This is a things I call maintenance.
If you do rotation, you have to do it, no excuse.
BTW, I am interested in scrapped batteries. Not a lot, just a few (for my emergency lightning).
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APC UPS battery design seriously flawed?
- Thread starter Drunkard #1
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If you do rotation, you have to do it, no excuse.
BTW, I am interested in scrapped batteries. Not a lot, just a few (for my emergency lightning).
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We were about to order a SUA1500RMI2U until I read this thread ...
Can you guys recommend a 1500VA rack mount UPS?
Do you think the SUA1500RMI2U would have the same issue as the SURT5000XLI described above?
Can you guys recommend a 1500VA rack mount UPS?
Do you think the SUA1500RMI2U would have the same issue as the SURT5000XLI described above?
Drunkard #1
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This is a things I call maintenance.
If you do rotation, you have to do it, no excuse.
BTW, I am interested in scrapped batteries. Not a lot, just a few (for my emergency lightning).
I'll see what's available, but some are literally melted, and I don't want to just chuck the external battery cabinet, so I might need to put the "good" batteries back in there.
Anyway, nothing's happening quickly
. The various parts are making a very slow journey towards me, and the final pieces will probably only be here on 6 March! I'll report back once everything's up and running.I agree with ponder. The problem is having multiple parallel strings. If you aren't using external battery packs, there shouldn't be a problem. Well, you could do better, as I explained in the first post,
but not without doing a disproportionate amount of work to obtain a tiny improvement.
Drunkard #1
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Well, since 14 Feb when I first posted this, things have moved along slowly but steadily.
The new system is up and running. 16 x 33Ah batteries in an outdoor cabinet, with all the appropriate switchgear and connections. This gives me more than twice the power of 48 x 5Ah batteries (as found in the UPS and battery), it's external, so no fires indoors if it decides to melt down, and it shouldn't melt down since there are no parallel strings. All for less than the cost of 3 RBC 44 replacement batteries.
But... Since Alberton has the ANC imposed on it for local government, power was down for 6 days! While my UPS was bypassed for this project! This lead to a re-think.
So, what I've learnt:
Gewiss circuit breakers are rated for DC, and they're readily available from AC/DC.
The APC SBS50 plug for the batteries is keyed differently to the standard APP SBS50 plug (because APC are arseholes), so don't waste your time searching for the rare and expensive APP SBS50 plug - it won't fit. You're going to have to scavenge a housing from the redundant APC battery cabinet. The standard APP SBS contacts are used in both plugs, and they're available from RS.
192VDC can shock you. So much for DC being "safe". Safer, but not safe.
Polarity is as indicated on the plugs. You might think that this is trivial, but I checked polarity 3 times before plugging in. It was right.
The system's only been running for a day, but so far, so good. Don't be afraid to implement something similar. Flicking the breaker for the first time was scary, but uneventful.
Design your system for African grade power. You may think that 5 hours is enough up-time, but can you afford to have your servers, routers and modems shut down in the middle of the night? Can you run your gennie at night? Think of your neighbours. If you can't, you need to consider a super silent gennie, or much bigger batteries. Don't think the power will only be off for "a few hours or a day" - design your system for indefinite operation. That means N+1 gennies, since (as we found out) gennies fail. Luckily we bought a second one last year when they were on special.
Hope this helps anyone caught in a similar situation. Good luck. (I might post pics sometime).
The new system is up and running. 16 x 33Ah batteries in an outdoor cabinet, with all the appropriate switchgear and connections. This gives me more than twice the power of 48 x 5Ah batteries (as found in the UPS and battery), it's external, so no fires indoors if it decides to melt down, and it shouldn't melt down since there are no parallel strings. All for less than the cost of 3 RBC 44 replacement batteries.
But... Since Alberton has the ANC imposed on it for local government, power was down for 6 days! While my UPS was bypassed for this project! This lead to a re-think.
So, what I've learnt:
Gewiss circuit breakers are rated for DC, and they're readily available from AC/DC.
The APC SBS50 plug for the batteries is keyed differently to the standard APP SBS50 plug (because APC are arseholes), so don't waste your time searching for the rare and expensive APP SBS50 plug - it won't fit. You're going to have to scavenge a housing from the redundant APC battery cabinet. The standard APP SBS contacts are used in both plugs, and they're available from RS.
192VDC can shock you. So much for DC being "safe". Safer, but not safe.
Polarity is as indicated on the plugs. You might think that this is trivial, but I checked polarity 3 times before plugging in. It was right.
The system's only been running for a day, but so far, so good. Don't be afraid to implement something similar. Flicking the breaker for the first time was scary, but uneventful.
Design your system for African grade power. You may think that 5 hours is enough up-time, but can you afford to have your servers, routers and modems shut down in the middle of the night? Can you run your gennie at night? Think of your neighbours. If you can't, you need to consider a super silent gennie, or much bigger batteries. Don't think the power will only be off for "a few hours or a day" - design your system for indefinite operation. That means N+1 gennies, since (as we found out) gennies fail. Luckily we bought a second one last year when they were on special.
Hope this helps anyone caught in a similar situation. Good luck. (I might post pics sometime).