Maintaining UPS/car batteries

[talhawaleed]

If that is the case that it charges at different rates at different times then that is excellent because the best charging for a battery is 3 stage charging, 1. When it is discharged , it will charge at higher rate, then after 90%, it will slow down and on 100, it will charge at a different rate to maintain the charge, if that is the case with aurora, then that is nice.

I understand, charging should be in steps but we Pakistanis have an issue that lights goes after every hour. So, it would had been fine, if charging rate would have changed once batteries were around 85 % charged and corresponding 90 % charged. Here it changes very earlier to slow charging and result is batteries are not prepared to handle next load shedding and correspondingly we are unable to harvest any benefit from three step charging.

[talhawaleed]

@talhawaleed

Kindly check your inbox.

Replied.

[HellsGuardian]

Replied.

Thanks will get back to you once i record the no load AC voltage at full battery and the rest of info you asked.

[Sdogar]

I understand, charging should be in steps but we Pakistanis have an issue that lights goes after every hour. So, it would had been fine, if charging rate would have changed once batteries were around 85 % charged and corresponding 90 % charged. Here it changes very earlier to slow charging and result is batteries are not prepared to handle next load shedding and correspondingly we are unable to harvest any benefit from three step charging.

Dear,

The microprocessor for the 3 step charging will respond depending upon the current condition of the battery, if it is in discharged state, it would charge it with higher current rating, so the issue of continuous load shedding is catered for, when the battery will be charged fully it will charge it slowly. This is why it is called stepped charging and it is much better than the constant high current concept as you mentioned.

[slakr]

I had used volta 200AH battery with my Homage 1000VA UPS for two years and the battery was still going hard, then suddenly I thought lets buy a new one for summers,am talking about the previous summers,i bought IPS series battery by volta with a charger (external one which charges around 15amp with auto cutoff) when the voltage of battery reaches it desired voltage.That battery didn't last long and suddenly decreased the backup time..i used it for 7 months.. so I am not in favour of external chargers ,i bought that charger for 2500 from Hall road and now its lying.I won't be using it anymore.One electrician told me that batteries tend to die early if you charge them quickly.A stable charge is required for the battery better life.. so forget these chargers buy a good ups with a good charging a rate but for few people chargers do wonders.The batteries also play vital role.i won't recommend these MF batteries from volta to anyone.

[talhawaleed]

I had used volta 200AH battery with my Homage 1000VA UPS for two years and the battery was still going hard, then suddenly I thought lets buy a new one for summers,am talking about the previous summers,i bought IPS series battery by volta with a charger (external one which charges around 15amp with auto cutoff) when the voltage of battery reaches it desired voltage.That battery didn't last long and suddenly decreased the backup time..i used it for 7 months.. so I am not in favour of external chargers ,i bought that charger for 2500 from Hall road and now its lying.I won't be using it anymore.One electrician told me that batteries tend to die early if you charge them quickly.A stable charge is required for the battery better life.. so forget these chargers buy a good ups with a good charging a rate but for few people chargers do wonders.The batteries also play vital role.i won't recommend these MF batteries from volta to anyone.

Well, same thing as you need to know AMP-HR rating and then determine the charging rate from UPS. With 100 AMP-HR battery 15 AMPs of charging would be fast on same UPS(out of SPECS) and with 200 AMP-HR battery this charging rate will be in spec. I also had a bad experience with Volta whereas I returned the faulty 175 AMP-HR battery to the dealer. He refused to honor the warranty no matter what I tell him. I was kind of pissed off as its difficult to disconnect the battery and take them to dealers on every trip so finally disposed it and bought a new one. Yes, its batter that one buys a good UPS on which you can control the charging rate as this is more of a practical option as compared to external charger.

[saadzzz]

@ talha can u plzz tell me I almost every week see the some sort of liquid or moisture on the cap of batteries as the charging rate is 17 amps. I have two batteries of 165 AGS.....

[talhawaleed]

@ talha can u plzz tell me I almost every week see the some sort of liquid or moisture on the cap of batteries as the charging rate is 17 amps. I have two batteries of 165 AGS.....

17 Amperes is beyond the maximum allowable current for 165 AMP-HR batteries. AMP-HR ratings of AGS 165 would be roughly 150 AMP-HR so select an option for current lesser then 15 Amperes.

[saadzzz]

Bhai..... Load shedding is on its peak even though at this high charging mode batteries are unable to charge.....

P.s Is this a reason i can see that moisture on caps of battery

[faizanahmad]

Bhai..... Load shedding is on its peak even though at this high charging mode batteries are unable to charge.....

P.s Is this a reason i can see that moisture on caps of battery

I'm charging AGS 175 at 16 Amps, but it hardly gets charge now a days because of extensive loadshedding in Lahore. 1 hour of electricity followed by 2 or 3 hours of loadshedding.

[talhawaleed]

Bhai..... Load shedding is on its peak even though at this high charging mode batteries are unable to charge.....

P.s Is this a reason i can see that moisture on caps of battery

You can see the formula of lead acid battery as hydrogen gas is produced during charging and discharging so I think this is what you are referring to moisture.

While Discharging

Negative plate reaction: Pb(s) + HSO−
4(aq) → PbSO[SUB]4/SUB + H[SUP]+/SUP + 2-
e
Positive plate reaction: PbO[SUB]2/SUB + HSO−
4(aq) + 3H[SUP]+/SUP + 2-
e → PbSO[SUB]4/SUB + 2H[SUB]2[/SUB]O(l)

            While charging
            Negative plate reaction: PbSO[SUB]4[/SUB](s) + H[SUP]+[/SUP](aq) + 2-

e → Pb(s) + HSO−
4(aq)
Positive plate reaction: PbSO[SUB]4/SUB + 2H[SUB]2[/SUB]O(l) → PbO[SUB]2/SUB + HSO−
4(aq) + 3H[SUP]+/SUP + 2-
e

I think moisture you are referring to is liquid hydrogen on battery caps and this is normal. Remember, there is maximum allowed range on which batteries can be charged. I know, load shedding is very often and once you have adjusted the batteries to its maximum allowable limit then what can you do if light comes for an hour and goes away for 3. Just a bad luck for most of us,

[talhawaleed]

I'm charging AGS 175 at 16 Amps, but it hardly gets charge now a days because of extensive loadshedding in Lahore. 1 hour of electricity followed by 2 or 3 hours of loadshedding.

Again you have done your part and adjusted UPS to its maximum allowable capacity. What can you do under these circumstances once you need minimum two hours to change the batteries and light only comes for one hour.

My advice is if you want to care for batteries then turn off the UPS once light goes away and observe the load shedding once a day so that battery gets its two hours of share to charge its self.

Another Advice: If you have a generator then you can consider to connect that with UPS line. Once light goes off then turn on the generator so that it charges the battery and let the other load which was originally on UPS to run on generator. You can do this once a day during load shedding. Extreme measures under extreme circumstances.

I used to do this once light comes for an hour and goes for three then I used to turn on the generator which is connected with UPS line only Via external circuit board and change over switch. every room in my house has a fan and single energy saver connected with UPS. This is my second backup and only uses under extreme circumstances once light goes for 3-5 hours and comes for only one hour.

[whiteangel]

I'm charging AGS 175 at 16 Amps, but it hardly gets charge now a days because of extensive loadshedding in Lahore. 1 hour of electricity followed by 2 or 3 hours of loadshedding.

Other option is get another UPS and divide the load between both. That's what I have done in my home.

[usmanakbar2]

dear talha can u explain that in new batteries can we do cut off by seeing the specific gravity of acid when it just touches the yellow line

[talhawaleed]

dear talha can u explain that in new batteries can we do cut off by seeing the specific gravity of acid when it just touches the yellow line

Honestly, I did not understand your question. Gravity simply indicates how healthy your battery is and at times once batteries don?t get enough time to charge due to intensity of lead shedding then gravity can fall down and if that?s the case then it will be ok once situation will normalize.

[saadzzz]

@ talha thanks for the advice..... and yes my big brother has purchased and installed a new generatot LONCIN 3500A. We use to do the same as u explanied 2 hours charging on generator in a day, can u plzz explain how much (watts) does an average UPS of 1200 watts consumes..........

I was thinking that the generator takes too much load during charging the batteries when the fans and lights are ON.

[usmanakbar2]

thanxs for the reply plz can u tell me that there is a variable in the ups which increase the current withdrawl from the batteries when it is on the ups current ,can u tell me at what level it should be adjusted if i rotate it in anti clockwise direction it decrease the current and the fans noise is decreased and if i rotate in clockwise then it increase the current without affecting voltage and the fan noise increased considerablly plz do explain this

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[talhawaleed]

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[talhawaleed]

@ talha thanks for the advice..... and yes my big brother has purchased and installed a new generatot LONCIN 3500A. We use to do the same as u explanied 2 hours charging on generator in a day, can u plzz explain how much (watts) does an average UPS of 1200 watts consumes..........

I was thinking that the generator takes too much load during charging the batteries when the fans and lights are ON.

Once you buy a UPS system then either it 2000 Watt UPS or can be 3000 Watt UPS. Now this figure of 2000 Watt or 3000Watt simply tells you that how much load UPS will bear before it will beep and shutdown because of over load condition. This limit is adjustable in local UPS and it is advised that whenever you buy a UPS system then test it against maximum load condition. Calculate it and make sure UPS shuts down once load is increased beyond its designed capacity. Like UPS shops have different bulbs with different load on a self made test bench, they will turn on 500 Watt bulb, then few of 100 Watts and correspondingly one of 1000 Watt. I hope you got the idea. One more thing, maximum load for which UPS has been designed for should also correspond correctly with batteries sets you are using.

Don?t confuse things as yet I have not replied to your query.

Whenever UPS is installed then its line is kept separate so that you don?t end up damaging UPS system or any electrical device. Now in order to find the maximum load which you have kept on UPS system, turn on all the electrical equipment which are on UPS while its being in backup mode. Take an AMP-Meter similar to that as shown in image and find how much current the your load is drawing by placing meter on wiring going on battery terminals. Like if your findings shows that on maximum load UPS is drawing 70 Amperes from the batteries then note it down and also measure the Voltage across the battery terminals at that instant and suppose it comes out to be 23 Volts considering your UPS has two batteries connected in series.

Now we know Power P=VI, so in this case Power1 = 70 * 23 = 1610 Watt. -----------------------A

I got my first reading and now moving onto the second. Once batteries have became fully discharged after load shedding and light comes back and entire load goes onto the WAPDA while batteries starts to charge. Use AMP-meter and calculate the current on which batteries are being charged and consider it comes out to be 16 Amperes and then measure the Voltage and it comes out to be 26 Volts then we know

Power needed by the UPS to charge the batteries are Power2= VI=26 *16=416 Watt-----------B

So now we have our two readings, where we know that maximum load we have kept on UPS line and maximum load that UPS will take to charge the batteries so final value will be

Power= P1 +P2 =1610 +416 = 2026 Watt, so 3000 Watt generator in this scenario should comfortably handle your UPS (batteries while they being charged) and load connected with UPS line but being switched over to WAPDA by UPS.

I hope this will help

[talhawaleed]

thanxs for the reply plz can u tell me that there is a variable in the ups which increase the current withdrawl from the batteries when it is on the ups current ,can u tell me at what level it should be adjusted if i rotate it in anti clockwise direction it decrease the current and the fans noise is decreased and if i rotate in clockwise then it increase the current without affecting voltage and the fan noise increased considerablly plz do explain this

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You don’t mess up with things like this, if you understand there are electrical equipments connected with UPS systems and they can blow away and further you can even blow the UPS system and get a good electric shock.

1. You don’t restrict the outflow of current from batteries as UPS has no such variable and device will draw power according to its requirement and bulbs will get dim once power available won’t be sufficient.
2. We can change the charging rate on local UPS systems but I want you to take some professional help.
3. I am sorry your concepts seems very weak and I would not want to put your life in danger.
4. Normally there is an option which is available near the transformer but not mostly on UPS board. I always advise member so let electrician do this job, understand things by looking at it and later once you feel confident then do it yourself.