occurs MUCH faster when the battery is not 100% charged. The best thing you can do for any battery is keep it on a trickle charger, which most if not all UPS's do.
If you rarely loose power, normal batteries might be a cheaper choice for similar results. Deep cycle batteries have thicker plates for more durability, and are less likely to have the plates damaged when heavily drained. They sacrafice capacity and avalable amprage for this extra durability. Standard automotive batteries are designed to pretty much never get drawn below 70% capacity.
Unless your into some serious hardware hacking though, I'd stick with something nearly the same as the UPS is speced for.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Using a car battery? Be sure and get a sealed one (Score:2)
It's kind of ugly when catches fire...
UPS on the cheap (Score:2)
Re:UPS on the cheap (Score:3, Interesting)
What I was saying was, I use "broken" UPS with used batteries that I can get for next to nothing. Old car batteries have worked well for me. I charge them up fully with a normal car battery charger before I hook them up to the UPS guts. Even if they can't provide the surge to start a car anymore, they can still usually provide enough power to run the computer through a few-second glitch and a minute or two shutdown. Even if
Replacing UPS batteries (Score:1, Informative)
NUT: Network UPS Tools (Score:2)
Can be a chore to setup, but works with a variety of equipment and some good info there as well.
Check your local electronic supply store (Score:2)
One caveat, newer consumer APCs have been using a special connector. With those you may have no choice but to get them from APC.
If you want to make your batteries last longer, both in runtime and lifetime, don't put more than 1/2 the rated load on them. It can make the difference whether you get one year or three years
Renewable energy Mag with ups article (Score:1)