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APC Back-UPS 600/650 help?

L

lost eden

Gawd
Joined
Dec 13, 2006
Messages
546
I picked up these two UPS'es after my university threw them out. As far as I can tell they're in full working order but just need new batteries.

imgp1081kl8.jpg


If I power them up then disconnect them from the mains, they emit one long beep (~1sec duration) then a short beep once every ~5sec. They can continue powering the beeps & the lights on the front, but can't power even low-drain devices connected to them like my 24-port switch. The manuals (which I've downloaded as PDFs) are a bit confusing. Is the single long beep the 'battery exhausted' beep which means the battery needs a full charge or replacing? Or do they always start off with one long beep when an outage occurs?

Any input appreciated before I go & spend money on batteries onyl to find out that the problem is elsewhere...
 
It means the batteries are junk, I had a spare 350va that when the battery could no longer hold a charge, couldnt power a wireless-router and dsl modem and would just emit a long tone with a red led.
 
Download the APC Powerchute Personal Edition software from the APC web site and use it to "talk" to the UPS and see what it reports. That might tell you if there is more of a problem than just a dying battery.

If it's just a battery that's needed, get a no-name replacement (search the web) and save money.

Good score if all is well!
 
Michael Daly said:
Download the APC Powerchute Personal Edition software from the APC web site and use it to "talk" to the UPS and see what it reports. That might tell you if there is more of a problem than just a dying battery.

If it's just a battery that's needed, get a no-name replacement (search the web) and save money.

Good score if all is well!
Click to expand...

Also need the cable to do that aswell. Its an ethernet to usb adapter btw.
 
These ones have RS232 ports on the back, not ethernet. I didn't see any cables lying around where I picked up the boxes unfortunetely.
 
Dude, your my hero. (/sigh brings back old old memories of "dumpster diving" behind electronics shops when a bicycle was my primary transportation")

If you really want to "play" check the battery specs, if 12V, take out your car battery and rig up some decent gauge wire ( #14 awg would be perfect, 18 awg for a quick test) and heavy alligator clips from radio shack and remove the old batter and clamp on the car batter to the batter leads. You can even just attach to the terminals of the old battery and leave it in for a quick test. A lot depends on exactly how the leads/connect ons for the old battery are connected etc. But I believe you can figure it out, careful of shorts, a roll of plain black electrical tape will be a handy thing to have around.


The two in the middle look like units I had for a long time and might have external battery connectors on the back (newer models tend not to have them so you cannot do the following and have to keep buying overpriced batteries)


I got rid of all the internal batteries of both of my UPS, and instead bought a nice new battery for my car, a pair of replacement auto battery "terminals" that would accept any wire, and a plastic "battery box" from an auto parts store. I then carefully cleaned (with baking soda/water and being super careful not to get any inside the battery) my old but still good car battery, put it in the box and hooked up BOTH UPs to it. During Hurricane Fran we were without power for over a week, I could run both machines for like 4 hours off that car battery, then I just took it outside, hooked it up to the car with jumper cables and recharged it or if I was going somewhere, started the car, (it will run off the alternator while you switch batteries but there will be a good spark when you put in the new one due to charging current but eh. ) and swapped batteries and let the computer one charge as I drove on a decently long outing.

Any-who, moral of story, for testing anything will do. For real use, think cheap, a motorcycle or riding lawn mower battery can be had new for $35 bucks and will run a hella lot longer than the typical ones originally provided or even replacement ones. Be sure to use a battery box however, batteries will produce gases that will precipitate and absolutely eat carpet alive etc. Just simple precautions will do, just don't set the battery directly on the floor in the house if you care about the floor ;)

oh a deep cycle marine trolling motor or golf cart battery of proper voltage would be ideal.
 
If you're really serious about using an external, high capacity battery, use a proper deep cycle battery. These are available in a number of places, particularly those that sell off-grid electrical supplies. They are used for wind and solar electric systems. Golf cart batteries are the same type as these. These would be far better than a car/motorcycle starter battery.

PS - marine batteries are sort-of hybrids - halfway between a starter battery and a true deep cycle.
 
Well I don't own a car so I can't pop the battery out of there to test the units. I live in St Andrews which is the birthplace of golf so I wonder if I can pick up any golf buggy batteries cheaply... But replacement batteries aren't really that expensive, only ~£20 for each unit & without a local car breakers I don't know where I would get an old car battery. Also, how safe is it to run them with a car battery? Does the charging circuit still work properly & cut out when it reaches 100% etc.?
 
Also, how safe is it to run them with a car battery? Does the charging circuit still work properly & cut out when it reaches 100% etc.?
Click to expand...

yep despite a LOT of marketing BS and a few true innovations in electrolytic (gel pack batteries) the bottom line is that a 12V wet cell battery is basically unchanged in 100 years. What I am badly saying is the voltage set points of the APC will be plenty close enough for any "normal" 12V wet cell battery regardless of type and the plain ole water and acid wet cell batteries are the most forgiving of all. They will work great. As the charging circuit in the UPS is designed to charge a smaller capacity battery it will take longer to charge you "bigger" battery back up to full charge after a long discharge but typically you are really just trying to supply battery power for a nice easy non-rushed shutdown and only in a real emergency should the battery get discharged very much. Its a painless trade off and is actually easier on battery water usage thus reducing maintenance (checking and topping off of water) to charge at a slower rate.

Deep cycle type would be ideal but believe me a car battery/motorcycle battery will do the trick and last many many years as it will seldom get used.

Most golf courses about every 2 years replace ALL the golf cart batteries as routine and even used, typically they have good life left in them for your purpose. In the US they get rid of them various ways, the bad news is, over here at least, they are 6V batteries and you would need two and that starts to eat up floor space but I will leave that up to you.

If you do get a used one, check the battery specific gravity and the voltage before buying or have an agreement you can bring it back within 30 days if it will not hold a charge. A guick google will show you how and the tester is just a quid or two at an auto shop for an inexpense "bad/fair/good" tester. Do not buy a used one that appears abused or swollen. The golf buggy ones are ideal as typcically they have been maintained fairly decently, I would be very wary of an auto junkyard battery unless you saw/took it out of a recent wreck of a fairly new car.
 
Just had a thought - would there be anything wrong with taking the battery out of my APC Back-UPS RS 500 & connecting that to the 600/650 to see if they work? They're not going to damage the battery in any way, unless I put the 650's full 400W on when the 500's battery is only rated for 300W?
 
As long as they are the same voltage it should not matter, just use a 100W lamp as a test load and just run the test (lol i.e. pull the UPS power cord out of the wall) for a minute or two as you just want to see if the thing basically works. I would also consider hooking up a table radio or some other inexpensive electronics and doing a "power fail" test (after the lamp test seemed ok) before I tried my computer on it.
 
Yeah they're both 12v, one is just lower capacity. I can't use a lamp because of lack of the right connectors, but thanks to the uni I have access to huge piles of old computer/lab equipment that I can blow without a worry!
 
If you do go with lead/acid batteries, do be sure to allow for proper ventilation. And don't set the batteries on the carpet below drapes/curtains or cloth not resistant to the acidic gas the things can emit. If you do the possibility of your curtains and carpet disintegrating a few months down the road goes up quite a bit. Use a battery box or something to keep it off the carpet.

My wife still brings that crap up. :(
 
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