When is a UPS battery actually bad? APC SUA750

Ben Scott dragonhawk at gmail.com
Tue Jun 17 11:55:05 EDT 2008


On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 10:26 AM, Alex Hewitt <hewitt_tech at comcast.net> wrote:
> Which basically says - the indicator doesn't necessarily mean the
> battery is bad. It has some kind of timer which turns the LED on
> theoretically one to two months before the battery "might" need
> replacing.

  I believe it is actually based on battery voltage.  If the charger
has been running for X hours and battery voltage is still below some
minimum level, it indicates for battery replacement.  But battery
health is not an exact science, hence the rain dance in the tech doc
you found.  Plus I'll bet APC is trying to reduce warranty service
claims.  If they can make the battery indication go away for a few
months more, that's good for their bottom line.

  To the best of my knowledge, the Smart-UPS line has no "knowledge"
of calendar dates.  There is a battery replacement date in the EEPROM,
but you can fill in whatever you want and it doesn't affect the
battery replacement indication.

-- Ben


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