Maintaining UPS/car batteries

[talhawaleed]

My battery is almost two years old do i need to flush?? i tested all the cells they are perfect with 12.5 gravity showing....................

If you have a good electrolyte with you then light flush will definitely enhance its life and may also will increase the backup time. I am telling this to you with the information you have provided that all cells are ok and it has already served you two years. But done overdo the flush, 4-5 times maximum with tab water. I hope, the are UPS batteries as flush works well for bigger batteries.

[talhawaleed]

Sorry if it's a silly question but I'm planning to replace the tap water based electrolyte from my batteries as well because my batteries are giving reduced backup times. So should I flush 4-5 times with tap water before pouring in new electrolyte or just drain after fully charged and pour new in???

Thanks

fully charge the batteries, drain the old electrolyte, fill it with tab water and flush it 4-5 times before replacing it with better electrolyte.
rest, i hope you UPS is properly tuned as that factor you your self will have to look into it.

[talhawaleed]

Dear Talhawaleed,
I have 800 VA Scott Power UPS with AGS GX 200f battery. I have observed that the battery charging current is very high after restoration of Main power. The current observed after the last power shutdown was more than 40 Amps DC and the battery terminal voltage was initially at 13.5 volts while connected to the UPS. The charging current reduced from above 40 Amps to 4.5 Amps and the voltage increased from 13.5 V to 15.6 V. During this process the UPS became hot and the battery was also hot. It remained like this until I disconnected the UPS. The UPS has a Zip Charge indication which lit initially after Mains restoration but went off within a couple of minutes. At this moment I measured the charging current of the battery with a digital clamp on meter and it was showing above 40 Amps. The manual of the UPS states that the Zip Charge indication should lit during boost charge and should go off once the battery is fully charged.But it seems to me that the Zip Charge indication is giving wrong information. Also there is a setting of Regulated UPS mode and Unregulated UPS mode. Currently the switch is selected at Unregulated Mode. I have opened the cover of the UPS to look for the Cut off voltage setting but could not find anything. There were two potentiometers , one for the Mains and the other for the Over Load. There was one more setting selectable with a link with two positions. One for High current and the other Low current. Probably this setting is for the selection of charging current. Currently it is set at High. I am an Electrical Engineer but have less hands on experience with UPS and Batteries. Could you guide me what is happening in my case. I can send you also some pictures of the UPS circuit board(if needed). I have noticed that the coating of one resistor have damaged due to excessive heating. My contact number is 03475095715, in case you want to call.

Regards

40 amps are way to high and will kill your batteries very soon. it will also fake the voltage on battery terminals and either will prematurely stop the charging or it cutoff is not adjusted then may even blow it away.

reduce the charging rate and again take the readings.

[talhawaleed]

Sir here is a pic of the UPS setup:

#1 is the wire going out from the UPS and powers fans and stuff through UPS/Batteries during loadshedding

#2 is some sort of a mini breaker

#3 is the UPS hooked into WAPDA

So if during WAPDA bijli I unhooked #1 from the back of UPS and plugged it into #3 socket, this removes the UPS from the equation and all the equipments now run DIRECTLY on WAPDA.

And then I hook the UPS in another WAPDA socket which has no load/output from the UPS, will this charge the batteries faster or slower than when UPS was charging batteries through WAPDA with #1 attached to it's back???

I hope you understand what I mean now

if you will plug the output line from UPS "1" and plug it into "3" then this will create a big spark and will blow away your UPS.

question tells me that you have very less understanding about the system so don't try any such thing and you will also endanger your life.

you are right, connecting "1" directly with "3" without UPS in-between will put everything back on WAPDA. please stay away from this as i remember once i was servicing my UPS and accidentally the helper made this mistake and in return he received a electrical shock and we ended up loosing the UPS card and few other electrical systems.

[ahmed2396]

Have Volta 195 battery for UPS, i pour distilled water never flushed acid and battery is working good Alhamdulilah bought it in January 2012 its been 2yrs 8 months and battery is going good with Homeage 1KVA UPS previously also had Volta but due to pouring cheap pink acids from market in it lasted for 24 months only and this one will In sha Allah cross 3 years. The battery guy even doesn't believe that Volta can do this much he said he is using FB 185 battery which gave up after 13 months he said Volta is inferior but i dont know how it is serving you from so long. Have AGS 60 in my car it is 4yrs old never flushed it is on distil water

My UPS is on 20V should i keep it on 20V or 15V?

[mrali07]

AoA brothers !

I am using APC ups with 2x osaka 100amp batteries(in series) one battery died in just 4 months when i disconnected battery the negative terminal was to hot to touch. so i replaced it with new one osaka 100amp . now again the negative terminal of the new battery getting to much hot. only happend upon discharging. plz help what wrong with my ups

Load on ups:
pc
led 24i
wateen modem
router
fan

[ch.talal]

Have Volta 195 battery for UPS, i pour distilled water never flushed acid and battery is working good Alhamdulilah bought it in January 2012 its been 2yrs 8 months and battery is going good with Homeage 1KVA UPS previously also had Volta but due to pouring cheap pink acids from market in it lasted for 24 months only and this one will In sha Allah cross 3 years. The battery guy even doesn't believe that Volta can do this much he said he is using FB 185 battery which gave up after 13 months he said Volta is inferior but i dont know how it is serving you from so long. Have AGS 60 in my car it is 4yrs old never flushed it is on distil water

My UPS is on 20V should i keep it on 20V or 15V?

15 V.
How is UPS disconnecting charging at 20 V? Strange. Even 15 V is high. It should be 14 or less.

[ahmed2396]

15 V.
How is UPS disconnecting charging at 20 V? Strange. Even 15 V is high. It should be 14 or less.

UPS has two options one is 15Amp and other is 20Amp charging, sorry for mis interpreting it with volts.
Which is better for battery life, currently it is on 20Amps

[ahmed2396]

And some people use AC water which is thrown out from outdoor unit is that okay for battery?

[ch.talal]

And some people use AC water which is thrown out from outdoor unit is that okay for battery?

Yeah. But filter that first to remove dirt from it.

[mealikhan]

Output voltage under load requires tuning and it should be maximum 250 Volts. I have explained the procedure number of times in thread so you will have to explore the thread. In most local UPS systems, it Is tuned by ?Fix Volt? variable on UPS board. If you want your computers, Mobile Adopters, Wifi-routers to be safe under load shedding then this tuning is very important.

Dear Talha Bhai,

I have check the "Fix Volt" variable and it is fixed at 230V max & cannot be increased from 230V. If there is any other way to increase the voltage please do mentioned.

[rizwan_cs]

can we connect 4 maintainance free batteries in a maner that they give more amperes and the same 24v voltage? 2nd query is that will a stabilizer on the output socket of the ups eliminate the noise of the fans? ups is digital kit

Yes you can connect 4 batteries to get 24v with double amperes. all batteries should be of same amperes and volts.
Make set of two batteries each connected in series and then join these sets in series again.
Always check resultant volts before connecting to ups.

Stabilizer is to stabilize the volt variation, whereas the noise is due to difference in wave form not in volts. We use modified or square wave ups that give noise in fans. If you buy pure sine wave ups its smooth but expensive (almost double price)

[ahmed2396]

My Inverter has two options 20Amp or 15Amp. It has been running on 20Amps since three years on Volta 195AH battery now i have shifted it to 15Amp, will there be any effect? My load is not much just two energy savers and two fans its 1KVA Homeage Inverter

[talhawaleed]

Dear Talha Bhai,

I have check the "Fix Volt" variable and it is fixed at 230V max & cannot be increased from 230V. If there is any other way to increase the voltage please do mentioned.

you can do so on local UPS systems, other then this only solution you have is that you increase the backup batteries and adjust the charging rate but that an unconventional solution.

[talhawaleed]

My Inverter has two options 20Amp or 15Amp. It has been running on 20Amps since three years on Volta 195AH battery now i have shifted it to 15Amp, will there be any effect? My load is not much just two energy savers and two fans its 1KVA Homeage Inverter

so start with, 15A was always a better choice the 20A for Volta 195.

[saadzzz]

Guys i just flushed my batteries which are almost 2 years old as the back uptime was reduced, it was giving me almost 45 mins during load shedding. So i took a risk and flushed them by charging the batteries b4 flushing.

I disconnected the batteries from ups and went to battery shop the guy also disagree he said its a risk the chances are 50%, according to him he flushed some other batteries out of 3, the two batteries did work well and one was runied.

Any how he flushed my batteries with tap water 2 to 3 times and than poured new acid and charged them for atleast 4 hours on 15 amps.........

And guess what till now i m getting good results, the time is increased, i am highly thankful to Talha for all the info he described with detail.

[nido807]

Guys i just flushed my batteries which are almost 2 years old as the back uptime was reduced, it was giving me almost 45 mins during load shedding. So i took a risk and flushed them by charging the batteries b4 flushing.

I disconnected the batteries from ups and went to battery shop the guy also disagree he said its a risk the chances are 50%, according to him he flushed some other batteries out of 3, the two batteries did work well and one was runied.

Any how he flushed my batteries with tap water 2 to 3 times and than poured new acid and charged them for atleast 4 hours on 15 amps.........

And guess what till now i m getting good results, the time is increased, i am highly thankful to Talha for all the info he described with detail.

bro did u tried that epsom salt distilled water wla fanda? my ups battery is nearly dead 2 giving 30 mints backup

Sent from my iPhone using PW Forums

[saadzzz]

No haven't used any sort of salt... but keep one thing in mind that the battery cells must be perfect before flushing batteries.....

[nido807]

No haven't used any sort of salt... but keep one thing in mind that the battery cells must be perfect before flushing batteries.....

won't work if 1 cell is dead?

Sent from my iPhone using PW Forums

[unstopabl3]

Guys i just flushed my batteries which are almost 2 years old as the back uptime was reduced, it was giving me almost 45 mins during load shedding. So i took a risk and flushed them by charging the batteries b4 flushing.

I disconnected the batteries from ups and went to battery shop the guy also disagree he said its a risk the chances are 50%, according to him he flushed some other batteries out of 3, the two batteries did work well and one was runied.

Any how he flushed my batteries with tap water 2 to 3 times and than poured new acid and charged them for atleast 4 hours on 15 amps.........

And guess what till now i m getting good results, the time is increased, i am highly thankful to Talha for all the info he described with detail.

Good to hear that bro, what's the backup time after flush and what's your load???
Also which solution did you pour after the flush and how much did the battery guy charge you for this flush???

Thanks