Battery replacement for my Uninterruptable Power Supply
Posted By RichC on October 14, 2014
Most offices (home and commercial) protect their computers and electronics with at least a surge strip and many of us with Uninterruptable Power Supplies … or UPS units. I’ve owned a couple from APC (now Schneider Electric) and over the years have been frustrated with having to replacing the expensive back-up batteries. The replacements are costly to replace and really don’t last that may years … considering how infrequently they are used.
SO … instead of replacing the batteries again, I’ve opted to run a a couple heavy cables with clips through a grommet in the side of my APC 650 box. I am clipping it to a spare 12 volt car battery (the older, but new-ish, separate starter battery that I replace on the boat). If I were buying new, I’d opt for a deep cycle marine battery, but the “Platinum AGM” will have to do for now. I’m hoping for at least 5 or 6 years?
I ran the garage shop night bulb (LED 60 watt equivalent) for 12 hours overnight on battery power and noted that it dropped the larger battery’s voltage less than 1 volt. I’m checking now to see if the APC unit’s charger will return that “1 volt.” Once I move the APC box and battery back to my home office and plug in the big iMac, cable modem, external hard drive, NAS, 8-port VPN firewall and wireless access point we’ll see how it holds up. An update to come.
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