[jcase]

I was given 2 APC UPS's both rack mountable, a 1200 and a 1400 Smart UPS.


The batteries were shot in them, as a temporary measure sometime ago I hooked up 2 small sealed car batteries to get me over the hump to run my sump pump, don't laugh I was afraid of a storm coming and my HT is in the basement, as I set that was temporary and was disconnected.


Now for the real question, I would like to set this up again for my HT equipment on a permanent basis. Is there a downside to using the car batteries instead of spending a ton of money for the sealed lead acid batteries?


Thanks,

 

[TracerBullet]

well, I suspect that you are at the very least violating your UPS warranties.


can the ups tell when the battery is about to die? how much time do you get when you unplug the apparatus from the wall? that would be my concern-- are those units in some way calibrated to the batteries they are designed to have, and so putting another battery in might mess up their ability to operate properly, ie, detect when charge is low appropriately.

 

[jkaiser]

Car batteries are meant for deep cycle use (Short heavy current draw). Drawing down a car battery will shorten it's life. RV or Marine batteries are designed for long slow current draw. Yes they are more expensive.

 

[NogodZ]

Just get some replacement batts.

RefurbUPS.com is good, and there are many others.


S

 

[hdtv_moron]

Not using the correct batteries with the UPS is dangerous. I wouldn't use anything but the batteries designed to be used with the UPS. APC should be able to tell you what to use.


Most UPS's are not designed for continuos duty. I know. I used to design them.


To keep costs competitive the temperature rise of the inverting transformer is designed to overheat just before the battery runs out of power (plus some small margin). If you oversize the battery so you can keep the UPS running for a longer period of time then you run the risk of overheating the transformer. Overheat the transformer and you could possibly cause a fire under worse case conditions.


Power inverters (not the same as a UPS) are designed for continuous duty and as such you can connect a battery bank as big as you want to them.


Good luck.