UPS Batteries (again)

Thu Dec 18 23:22:26 PST 2003

Because I'm a bad man
I didn't save this thread from last spring.

I have a bigass (4U?) TrippLite 1400RM UPS at home.  (a very
very large UPS replaced several rack mount ones back 99 or so
I some of us inherited these).

Kinda nice.  Large.  Makes ringy sounds when power goes out.
And 3 weeks ago, when we lost power, it provided it's nominal
1400 VA of power to 25 watts of equipment (soekris + switch)
for almost 4 minutes.

Hmmm.  Something is afoot.  Later, I unplugged all the stuff
and put a lamp in.  60 watts.  That lasted... well, a couple
minutes.

At this point, the UPS won't power up.  I'm using (gasp) a
surge suppressor.  I feel so vulnerable and weak.

The batteries had, er, grown.  I had to take apart the UPS to
get them out (5 panasonic cells as I recall - very common).
I pushed (hard) on the batteries against a 4x4 on the floor
to get the suckers out.  They are 4 or 5 years old.  I gotta
replace.

So, hopefully, you're still with me for the question:

I can route the leads to the batteries out the back through
a couple holes.  I was pondering a big-ass marine deepcycle
battery.  No more power at once, but for LONGER.*

It's in a regular room, so I'm not sure if that can work.
Should I have ventilation to charge a marine battery?

(the racks' new home is not yet a room, so the puters are
in a spare bedroom).

BARRING that, there was spring's discussion of batteries
suppliers.  Where can I get your regular old batteries for a
real UPS?

TIA,

chuck

* there are delusions of solar panels and figuring out if the UPS
can be subverted to just be an inverter - drawing it's power most
of the time from a gang of batteries which would be charged from
the sky.

And further delusions that many of these computing machines work
fine on DC.  I'll be able to provide 48VDC (or knocked to 12) for
the soekris, netgear hubs, laptops, etc.  Seems silly to go from
DC to AC (80% efficient) and back down to LV DC with more loss.