Maintaining UPS/car batteries

[NakedTruth]

Got the volt meter.

Shows prefect voltage. 218 to 220 when on WAPDA and 280+ when my UPS kicks in (without any load).

[talhawaleed]

Got the volt meter.

Shows prefect voltage. 218 to 220 when on WAPDA and 280+ when my UPS kicks in (without any load).

280 is way to much, keep it between 260 to 270 once ups kicks in.

[rocker111]

Salam! Can u ppl suggeSt a good betteRy for Daihatsu Mira 660 cc ? Plz tell the model no. And built name. Thanks!

[NakedTruth]

280 is way to much, keep it between 260 to 270 once ups kicks in.

I know my game.

Thank You.

[pak2372]

Talhai Bahi I am only worried because for last 7 months inverter performed better especially during the summer season when there was a lot of load on it and power outages are so much frequent. Now with the start of winter season inverter takes so many hours to charge the battery. One month is remaining on Warranty period of my inverter and I just wanted to know if there is a problem with the inverter then I can claim that warranty before it expires now, you are telling me that inverter is ok. Then there must be some problem with the batteries. If inverter charges the battery for so long then surely electricity bill will automatically exceed. Another thing that I wanted to ask that may be this issue is because of winter season and temperature drop.

i had the same problem like you. i checked after many month my battery. only 1" water acid was left. i filled with water acid solution but many battery cell were dead. during charging it started to produce much heat and charging was never finished. i had to manual shut off the ups after two hours. backup time was also reduced.
then shopkeeper examined the battery. he said that many cell are dead and i have to replace the battery.
i think your one of battery cell is dead. so, battery top voltage will never reach maximum cut off limit. you better check your battery. inverter has no problem.

[Khurrammoon]

i had the same problem like you. i checked after many month my battery. only 1" water acid was left. i filled with water acid solution but many battery cell were dead. during charging it started to produce much heat and charging was never finished. i had to manual shut off the ups after two hours. backup time was also reduced.
then shopkeeper examined the battery. he said that many cell are dead and i have to replace the battery.
i think your one of battery cell is dead. so, battery top voltage will never reach maximum cut off limit. you better check your battery. inverter has no problem.

Dear, I guess you haven't read my posts thoroughly. My inverter is taking long time to charge the battery but battery is fine. I recently went to a battery shop and the guy there checked the battery and he said that it is fine. i always topped up battery with distilled water whenever it was required. However, many people have told me that there are problems in Exide batteries these days and it seems true, did you have an Exide battery?

[Khurrammoon]

Talha Bhai
I have another question for you. Does a tester's light is lit when connected to the negative terminal of the battery when inverter/UPS is attached with the battery?

[talhawaleed]

Talha Bhai
I have another question for you. Does a tester's light is lit when connected to the negative terminal of the battery when inverter/UPS is attached with the battery?

You caught me off guard with simplest of the question. if you are referring to tester screw driver then it should not work as in normal scenarios current completes its path through screw driver, through resistor, bulb and then through your body. Resistor in screw driver limits amount of current which will flow through your body. So in battery scenario, it won’t be able to complete its path to the positive terminal. Rest of the members can also comment.

[talhawaleed]

Salam! Can u ppl suggeSt a good betteRy for Daihatsu Mira 660 cc ? Plz tell the model no. And built name. Thanks!

sorry brother, wont be able to help you with brands. for me, all of them are same

[saadzzz]

AOa talha, how are you. I need a little help from you i have set my ups voltage on 220 as it was winter season, although i the ups kit has a knob from which we can set voltga , ijust wanted to know that yesterday i switched on the fan they were running hell slow and making noise as its a desi ups, so they create noise. How much voltage can be set because i have attached My pc + a tv on Ups. I am in fear if i increase voltage it can damage pc as well as Tv....

[talhawaleed]

AOa talha, how are you. I need a little help from you i have set my ups voltage on 220 as it was winter season, although i the ups kit has a knob from which we can set voltga , ijust wanted to know that yesterday i switched on the fan they were running hell slow and making noise as its a desi ups, so they create noise. How much voltage can be set because i have attached My pc + a tv on Ups. I am in fear if i increase voltage it can damage pc as well as Tv....

NO, once lights goes off with batteries full charged then voltage should rise to 250 Volts and should stay between 265, adjust it. With time as batteries will be discharged then this voltage will come down till it will cross 220V mark. Ideally UPS should shut down but anyway if voltage drops below this limit then you will experience your pc turning on and off. Laptops and LCD TV should be safe under the these configurations.

[saadzzz]

so how much voltage to set on ups???? plzz guide me

[NakedTruth]

so how much voltage to set on ups???? plzz guide me

First you should have a fully charged battery. It can be new or used but should be producing an optimum voltage.

Then, disconnect everything from your UPS and connect the voltage meter or multimeter.

Important thing is that you have to apply some load to your UPS to read the voltage properly.

So 50+ Watt of load is best to judge the load voltage. Lower than that, and you wont get proper results. I didn't, at least.

If you can connect only a fan to it, then that is good. Switch it on at full power and let it run for 5 minutes.

Target 240V IMO and also, Talha suggested the same a few pages back. Don't know why he is suggesting 250 now.

Care to shed some light here Talha?.

[saadzzz]

First you should have a fully charged battery. It can be new or used but should be producing an optimum voltage.

Then, disconnect everything from your UPS and connect the voltage meter or multimeter.

Important thing is that you have to apply some load to your UPS to read the voltage properly.

So 50+ Watt of load is best to judge the load voltage. Lower than that, and you wont get proper results. I didn't, at least.

If you can connect only a fan to it, then that is good. Switch it on at full power and let it run for 5 minutes.

Target 240V IMO and also, Talha suggested the same a few pages back. Don't know why he is suggesting 250 now.

Care to shed some light here Talha?.

Thanks a lot buddy....... ill definitely try to set on 240 voltage

and thanks a lot.... again

[Khurrammoon]

You caught me off guard with simplest of the question. if you are referring to tester screw driver then it should not work as in normal scenarios current completes its path through screw driver, through resistor, bulb and then through your body. Resistor in screw driver limits amount of current which will flow through your body. So in battery scenario, it won’t be able to complete its path to the positive terminal. Rest of the members can also comment.

Talha Bhai, hope ur doing well.
An electrician who also makes and sells UPS told me that ur inverter is giving ground to the battery, i do not believe him however, i checked it my self and need your input on this. I used screw driver tester, which he also used, and when i connected it to negative terminal of the inverter+battery, it glows as bright as it does when connecting it with positive terminal of inverter+battery. (Dial used on DMM was 200V DC)
Then i connected the negative probe of multi-meter with negative terminal of inverter, when it was charging the battery, and positive terminal of DMM with iron bracket on the wall nearby and it showed 81.6V. Then i connected negative probe of DMM with positive terminal of inverter and connected it with iron bracket on wall and it showed 70.6V. Now the thing is that there should be more volts going into positive terminal of battery instead of negative. As far as the screw driver thing is concerned, it glows bright on both terminals when inverter is either charging the battery, discharging it or even after the termination of charging. however, when inverter is tuned off and its input is removed from wall power plug then tester never glows.
NOTE= (As we all normally check the reading on both terminals of inverter+battery was 13.7 V, when it was charging. DMM is 99% accurate). In fact used another DMM as well.
Need your inputs, Many thanks.

[talhawaleed]

First you should have a fully charged battery. It can be new or used but should be producing an optimum voltage.

Then, disconnect everything from your UPS and connect the voltage meter or multimeter.

Important thing is that you have to apply some load to your UPS to read the voltage properly.

So 50+ Watt of load is best to judge the load voltage. Lower than that, and you wont get proper results. I didn't, at least.

If you can connect only a fan to it, then that is good. Switch it on at full power and let it run for 5 minutes.

Target 240V IMO and also, Talha suggested the same a few pages back. Don't know why he is suggesting 250 now.

Care to shed some light here Talha?.

WHAT SHOULD BE THE OUTPUT VOLTAGE SET ON UPS LINE UNDER BACKUP MODE

Point is that once batteries discharges the Voltage starts to drop from 250 Volts and point comes once it goes below 220Volt. If you have ever observed then once voltage drops below 220 Volts then it starts to restarts your computers and may blow few chargers. What ideally we want is that once voltage across the battery terminal reaches around 10.4 Volts each then Voltage across the AC line should still be above 220 Volts. Initially I kept the Voltage around 240 Volts but observed once voltage across AC line was 220 Volts then Voltage across battery terminals was around 11 Volts. With 250 Volts to 260 Volts, I was able to achieve the desired results. Once Voltage across battery terminal reaches 10.4 Volts then UPS should sound beep and should shut down in next few seconds. But if your voltage across AC line(UPS Line) has already dropped below 220 Volts with battery Voltage around at 11.00 Volts or 10.8 Volts then that?s not a good adjustment as computers will restart below this Voltage but still you can harvest lot from your batteries.

Simple way to do this adjustment is find the right variable on UPS board, disconnect the sensitive appliances from UPS line and let one or two bulbs remain on. Then ask your friend to insert the Voltmeter on UPS line and you should correspondingly adjust the Voltage by changing the variable. But don?t over do as It can easily climb above 300 Volts. Do this adjustment once batteries are fully charged and then do it by putting the entire load on UPS.

Once done then test the UPS line with no load and with full load.

Small Wall mount Voltmeter as show below is very helpful, as it instantly tells you if your UPS is showing abnormal signs as you know the output Voltage which you have set and how much then it has dropped and how fast it is dropping as compared to once batteries were new and then you can take instantly take protective measures and diagnose the issues.

[talhawaleed]

Talha Bhai, hope ur doing well.
An electrician who also makes and sells UPS told me that ur inverter is giving ground to the battery, i do not believe him however, i checked it my self and need your input on this. I used screw driver tester, which he also used, and when i connected it to negative terminal of the inverter+battery, it glows as bright as it does when connecting it with positive terminal of inverter+battery. (Dial used on DMM was 200V DC)
Then i connected the negative probe of multi-meter with negative terminal of inverter, when it was charging the battery, and positive terminal of DMM with iron bracket on the wall nearby and it showed 81.6V. Then i connected negative probe of DMM with positive terminal of inverter and connected it with iron bracket on wall and it showed 70.6V. Now the thing is that there should be more volts going into positive terminal of battery instead of negative. As far as the screw driver thing is concerned, it glows bright on both terminals when inverter is either charging the battery, discharging it or even after the termination of charging. however, when inverter is tuned off and its input is removed from wall power plug then tester never glows.
NOTE= (As we all normally check the reading on both terminals of inverter+battery was 13.7 V, when it was charging. DMM is 99% accurate). In fact used another DMM as well.
Need your inputs, Many thanks.

Metal casing of UPS(housing for UPS cards, Transformers, Rectifiers) should not make any contact with its housing. You can easily get electric shock, get this corrected. Always use Multimeter to test the Voltages rather than probes. Probes are helpful in testing the continuity but I like to deal with the numbers as being shown by Multimeter. May not be a big issue but get this corrected.

[saadzzz]

@ talha bhai..... u mean to say if i adjust the ups in backup mode with 250 - 260 Volts, with pc and a tv in power mode. It will be safe it the 250 - 260 voltage. Is'nt it a bit high voltage for tv or Pc, home appliances etc.....

[Khurrammoon]

If there is black power like substance inside the vent caps of lead acid battery, does that mean UPS is overcharging the battery?

[talhawaleed]

@ talha bhai..... u mean to say if i adjust the ups in backup mode with 250 - 260 Volts, with pc and a tv in power mode. It will be safe it the 250 - 260 voltage. Is'nt it a bit high voltage for tv or Pc, home appliances etc.....

yes exactly,

ideally we should have kept it to 220 Volts but we know that once batteries discharges then Voltages starts to drop. if it is set to 220 Volts then by the time batteries will be discharged then this will reach around 160 Volts. then it will definitely blow away your Computer.

260 Volts is fine.