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UPS battery expanded, overcharged? broken?

M

multi-tasking_guy

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 16, 2017
Messages
142
hi,

I went on a 2 week vacation, and during the second day of my vacation, i lost connectivity to my desktop, which was strange,

when i returned home, i noticed there was a screeching noise coming from my ups, the router and modem that were plugged into the ups were off

i unplugged the ups, tried to reset it, but the screeching noise didn't stop, i figured the battery was broken

i took off the back cover and everything looked fine, until i removed the battery,
on the other side of the battery, i saw that it expanded quite alot, expect for the middle, there was almost a round small hole.
this was because of the little knob inside the ups, if it wasn't there, it would of been a normal expanded battery,

what exactly happened here?

did the ups overcharge my battery?

what are my options, should i purchase a new battery, or will the device damage my new battery,

not sure why this happened, luckily it didn't explode while i was gone, if its possible for that to happen,

its an old ups, model: APC ES 725

1.jpg

20171122_072121.jpg 20171122_072131.jpg 20171122_072144.jpg 20171122_072150.jpg 20171122_074929.jpg 20171122_074935.jpg 20171122_075001.jpg
 
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Contact APC, they may send you a new one.
I had a 5+ year old UPS that was given to me that was out of warranty and wasn't working and the batteries swelled up inside. I contacted APC about how to test the unit before buying new batteries, and they requested images of the UPS and batteries.
They then told me they were going to replace the UPS with a new one free of charge.

These were the batteries in the UPS, it was really hard to get them out of the UPS too.
Backups 1000 002.jpg

A few days later I got this in the mail,
backups 1200 006.jpg
 
As sealed lead acid batteries get old, the metal plates inside them deteriorate. They simply do not last forever. Usually 2 to 3 years is the norm. They also age more rapidly in a hot environment or one where frequent usage (ie: power outages) occurs.
UPSes sometimes have a hard time sensing battery failure, thus they can sometimes keep charging a battery that has one cell internally shorted which builds up heat. The heat literally makes the battery very hot to the touch. So hot, in fact, that the plastic battery case can deform or melt and expand from internal gas boiling as seen in the pics above. Sometimes this deformation and expansion gets so bad that the battery starts to vent. It smells really bad when this happens.

It is hard to say of your UPS is damaged. Will it turn on without the battery installed? The failure was that the battery just internally shorted and got hot while you were away. You could buy a replacement battery and it would probably work fine for another 2-3 more years (avg lifetime of a SLA battery). But since that is an old UPS and it has failed to detect a end-of-life battery correctly, I'd recommend buying a new UPS for piece of mind. Maybe even consider a SmartUPS series as an upgrade. They are pricey but also nice with approximated sine wave output. I personally stay away from BackUPS series and only buy SmartUPS series UPSes for this reason. My info might be out of date now, but the BackUPS series used to not have a good AC output when on battery. This can sometimes cause buzzing or odd behavior in certain devices that are plugged into the UPS when it is on battery. There are also other brands like Cyberpower and Tripp Lite that other [H] users have recommended. Check other threads in this section. You might find a great deal since BF is coming up.
 
If you don't just routinely replace the batteries from time to time, this occurrence is fairly common IMO. I've pulled swelled batteries out of several UPS devices over the years. The unit is likely fine, you just need to pry that old battery out.
 
it makes a slight quiet straight beeping noise when i turn it on without the battery, is that normal?

i will contact apc and see what they say,

thanks everyone for the help
 
Good luck. My own luck with APC has been horrid.

I worked in the semiconductor industry for years, and those guys use monster UPS systems from APC that are amazingly well-built and capable of running their systems for hours on end. That said, my experience with their consumer level gear is the polar opposite of that.

I'll give their CS kudo's for trying though...one of the many failed home UPS's I'd had to deal with was a near-new 750VA that was given to me free, as it had worked for about a month and ceased to charge the battery. I contacted APC and told them the whole story...dead UPS, given to me, blah blah. They replaced it, no questions asked. Nice of them, but the replacement was also dead in about 10 months. Bah!
 
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