Router Battery Backup

LCBXX said:
My Sherlo PSU started doing a strange thing: It would drain the battery in 40min from fully charged.

I put a voltmeter on it and it looks like the PSU drains the battery down to 9.6v before it cut out itself. The battery then recovers charge back to 12.8-13.1v; the PSU doesn't kick on again unless power restores or I disconnect-reconnect the battery, when the drain cycle starts again.

I had the battery tested today at a Battery Centre and their tester shows the battery at 99% health.

I don't have a tester to measure the current draw. What's interesting is that the PSU drains power even when there is nothing connected to the 12v-outlets.

Running it on AC just runs the unit as normal. I cannot perceive anything that gets abnormally hot on the board in any state: Battery/AC.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
I have a similar unit, the one that Communica also sells. Mine did exactly the same when my battery died. Normal voltage would be fine, as soon as a load is put on the battery, it just dips down until the PSU shuts off. I also tried it with only LED lights on the battery and it did the same, the lights cut off around 7V. Got a new battery and working fine again. How old is that battery? I would get a second opinion because a PSU cannot just drain the battery voltage and then it recovers when you take it off. Sounds like a dead battery to me.
 
furpile said:
I have the same setup, but I used a 45Ah battery that I got for cheap when they replaced the UPS batteries at work. So it had already worked for a few years, and I used it for at least 6 years after that. It finally packed up a year or so ago. Replaced it with a new 45Ah battery. We don't get multiple load shedding a day, but the battery is big enough to power my internet equipment for a few days. Even run 12V lights off it during load shedding.
Click to expand...
Thanks @furpile.

Any experience with how quickly the lithium based units wear out the batteries (like Gizzu & Ratel)?
 
LCBXX said:
My Sherlo PSU started doing a strange thing: It would drain the battery in 40min from fully charged.

I put a voltmeter on it and it looks like the PSU drains the battery down to 9.6v before it cut out itself. The battery then recovers charge back to 12.8-13.1v; the PSU doesn't kick on again unless power restores or I disconnect-reconnect the battery, when the drain cycle starts again.

I had the battery tested today at a Battery Centre and their tester shows the battery at 99% health.

I don't have a tester to measure the current draw. What's interesting is that the PSU drains power even when there is nothing connected to the 12v-outlets.

Running it on AC just runs the unit as normal. I cannot perceive anything that gets abnormally hot on the board in any state: Battery/AC.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
I dont trust many places battery testers,too many issues in the past,trust the standing float-voltages more for dead-cells,since this sounds like a dead-cell
 
xrapidx said:
Why does the selector have up to 24v?

I think two of these might solve my load shedding issues - one for the OPN, Ubiquiti USG and 5 port switch, another for 5 port switch and Ubiquiti AP.
Click to expand...
They have probably mixed up the pictures with the POE unit.
 
furpile said:
I have a similar unit, the one that Communica also sells. Mine did exactly the same when my battery died. Normal voltage would be fine, as soon as a load is put on the battery, it just dips down until the PSU shuts off. I also tried it with only LED lights on the battery and it did the same, the lights cut off around 7V. Got a new battery and working fine again. How old is that battery? I would get a second opinion because a PSU cannot just drain the battery voltage and then it recovers when you take it off. Sounds like a dead battery to me.
Click to expand...
I've bought another battery and will test it this evening. Will keep you posted.
 
PsyWulf said:
I dont trust many places battery testers,too many issues in the past,trust the standing float-voltages more for dead-cells,since this sounds like a dead-cell
Click to expand...
furpile said:
I have a similar unit, the one that Communica also sells. Mine did exactly the same when my battery died. Normal voltage would be fine, as soon as a load is put on the battery, it just dips down until the PSU shuts off. I also tried it with only LED lights on the battery and it did the same, the lights cut off around 7V. Got a new battery and working fine again. How old is that battery? I would get a second opinion because a PSU cannot just drain the battery voltage and then it recovers when you take it off. Sounds like a dead battery to me.
Click to expand...
LCBXX said:
I've bought another battery and will test it this evening. Will keep you posted.
Click to expand...
Got some tests that I had to do from a folks at Sherlo Tronics. What it showed was:
Without any load and battery connected, on AC power:
  • AC-Input voltage to board: 14.30v
  • DC-Battery charge output: 12.67v - 12.73v (jumps between those)
  • DC-output terminals: 13.54v
I turned the voltage adjustment trimmer as higher to see whether I could get the DC-Battery charge output closer to 13.8v; with the trimmer at maximum, the DC-Battery charge output goes to 13.41v maximum. This trimmer setting also pushed the DC-output voltage to 14.17v, which I worry may damage the 12v devices I'm powering.

I do think that the board is not pushing enough volts to charge the battery. Their manual states that it needs to be at a median of 13.8v; with load attached to the DC outputs, turning the voltage trimmer all the way to max barely breaks 12.6v.
 
LCBXX said:
Got some tests that I had to do from a folks at Sherlo Tronics. What it showed was:
Without any load and battery connected, on AC power:
  • AC-Input voltage to board: 14.30v
  • DC-Battery charge output: 12.67v - 12.73v (jumps between those)
  • DC-output terminals: 13.54v
I turned the voltage adjustment trimmer as higher to see whether I could get the DC-Battery charge output closer to 13.8v; with the trimmer at maximum, the DC-Battery charge output goes to 13.41v maximum. This trimmer setting also pushed the DC-output voltage to 14.17v, which I worry may damage the 12v devices I'm powering.

I do think that the board is not pushing enough volts to charge the battery. Their manual states that it needs to be at a median of 13.8v; with load attached to the DC outputs, turning the voltage trimmer all the way to max barely breaks 12.6v.
Click to expand...
You might have to add a small load before it regulates correctly. That's probably not the issue since you had a battery connected, but worth a shot...
 
DragonFlux said:
You might have to add a small load before it regulates correctly. That's probably not the issue since you had a battery connected, but worth a shot...
Click to expand...
Adding a load to the DC-out lowers the charge voltage that goes to the battery even more, to below 13v (12.8v I think).
I'm trying to find time to take the PSU to Sherlo Tronics; it's quite a mission these days to find a gap between all the online working.
 
LCBXX said:
Adding a load to the DC-out lowers the charge voltage that goes to the battery even more, to below 13v (12.8v I think).
I'm trying to find time to take the PSU to Sherlo Tronics; it's quite a mission these days to find a gap between all the online working.
Click to expand...
Are you measuring the battery charging voltage with or without the battery connected? (Because a dud battery will pull that down to a lower value.)
 
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