Batteries for UPSs

[rona]

If your UPS needs a new battery, check companies that sell security and fire alarm supplies because I found that they can be significantly cheaper than computer stores and electronics supplies. I needed a 12V, 7AH lead-acid battery because some jerk cracked it by dropping my UPS. A battery store wanted $33, Fry's $23, but two alarm supplies had them for $12-14.

 

[kaborka]

Thanks for the tip, rona. I got an APC 500 model a while back, and I was wondering how long the battery would last. I'm also wondering if an external car battery would work with it, instead of the internal one, without damaging the UPS. Anyone have any experience withi this?

 

[zephyrprime]

You can try electronics surplus stores too. www.meci.com has a 17aH battery for $20 bucks!

 

[DanFungus]

this is a hot deal to me, because tehn you could basically buy a cheap UPS and put in a HUGE battery
Thanks for the info!

 

[macssuck]

You might also want to check out Powerscan great service and good prices.

 

[worms]

You can often get a new UPS for less than the battery cost. Check out the $24 APC 500VA at Office Depot for example.

Danfungus You likely don't want to put a huge batter on a small UPS unless you have some kind of fetish with running a small computer for extraordinary periods of time without AC power. Keep in mind that a 280VA UPS will only power a 280VA computer, regardless of the battery size. To handle a larger computer you need a UPS with circuitry that can handle larger current.

 

[NuclearFusi0n]

how do you figure? My 300 VA APC UPS can power a 19" monitor, AMD Athlon XP 1.6, 512 RAM, DVD, CD-RW, 7200 RPM HDD etc etc for a minute or two.........that's on a 12 V 7AH battery....i'd love to see what it could do with a 12V 135 AH battery

 

[arcas]

There are a couple reasons why you generally do not want to use a car battery in a household UPS. First, car batteries are designed to
deliver very brief bursts of very high current. This is quite different from the slow drain load placed on a UPS battery in the event of a
power failure. A car battery is likely to have a short lifetime in this role. A better solution would be a "deep-cycle" battery like you'd find
in boat stores for powering trolling motors over long periods of time.

But there's another reason why you don't want to use a car battery in your house: it's not sealed. When the power fails, the chemical
reaction inside the battery will release hydrogen as a by-product. This means you need adequate ventillation. Not to mention the possibility
of a battery leaking sulfuric acid all over the carpet

If you're looking for a replacement, take a look at sealed lead-acid or gel-cell batteries used in jetskis and snowmobiles. I have read
reports of people replacing their APC 1400s batteries with "sea-doo" batteries (they apparently fit!) with double the capacity. When my
1400's batteries die I think I'm going to try this.

 

[AuctionHugh]

I bought one of those circuit City black friday UPSs for $10 after rebate (or something like that). I plugged my two clock radios into it, and my cordless phone, and my bedlamp! Now those quick power outages will never cause me to reset my clock again! That was worth $10 easy. Oops kinda sorta OT.

 

[Devistater]

If you keep an eye out for deals, you can get some pretty cheap UPS systems without batts on eghey. Some pretty high capacities too. I was searching on the net for a UB6120 battery to see what they cost (I bought a couple discontinued smartups 900's on eghey), since that's what I'd need to put in my UPS when it needs replacement. I found several sites, this one seemed to be the cheapest for the universal batties
http://www.zbattery.com/zbattery/sla.html
I also found this site, has some other sealed lead acid batteries:
http://www.sunnbattery.com/category.html?UCIDs=580518

Just try a search on google for sealed lead acid, or for one of the specific model numbers of batteries (I used UB6120). There's other companies out there that sell them.

If you are going to use other batteries, just make sure they add up to the same voltage. For instance, my smartups 900 used 4 6volt 12AH batteries for a total of 24 volts.

From that zbattery site I could order 4 of those batteries for about $44 then $14 shipping, that's a pretty good price IMHO.

 

[dentalboy]

great tip on the sea doo batteries, will give it a go

 

[MWink]

Batteries.com has some really good deals on UPS batteries and you can't beat their shipping price.

 

[Ziptar]

I got a dead Smart UPS 900 from work for free back in August. I took it to batteries Plus and they replaced all four 6 volt batteries for $60.00 w/ free installation. They put in some 12Ah sealed lead acid batteries that are made for emergency lighting and are rated higher than what the UPS came with. It is actually an 1080 watt UPS now. The batteries they used were Panasonic LCR0612P1. You can find those Here for $15.00 each plus shhipping

Thing works great... I run my Dual PIII Server, LAN PC, KVM switch, VG150 Flat Screen, 10/100 Switch, Cable Modem and a set speakers on it.. The load is only at 2 out of 6 LED's...

I looked around for cheap batteries on-line first and found some that were cheaper before shipping. It worked out to be the same either way after shipping, but batteries plus checked out the "dead" UPS first for FREE !!

Might be worth a call to your local battery place before ordering them on-line. If you can't get a good deal locally Devistater's link looks like a good one. 4 batteries UB6120 for my UPS comes $53.80 shipped.

Parts Express Also has some cheap ones

 

[Jenova314]

<< Parts Express Also has some cheap ones >>



fixed link

 

[Valvoline6]

Ok, I have an APC Smart UPS 420. It takes a 12 Volt / 7 Ah UPS Battery. What can I safely put in it that might give me a little more juice?

 

[XCLAN]

maybe you guyz should turn yer computers off ...instead of running the damn things 3 more minutes...you addicts....lol.
just kidding! i am aware that batteries only carry a certain lifespan ..just wasnt aware there were so many of you with dead UPS batteries....or that there are that many of you that would be aware that they are dead

 

[dude]

My buddy got UPS's up the wazoo! He's got a APC 2200 in the basement, which runs up to his room only. In there he runs his computer off a 1250 for his system (21" monitor, Loaded Athlon XP system) and two 1250's for his web server (15" LCD, PIII rackmount, rackmount 8 SCSI hard drives in raidset).

They work pretty well, when you turn off the one in the basement, the others kick on and run for a good 20 or so minutes.

 

[snake253]

One interesting source of low cost high quality batteries are dealers that sell medical equipment. The batteries comes with an expiration date( usually 1 year from the date of manufacture). Once the battery expires, they cannot sell them. I was able to obtain some which the seller removed the medical info to avoid liabilty. YMMV.

 

[Nosferatu]

Thanks for the links. My smartups 700 just bought the farm. :disgust:

 

[all168]

I think I read a sentence somewhere in instruction said I need to drain the battery from time to time to keep it at peak capacity. I never did that to 2 of my 1400VA APC UPS. After I used it for 2 years, one power spike kill one UPS(I call APC and they said that is not user repairable problem), and another one only last 30 sec, and the worst thing was it took me 2 hr to repair netware volume and 1 day back to fully function. Remember it is only a spike, not a black out, no system reboot except 2 system connected to those UPS.

 

[Doomer]

SOMEBODY HELP ME OUT.

I've got an APC "Network Powercell BD". I can't find any reference to this particular model anywhere (except APC). I've been looking for batteries for it for quite sometime now. I haven't been able to locate any with the same deminsions as the original. I've noticed that most websites, like Parts Express for example, neglect to mention the demisions of their batteries which seems kinda lame to me.

Does anybody know what this beast is and where I can find the correct batteries ?

Thanks

 

[ValsalvaYourHeartOut]

<< There are a couple reasons why you generally do not want to use a car battery in a household UPS. First, car batteries are designed to
deliver very brief bursts of very high current. This is quite different from the slow drain load placed on a UPS battery in the event of a
power failure. A car battery is likely to have a short lifetime in this role. >>



That's absolutely preposterous. The voltage vs. capacity curve always falls more gradually when draining at a lower current - that is, the usable battery capacity will fall at higher discharge rates. Undoubtedly, a car battery would last a hellava lot longer than the builtin unit in this situation, so....if you do not know what you're talking about . . .

Valsalva

 

[Nosferatu]

so what you are saying is to hook up a couple of deep cycle marine batteries and have unlimited power during a hurricane outtage?
LOL

 

[Outfits]

A good reason NOT to a car battery(wet cell) is they produce explosive gas when charging. A small spark and you have battery acid
and case material all over the place.

 

[MWink]

<< I think I read a sentence somewhere in instruction said I need to drain the battery from time to time to keep it at peak capacity. >>



I have a feeling you are thinking about rechargeable batteries (NICD and NIMH). From everything I have read you should NOT discharge SLA batteries for no reason. BTW, if a UPS has a totally dead battery and is hit by a spike it will turn off. All GOOD UPS's switch to battery when hit by a spike (not to be confused with a surge).


Also, the reason I heard you are not supposed to use huge batteries is because the inverters are designed to run only for a short while. Funny thing is when I replaced the battery in my BP650 I got a 12A to replace a 11A. (this was an APC certified battery)