Maintaining UPS/car batteries

[machinesmith]

Salam Talha bhai, Xulfiqar and all who've contributed so far!

I was amazed at the amount of eye opening knowledge in this thread however I'm still very new to this UPS stuff (but not new to basic electronics fiddling and soldering a few IC's here and there).

My current UPS system is about 5~6 yrs old - it's local made and runs on two AGS UPS 115 batteries. While my UPS is currently showing all the signs of decay that has been mentioned on this thread - my real problem is simple (and embarrassing :$)
I've been away from my home for 3 yrs and the ups (and batteries) had not been cleaned even once! I disconnected everything and cleaned everything that I could (the batteries from the outside...and the UPS I cleaned from the inside out - it was a mess)!

My problem is...I no longer remember how to connect the UPS to the batteries!

I thought I'd remembered it, but every time I hook up the last wire there are sparks and that scares me so I'm stuck at scratch

There are other issues too (and I think I messed up big during the cleaning process) but I'll leave that for later - I just want to know how to connect it back to the way it was right now.

I've attached 2 pics to show you exactly how the wiring is:

This pic has been edited to show you the Positive and negative nodes:

(please forgive me if I use some terms incorrectly, I'm not an engineer or even a science student! Just a guy who likes working with IT)

Anyway this is how I originally remembered the wiring, The UPS is disconnected from the mains socket and is set to the OFF position, I'm just not sure what's causing the sparking. Any help from you experts will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks and Salams
Ali

[talhawaleed]

Connect black with negative of first battery

Connect red with positive of second battery

Two nodes are left which are positive of ist battery

And negative of second battery. Simply short them using jumper cable.

[alifaisal79]

Thank you Talha bahi.....I am using 115 osaka batterry for UPS..I have purchaised it in last year (Jun-10)...But now Ups back up timing is only 2.00~2.5 hours at one fan....So please give me solution to solve the problem...
2-You have mention in your previous post that "before washing the battery must be charged for 24 hours.....why? If you battery is fully charged then UPS stop the charging Y we need for 24 hours....can I get solution from the market for refilling?waiting for quick response in this regards.

[talhawaleed]

I don’t remember I said that it should be charged for 24 hours. Charging rate should be properly set, then if it takes 3 hours to charge the battery then it should be ok. In some cases 4 hours and in some cases 5 hours. Point is this that it should charge and discharge couple of times to resume the full performance.

Everything is subject to conditions such as
1) Batteries have not suffered any heart attack in past which simply means that none of the cells were allowed to go dry and none of the cell is dead.
2) UPS should be properly adjusted such that it is not abusing the batteries. In 80 % of scenarios actually improper adjustment of UPS is the culprit.

It is good if you can put batteries on slow charging for the first time as it may take quit long to charge the batteries.

P.S: before performing the flush batteries should be fully charged. Now i dont know how much time your UPS will take to fully charge the batteries. after flush then put it back on charging.

[alifaisal79]

Thank you Talha Bahi...Yesterday my Battery was checked by technican...He informed and showed me that one cell of battery is weak(Giving bubble on load/Joint the + and - terminal by heavy wire)..But my back is up to 2.5~3.00 hours on one fan...advise me in this regards ie;
Change/repair the cell
Change the acid
any thing else.

Regards.

[talhawaleed]

I was looking at your older posts that you bought the batteries on June-2010 and now you have one cell dead. I purchased a 2000 Watt UPS for my house along with two 150 AH batteries on 15th-Jan-2010 and still all of the cells are in perfect condition with backup time of 2-3 hours on full load inspire of the fact we have very frequent load shedding sometimes straight for 10-12 hours in 24 hours. Now this happens once you don’t use distilled water from start. If you are looking for long time comfort then you have to rely on distilled water only. In between I noticed a decrease in backup time, I immediately went for a flush and backup time was restored.

Flush is the only alternative, which can save your battery if there is a chance. I don’t guarantee this as I don’t know for how long this cell has been dead. Remember I said that batteries dies because of single dead cell in battery and this happens because of deposits accumulated in between the plates which eventually causes short circuiting and results in a dead cell or two plates to act line a single plate. Flush the batteries and pay special attention to the dead cell.

I hope this may do the trick, then use distilled water only.

P.S: one more thing, looks like your UPS is using one 115 AH battery and if that's the scenario, then you can extract certain limit out from the battery and can’t expect it to power your entire house. I hope you can understand what I am trying to say but if you have experienced a decrease in backup time then I am hopeful that flush may do the trick. Still I don’t guarantee that It would be able to bring the dead cell back to life but there is a chance.

[Vaqas1]

Hmmm in my village we got 1, 120 AMP Gell battery that is installed from 4 years and gives backup time of 3 hours with 3 fan from day one. you know how much load shedding is in villages ups hardly gets time to charge the batteries.

its better to invest in Gell battery that will be around 18 or 20 thousand but lasts longer charges quicker and gives good backup time.

[talhawaleed]

You are lucky to get the right piece, probably batteries if continue to remain in charge and discharge cycle would last longer than the battery which hardly gets charged once every two week. If they are reliable then off course it’s a better option plus everything depends upon the buying power of common person as few people cannot afford it at all. Guess you don’t have to care about topping it with acid or distilled water.

[shqamar]

hey talha ,
i would like your advise on this , i just change my ups battery Ags 100 brand new one now my old battery use to give me back up for 1 and half hour hence i change the old one , now the problem is my new battery giving me 2 hours back up , that backup include one fan and 1 light , we hardly use 2nd fan , coming back to the problem i took the new battery to the battery shop and he said battery is not charge go to your ups guy and tell him to set ups for 1430 and 220 volts so your battery gets charge fully and than it will give maximum back which would be atleast 3 hours now that makes sense to me because my battery used to charge about 3 hours and now it charges in 1 and half hour which is quick for me , i went to ups guy and he blamed to battery guy that battery now a days are not good blah blah so now i am still in dilema what should i do ?

[dms664]

WHY AIRCONDITIONING WATER NOT FIT FOR CAR BATTERIES AND DRINKING

This water is essentially distilled water but is called condensate. Since it is water vapor which has condensed on cool surface. The problem is that air carries number of impurities and once it flows through the evaporator then wet surface of evaporator will absorb many impurities and will contaminate the condensate with whatever is in the air. If some how you can keep the condensate from collecting the dust from air flowing through the evaporator coils then you can drink the water as well. But you know that this is very unpractical that’s why condensate will contains May impurities.

Also condensate water is collected in a reservoir before it is discharged, this reservoir may contain many contaminations and may also be treated in past with chemicals. That’s why this water is not even fit for drinking.

Third the cooling coils of Evaporator may be soldered at different points and water passing through it may contain some health risks and If you will try to taste this water then it would taste like a coil cleaner water.

I have a water filter installed at my home with 3 stage filtration. I change the filters on time in the water filter . Now the question is that I am using water from this filter in my batteries, is it as good as the packed battery water aka distilled water aval in market? or shoudl I refrain from this act and use the distilled water aval in market only?

Regards

PS Backup time is good and no complaints mashaAllah

[speedster_101]

Can anyone share the current prices of UPS batteries of different amperes and brands?

[talhawaleed]

I have a water filter installed at my home with 3 stage filtration. I change the filters on time in the water filter . Now the question is that I am using water from this filter in my batteries, is it as good as the packed battery water aka distilled water aval in market? or shoudl I refrain from this act and use the distilled water aval in market only?

Regards

PS Backup time is good and no complaints mashaAllah

Do one experiment, Take a pressure cooker and put this filtered water inside it. Then heat the pressure cooker and let the steam escape from the cooker by releasing the pressure knob till the time all the water has evaporated. Now inspect the condition of cooker, if its clean then you can use this water but if its dirty then I am sorry as results will be in front of you.
Distilled water is the most purified form with absolutely zero impurities and I don’t know how good is your filter as only way to test this is through this experiment.

[talhawaleed]

hey talha ,
i would like your advise on this , i just change my ups battery Ags 100 brand new one now my old battery use to give me back up for 1 and half hour hence i change the old one , now the problem is my new battery giving me 2 hours back up , that backup include one fan and 1 light , we hardly use 2nd fan , coming back to the problem i took the new battery to the battery shop and he said battery is not charge go to your ups guy and tell him to set ups for 1430 and 220 volts so your battery gets charge fully and than it will give maximum back which would be atleast 3 hours now that makes sense to me because my battery used to charge about 3 hours and now it charges in 1 and half hour which is quick for me , i went to ups guy and he blamed to battery guy that battery now a days are not good blah blah so now i am still in dilema what should i do ?

Looks like your UPS uses one 100 AH battery so there is a limit you can extract out from your batteries and can’t expect it to last forever. Did you use the Acid prepared from distilled water to top up the brand new batteries and if not then why are you complaining.
Only ask the UPS guy to adjust the parameters according to these specifications and that you don’t want to listen anything else and rest he can keep his trap shut.
I am assuming that your UPS is using one 100 AH battery

1) Adjust the charging rate to 10 AMP
2) UPS should stop charging once terminal voltage reaches 14 Volts.
3) Adjust such that once batteries are fully charged then output voltage should correspond to 250 Volts maximum.
4) Adjust such that once voltage across the battery reaches 10.8 Volts then UPS should sound beep and should shut down immediately.
5) Out put voltage at this instance as quoted in point 4 should correspond to 220 Volts minimum.

Brother these parameters can only be verified using voltmeter or AMP meter but I have my doubts that he would have one AMP meter.

[shqamar]

Looks like your UPS uses one 100 AH battery so there is a limit you can extract out from your batteries and can’t expect it to last forever. Did you use the Acid prepared from distilled water to top up the brand new batteries and if not then why are you complaining.
Only ask the UPS guy to adjust the parameters according to these specifications and that you don’t want to listen anything else and rest he can keep his trap shut.
I am assuming that your UPS is using one 100 AH battery

1) Adjust the charging rate to 10 AMP
2) UPS should stop charging once terminal voltage reaches 14 Volts.
3) Adjust such that once batteries are fully charged then output voltage should correspond to 250 Volts maximum.
4) Adjust such that once voltage across the battery reaches 10.8 Volts then UPS should sound beep and should shut down immediately.
5) Out put voltage at this instance as quoted in point 4 should correspond to 220 Volts minimum.

Brother these parameters can only be verified using voltmeter or AMP meter but I have my doubts that he would have one AMP meter.

thanks a lot for the valuable information and yes i have used acid water in new battery , when i took the battery back to the guy he check the charging and told me its not half percent charge but surprisingly my ups showing its charged full hence it was concluded that it was a ups problem now i will take my ups tommarow and try if he able to understand your 4 points and follow them which i seriously doubted lol thanks !

[Vaqas1]

You are lucky to get the right piece, probably batteries if continue to remain in charge and discharge cycle would last longer than the battery which hardly gets charged once every two week. If they are reliable then off course it’s a better option plus everything depends upon the buying power of common person as few people cannot afford it at all. Guess you don’t have to care about topping it with acid or distilled water.

Yes no need to maintain water levels. The proper deep discharge batteries will be hard to find here so next better option that some UPS guys also recomend is Gel type battery.

[Subzwari]

@Talha and all other experts....
What i am observing for the past fews days is the low back time of my batteries connected to Homage 2000. tried to investigate and found out that the charging voltage fluctuates between 25.6-26.2V when checked with voltmeter with terminals connected under charging mode...ideally it should be 28V i guess....but the reason why it is under charging ? probably because the mains (AC) supply never exceeds 200V and the inverter is not able to convert it to exactly 28V DC required for the charging....may i have a solution for this ? for the inverter itself it would be difficult to assume that it has developed some fault causing the problem....any one having similar experience ..please share how to rectify this problem...thanks

[talhawaleed]

No you did not get this right, before the charging stops, the terminal voltage across the batteries terminals should be close to 28 Volts and once this reaches 28 Volts then charging should stop immediately. Then after five minutes you will see the voltage across the terminal falling to 25 or 25 Volts that should be ok.

Secondly you can’t help this out once Voltage from Wapda is 205 Volts as this is a sign that Pakistan has a shortage of electricity and ideally it should never fall below 220 Volts. Till the time UPS does not shows any sign of tripping then you should be ok.

Finally get your UPS adjusted, that’s it and it can be done using some variables on UPS board. Consult an Expert technician.

[talhawaleed]

This is a Small Wall mounted voltmeter I have installed in my office on UPS line which indicates me on 24 hours basis the voltage of Wapda line and during load shedding Voltage of UPS line. That’s how I keep a Tab on if computers are safe within current configuration or not and during discharge cycle Voltage deeps on dropping from 265 Volts till 225 Volts before we shut down our PC’s. Since we have maintain our batteries well so within 1.5 hours to 2 hours interval we don’t notice any drop within the Voltage. I hope many will find this equipment very useful.

[Subzwari]

thanks for the prompt reply.
so you think its ok for the device to kick off charging with 25.6-26.2 volts and then at it's peak(cut-off) it should ascend up to 28volts for the final boost? In this case there is no need to tinker with the UPS...right?

OR

you think that the charging voltage will always be less than the required since wapda is providing with less all the time so better to have the settings made as if the input is 200VAC.

[dms664]

@Talha and all other experts....
What i am observing for the past fews days is the low back time of my batteries connected to Homage 2000. tried to investigate and found out that the charging voltage fluctuates between 25.6-26.2V when checked with voltmeter with terminals connected under charging mode...ideally it should be 28V i guess....but the reason why it is under charging ? probably because the mains (AC) supply never exceeds 200V and the inverter is not able to convert it to exactly 28V DC required for the charging....may i have a solution for this ? for the inverter itself it would be difficult to assume that it has developed some fault causing the problem....any one having similar experience ..please share how to rectify this problem...thanks

In this case an automatic voltage stabilizer will do the trick
Wapda line ------->voltage stabilizer ------> UPS