Maintaining UPS/car batteries

[talhawaleed]

Keep Voltage Stabilizer out from your UPS line. I have never tried this with UPS so would not suggest you anything. Equipment above is not a Voltage Stabilizer but a Wall mount Voltmeter, which tells the voltage of UPS line, thus we are able to guess irregularities.

No it is not ok for UPS to stop charging the batteries once Voltage across the terminal reaches 26.5 Volts. I don’t know in how many steps does your UPS charges the batteries like first fast charging, then slow charging only point which needs to be looked into the Voltage across the terminal before the charging stops. Like I said that once Voltage across the battery terminals touches the 28 Volts then UPS should stop charging.

I don’t care what is happening in between or how your UPS has been designed to deal with the charging. few variables needs to be adjusted only in order to cope up with the situation and you don’t need to do anything else.

[israrha]

why not use maintenace free battary instead of that much KHOWARI

[talhawaleed]

UPS NOWADAYS IS MORE COSTLY THEN GENERATORS

What I would say that why not use generators instead of UPS, that’s even better for those who have don’t any knowledge about UPS systems or electricity. Those who face difficulty understanding these easy terms. The end of the day, I find that cost of using UPS system is much higher than that of generators. Consider Maintenance, Electricity cost as once your units crosses a limit then you are charged @ Rs 12 per unit.

[c123pk]

Playing with battery acid can be very harmful and can burn your skin, so if you are new to this, do not try this at home please.

[talhawaleed]

SULPHURIC ACID IS VERY DANGEROUS TO DEAL WITH. IF EVER YOU WANT TO PREPARE THE ACID THEN DO IT AT YOUR OWN RISK

You are absolutely right, but I have told people about the correct procedure which should be actually followed by the battery guys. Since they don’t use distilled water so what I have done is actually highlighted the problem in their procedure.

On other hand Agony of the situation is that Sulphuric Acid is very dangerous and if ever someone wants to try this then he should do it at his own risk.

[shqamar]

hey talha ,
my question is after adding acidic liquid to my new battery after a month or so when level is a bit down can i pour some spilit drain water i will boil the spilit water aswell on the safe side is it okie if i pour that liquid in batteries ?

[talhawaleed]

Never ever try to pour pure Sulphuric Acid inside the batteries, It will destroy the batteries or even can cause explosion. Acid + distilled water mixture is always prepared outside and then mixture is given 24 hours to cool down. Once gravity is adjusted to 1250 or 1270 then it can be poured inside then batteries to adjust the gravity of the solution inside Battery. I am not clear what you mean by drain water but my above explanation is enough.

[shqamar]

Never ever try to pour pure Sulphuric Acid inside the batteries, It will destroy the batteries or even can cause explosion. Acid + distilled water mixture is always prepared outside and then mixture is given 24 hours to cool down. Once gravity is adjusted to 1250 or 1270 then it can be poured inside then batteries to adjust the gravity of the solution inside Battery. I am not clear what you mean by drain water but my above explanation is enough.

i think i wasnt clear enough to explain by ac or split water i mean the water that comes out from split i have read some where its the pure water form and u can use that water in batteries and i have read in xulfiqar post that if u collect that water in a bottle and than boil it again it will be like filtered water hence i ask u that question , i hope i explain u enough this time !!

[brownrose78]

yes talhawaleed is right, ups nowadays more costly than generator but gen. should be of gas yype, petrol one would not be cheaper

[talhawaleed]

i think i wasnt clear enough to explain by ac or split water i mean the water that comes out from split i have read some where its the pure water form and u can use that water in batteries and i have read in xulfiqar post that if u collect that water in a bottle and than boil it again it will be like filtered water hence i ask u that question , i hope i explain u enough this time !!

OBSERVER EVAPORATOR COILS

See, I have already explained this earlier with good reasoning, recently I have asked the technician to clean evaporators of few home Air Conditions and found so many impurities present inside it. We really had to clean the evaporator coils with surf and few chemicals. If you will ask your car technician to clean the evaporator of Car Ac then you will find it very dirty and Air Conditioning performance will improve just after cleaning it. I was observing the procedure without my guiding them where again they used some chemicals to clean the Evaporator coils. How can you use this water in car batteries and further explanation is as follow as given earlier.

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.

[xzap042]

my homage 2000 UPS has developed a fault. I measured the battery voltage when in inverter mode it was 13V per battery (24V UPS) when battery was close to 100% charged. Once in line mode when UPS is charging the voltage across battery terminals is only 11.8V per battery! as soon as i turn off main line battery voltage returns back to normal 13V. UPS is consequently now ALWAYS charging and its not helping with batteries either. please guide me what to do with this situation. any expert UPS technicians in Islamabad that you guys know of? I want to give to a person on whose expertise I can trust on..

PS: I had turned off main wapda supply to prevent charging. after 2.5 hours now the voltage across both battery terminals is 23.6V (11.8V per battery) load is 4 Fluorescent Tube Light and 4 fans.

[Subzwari]

my homage 2000 UPS has developed a fault. I measured the battery voltage when in inverter mode it was 13V per battery (24V UPS) when battery was close to 100% charged. Once in line mode when UPS is charging the voltage across battery terminals is only 11.8V per battery! as soon as i turn off main line battery voltage returns back to normal 13V. UPS is consequently now ALWAYS charging and its not helping with batteries either. please guide me what to do with this situation. any expert UPS technicians in Islamabad that you guys know of? I want to give to a person on whose expertise I can trust on..

PS: I had turned off main wapda supply to prevent charging. after 2.5 hours now the voltage across both battery terminals is 23.6V (11.8V per battery) load is 4 Fluorescent Tube Light and 4 fans.

how about the back up time....has it reduced ?
cuz with this much of load and peak charging voltage the ups should collapse within 5-10 mins. I too have homage 2000 and facing similar issues...

[xzap042]

no. yesterday i turned off main supply when UPS was fully charged. it lasted a little less than 4 hours from 8pm to about 11:45pm. after that ups turned off automatically after giving low battery warning. i turned it on for charging. this morning when i checked battery, was fully charged (26.1V) and ups had stopped charging (seems fine). i'll check when i get back home

[Subzwari]

how old are your batteries?

[xzap042]

how old are your batteries?

about 16 months

[talhawaleed]

@ xzap042

I am facing difficulty understanding your problem may be because you are not putting things in clear way. Anyway, after analyzing the data which you have provided let me put things in this way

Reasonable Arguments looks like this

1) Voltage across terminals once UPS is charging the batteries was found out to be 13 Volts for each battery
2) Your UPS stopped charging the batteries once voltage across the terminal reached 26.1 Volts. 13.05 +13.05=26.1Volts
3) 5- 10 minutes after once UPS has stopped charging the batteries the Voltage across the terminals were dropped to 11.8 Volts for each battery

First try to be clear once your are explaining your problem, secondly it can happen that indicators are wrongly connected that why once you think it is actually charging the batteries where as it is not and once you think it is not charging the batteries then actually it is charging the batteries.

1) Anyway if my assumptions are right as stated above, then you need to understand that UPS should stop charging the batteries once Voltage touches 28 Volts for both the batteries where as in your scenario it looks like it stops charging the batteries once Voltage touches 26.1 Volts.
2) Once UPS has stopped charging the batteries and that in your scenario is at 26.1 Volts then obviously Voltage will drop to 11.8 Volts or 12 Volts after 5-10 minutes.
3) Normally once UPS will stop charging the batteries at 28 Volts then after 5-10 minutes once you will take the measurements of Voltage across terminals you will find that it has dropped to 25 or 24 Volts which is absolutely normal.

Rest you need to check the current charging rate for that you need to quote

1) AMP –HR rating of the batteries
2) You will need an AMP meter

Go back to the thread and looks for the image of AMP meter already posted in the thread.

[brownrose78]

or also i have advice to install battery terminal with digital voltmeter
4 Port Digital Battery Terminal - Positive

it is also resistant to corrision & will also give accurate voltage

[talhawaleed]

Nice device and very helpful
I had been looking for one like this.
You will not have to go down and check the settings every time.
One for UPS line (AC) as shown earlier in figure and One attached with batteries (DC) will be extremely helpful

[xzap042]

@talha bhai

its actually opposite of what you understood:

100% charged batteries and UPS not charging (power turned off) : voltage = 13+13 = 26V
power turn on, UPS starts charging : voltage drops to 11.8+11.8 = 23.6V
UPS always show 3 of 4 dots for battery charge and never stops charging. This has been going on for past 4-5 days. batteries are very hot and heavy gassing in all cells, lost a lot of electrolyte in these 4-5 days. the top of batteries are also slightly black-ish now (batteries are crystal phoenix 125A).

I don't understand that either ? (no measurements are not wrong)

anyway, yesterday when load-shedding started at 8:00pm i also turned off the main supply so when power returns, it would not start charging and stay in backup mode. this way backup lasted till about 11:45pm and UPS turned off after giving low battery warning. after that i turned on main power and UPS started charging and charging voltage read 27.1V I dont know for how long it kept charging but this morning when i checked at 9:00am UPS was not charging and terminal voltage read 26.1V. today it seems to be working fine. when i returned home this evening, it was also not charging. now (9:00pm) after load shedding, it has started charging at 25.5V.

was the problem caused by batteries or UPS? I'm thinking of flushing the batteries as they are now about 1.5years old, and i also think that backup time has reduced.

[talhawaleed]

See, I find it very odd that once UPS is not charging the Voltage across terminals is 26 Volts

Then you said that once UPS starts charging the Voltage across terminals drops to 11.8 Volts per battery

These scenarios are very unlikely because its against the physical laws governing the operation of these devices.

1) I hope you have not made the wrong connection on Batteries, Get it cross checked through some technician immediately otherwise it can also turn into bomb
2) Since batteries are reducing the electrolyte very quickly so it’s a sign that these batteries are gone now. Time for replacement and you can’t do anything about it now.
3) You must be thinking that you know it can still give me a backup time for 4 hours if charging never stops so remember you are wasting a lot of electricity and its dangerous as well.

Rest on the site diagnosis by a expert can actually say what is happening. Brother looks like problem with both batteries and UPS.