Subj : Re: UPS Replacement To : Barry Martin From : Ky Moffet Date : Tue Oct 26 2021 00:48:00 BARRY MARTIN wrote: > Hi Folks! > > Found out something interesting today: it's suggested UPSs be replaced > every six to ten years max. The UPS itself. Looked into it because I Well, consider the source... they sell UPSs. The longest I've seen one last was about 25 years. (Battery replaced once. Circuits finally died after a lightning strike one pole away.) The shortest... pretty much any current off-the-shelf unit only lasts about 2 years. The shell may still function but the battery will be kaput, because all consumer UPSs overcharge the battery, which prematurely kills it. CyberPower (what they sell at Costco, otherwise a decent unit) has this down to a fine art; their batteries reliably die a few days out of warranty. Since the unit is $95 and a new battery is $88 plus I have to drive clear up to the other side of town to get one, I see no point in fighting with it to get the damn thing apart and extracted; I just get a new unit, tho when I think of it in time I get Costco to swap 'em in warranty. :D > https://tldp.org/HOWTO/UPS-HOWTO/maintaining.html Also: > http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/UPS-HOWTO.html This overcharging problem, which ESR (the guy who wrote the above HOWTO) documented elsewhere, is apparently by design as it's entirely unnecessary (AND in the olden days, they didn't do this). ESR was working on a consumer-level UPS with a circuit that fixes the problem, but far as I know it hasn't come to fruition. In chron order: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7839 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7848 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7881 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7918 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7923 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7930 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7932 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7948 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7954 And that's the last post on the subject. (A year ago the blog server went KABOOM, plus he had some health issues, and that probably put a crimp in things.) You can tell when overcharging starts to kill it, even if you can't tell from runtime issues, by the stuffy metallic smell they emit ... that's hydrogen being vented by the overcharged battery. Also, they'll often get warm or hot even when the power is on and they're not discharging. One that's operating normally (not overcharging) stays cool. However, staying cool doesn't guarantee it's not on its way out. If you find one that lasts several years... when the battery dies, I would replace the battery and keep the shell, as that's one that is NOT overcharging the battery. Replacing it might be tossing good hardware in the dumpster in favor of hardware not so good. þ RNET 2.10U: ILink: Techware BBS þ Hollywood, Ca þ www.techware2k.com --- QScan/PCB v1.20a / 01-0462 * Origin: ILink: CFBBS | cfbbs.no-ip.com | 856-933-7096 (454:1/1) .