[garyfritz]

I have an "Opti-UPS" 280es UPS for my PCs. The battery is about 4 years old and it doesn't hold much of a charge any more.


I opened it up and it takes a CSB GP1270 battery, see e.g. http://www.batteryvalues.com/site/1/...10/1/show.aspx or http://www.powerfactorinc.com/Batteries/csb.htm. This is a 12V battery with an amp-hour rating of 7.0, for $30 (and free shipping!). For $60 I could get one with a 17.0 AH capacity, http://www.batteryvalues.com/site/1/...10/1/show.aspx . Wouldn't fit inside the UPS housing, but it should give me a lot longer run time.


Any reason why this would be a Bad Idea? Or should I just stick with the same battery size?


Gary

 

[Clarence]

Do you really need the longer run time?

I use mine mainly as a brown-out voltage regulator.

If a storm rolls up and the power flickers, I'm going to power down and unplug immediately anyways, so having 60 minutes of runtime vs 30 minutes really doesn't affect me.


I'm impressed that you opened it up to check on the replacement battery... I usually just buy a new one after 2-3 years... just wait for a good deal after rebate.

 

[dokworm]

The charge circuit inside the UPS may not understand what is going on if you retrofit a much larger battery - I would just refit it with one of a similar amp hour rating

 

[Graham Johnson]

It just means it will take 2 1/2 half times as long to charge the battery !! the charge rate will be the same as with the little cells. but of course it will run 2 1/2 times as lonng as well.


Why bother, i sold off my UPS, i never really have enough on my PC that isnt saved to warrant using one.

 

[dokworm]

Why bother?!?!

Because they are cheap and save so many headaches. If you are in a dirty power area they also cut down on the number of PC crashes/lockups from erratic power.


We had a server die because of a power failure and for whatever reason scrambled the boot drive. Even with backups it meant half a day of pissing around and then the reactivation and other issues, all because of a 5 second power outage.


For me, a sturdy 800VA UPS for about $150 is such a cheap way to get peace of mind...

 

[SunTECH]

If I may,


If this is a simple UPS, it will not matter on the amp hours. It will just take longer to charge (the UPS output charging current will be same), and will run that much longer when on battery.


If it is a "smart" UPS that reports via a comm cable to your PC what the remaining runtime is, it may be an issue since the discharge curve recorded in the firmware is based on the specific amp hour rating of the battery. It will say you have 7 minutes (average runtime at 80% load), but you will actually have much more.


It gets even more complicated once the UPS goes to battery. If the UPS does not see what it thinks the discharge should be, you may actually get a bad battery indicator or other flaky problems/errors...


Regards,


Nick

 

[garyfritz]

Nick, it DOES have a serial interface to talk to the PC. But I never use it. I just use it as a glitch-smoother and crash-preventer. I also have some realtime data-storage software running on one of my PC's, so it's nice if that one can survive a short power outage.


So I'm not worried about the talk-to-PC stuff getting confused. But the UPS getting confused because of the wrong discharge rate, hm, that doesn't sound very good.


Probably instead of putting a $60 battery (or even a $30 battery) into this low-end 280VA UPS (which was only about $99 new), I should cough up a bit more and get a larger refurb APC system. For a bit over $100 shipped I can get a 700VA SmartUPS.


Maybe I can get a shipping deal if I order a 1250VA UPS (for my PJ) at the same time... Do folks here run their CRTs on UPS's, or do you just hope the power doesn't glitch while you're watching a movie?

 

[dokworm]

I keep my PJ on a UPS as well.

 

[Sokoloff]

FWIW, car batteries at WalMart are 12V PbSO4 batteries with way more than 17Ah for $40. (Sure, they aren't as good at deep discharge, but few people in the first world run their UPS batteries to exhaustion more than once a year anyway.)


---Jim

 

[SunTECH]

I use a SmartUPS 2200VA unit for my entire home theater system, projector and all. It works perfectly, and I get about 1.5 hours of run time. More than enough to finish a movie :>)


Thanks,


Nick

 

[garyfritz]

Nick, I'm not trying to watch a movie during a blackout. Just want to protect the PJ from the occasional power glitch. A full-blown UPS seems like overkill for that, since I have no intentions to run the PJ on the UPS for any more than a minute or two, but I don't know of any other reasonable option to ride the PJ through a 1-2 sec power dropout or brownout.


Sokoloff, interesting idea. I actually know people who build their own PC UPSs with banks of deep-cycle marine batteries. Not sure that car batteries would charge the same way as the UPS sealed lead-acid batteries, though. Would the UPS charging circuitry work with something like that? Or are the car batteries just big versions of the SLA batteries?


Wonder how the marine batteries would work?? I just looked on Checker Auto's website, and for about $65 I could get a 12V battery with an **80** amp-hour rating. Beats the heck out of 7!! And maybe get a 1500VA inverter with a battery for the projector, hmmmmm..... Checker has the Coleman PMP800 for only $50, 800W continuous or 1600W peak. That would be plenty to drive a 7A projector for short periods. Put a $40 battery on it and you've got a glitch-stopping UPS for

 

[Sokoloff]

The APC SmartUPSs I have just have small lead-acid batteries in them as far as I can tell. I had one go bad and replaced the batteries with two car batteries (8 months ago). Haven't seen any issues, and I know I get at least 30 minutes of run-time, but I have never deep discharged them to test it fully. The charging circuits seem fine as it stands.


Like you, I only want to cover the short (