Battery Backup Power - What You Need to Know - Comments Page 1

I have an APC and love it. I had one before this one and loved it, too. It does save on power surges, outages, etc. It gives you time to calmly shut down everything with no damage. I had a motherboard go out during a power outage once. My son suggested we get a battery backup and have had smooth sailing ever since. My only concern is what to do with the old unit?! Suggestions anyone?
For longer outages, I have battery backups for my tablet and net book.

It is unacceptable for me to use a PC without UPS. I use UPS at work and at home for over 30 years. I do not work anymore but at home I have a MGE NOVA 1100 AVR for PC and monitor for several years now, and MGE 375 VA for router and other peripherals.

You may have a gas generator but they're more often found in RV's. A Gasoline (petrol) generator is more popular for general home usage although I prefer the more economical Diesel unit like the one which is providing me power right now for the computers & A/C

@J
Re: Disposal of an old UPS

I would suggest you contact your trash company to ask.

In our last home we could leave old batteries alongside our recycling can (not inside the can) and the driver would pick it up and place it in a compartment on the truck and take it away.

Our current home require us to drive to the "Transfer Station" and hand over to the Household Hazardous Waste folk.

We got an APC 450 about a year ago; seems to be fine. Originally had my back-up drive and gateway (NetGear) connected but the COMCAST tech said not to put the gateway on it...I think because it could add too much power when coming off a power loss and the power came back on. Is that possible or a real concern???

I've used APC branded UPS devices for two decades, and would not be without. Started out with a 350va unit for old desktop and internal modem. As I've added more electronics, I've upgraded and now have three 1500va units for all in one desktop, TV and settop box, and communication closet wi-fi router and weather hub. I like the AVR feature and it's interesting to see the LCD display fluctuations in power to the livingroom unit. I also have several older units from 1000va down to 850va. I get batteries online and APC provides a no-cost (to me), return shipping label. In addition, we have a 17.5K propane backup generator, but it can take 45 seconds from shore power loss to load shift, so the smaller older UPS devices take care of that

I didn't realize that the battery was replacable when my first UPS failedand I disposed of it. A worn out battery is the most common reason for UPS failure. Go online a buy a replacement battery.

Longer battery life? Converted my APC620 to a much larger external battery. The APC acts as a battery charger on AC or generator...the 75 amp hour battery (yup, that's a big one) will run my Chromebook, phone modem/router, and phone for at least 2 hours of use per day. The big battery also gets a solar charge in long term outages. If you're not up to this strategy...the APC 1500 is a great option.

@Ron, I've been using a UPS for well over 15 years, and have everything plugged in to it including my wireless cable modem. During a power outage, I power down my computer, then my UPS. After power returns and is stable, I start my UPS, then my computer. No worries. Your gateway (router?) is a low current device.

In 2003 I lost my refrigerator and computer to a surge due to an unfortunate squirrel. I got an APC unit Wichita has made life simpler. One place for all the needed plus. Best Buy accepts the old unit for proper disposal, even if I buy the new unit elsewhere. It makes an audible signal when the power goes out, which is handy in daylight when it might not be immediately obvious. I will soon switch to fiber optic cable for my connection and replace my modem and router with a gateway, so I appreciate the warning to ask about plugging it in to the APC. I assume I can, but it will be new to have such a high speed connection. PS doing this on my phone, an ad is covering up the middle of this post, so I hope all words are spelled correctly.

I don't need an APC. My computer is a laptop!

I bought a UPS 3 years ago after losing power in storms (in the UK) which caused the power to be off for over 30 hours. It worked well - for nearly 3 years.

And then, in January this year, we had a short outage (not more than 30 seconds) and the UPS didn't cut in. I suspected a defunct battery - even though the display on the UPS said the battery was 100%!. It took me until the end of Feb to finally locate and order a new and suitable battery. Meanwhile, I had 3 more very short outages of power and the last one caused my computer (a desktop) to crash and then refuse to reboot again. I was furious.

I took the computer to pieces (I had built it in the first place so knew my way around) and eventually got it running again but only after removing all the connections on the back, and replacing them one by one once it had booted.

The makers of the UPS (a CyberPower 480W/800VA) said they didn't advise fitting just a new battery, but to replace the unit with a new one! Well, not being made of money, I disregarded their advice and fitted a new battery ( a difference of £80 approx. for a new unit against the battery cost of ~£25 including tax and postage).

It didn't take very long to open the unit: just 4 screws plus some very difficult-to-part plastic clips in the covers. Now all is working fine again APART from the fact (which I have yet to cure) that the initial start screen hangs for about a minute before loading Windows.

@Wayne - I thought the same thing, totally forgetting about my router/modem. Fortunately, I had plenty of power in my smartphone.

No mention of UPS power Quality. Most UPS' generate an approximate sinewave that will power computers, tools, and most electronic devices. The sinewave output Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) is usually greater than 5%, some UPS' having 10% or more. I believe all the UPS' referenced in the article are the approximate sinewave type.

Some electronic devices operate erratically or not at all with an approximate sinewave UPS. These devices require a true sinewave UPS, which of course costs more than the standard UPS. This sinewave THD is typically better than 5%, sometimes better than the sinewave coming out of the wall socket.

If any devices do not operate properly, or overheat, using an approximate sinewave UPS those devices require the true sinewave UPS.

If you have a desktop computer, and it's connected to a battery back-up unit (BBU), the computer essentially runs on battery power all the time, while the AC current from the wall plug continuously charges the batteries, much like a laptop runs when you have it plugged into the wall plug.

Eventually, after several years, the lead-acid batteries loose their ability to hold a charge, and die, not unlike a car battery, and need to be replaced. Once the batteries die, you need to unplug the computer from the BBU, and plug it directly into an AC wall plug to get it to run again. So you need to get the unit or just the batteries replaced ASAP, to be safe.

I have an APC tower unit which I purchased from either Costco or MicroCenter about five or six years ago. About a year or so ago, I got an audio alarm from the unit indicating that the two batteries had died, and the computer would not power up. After plugging the computer into the wall, and getting it up and running again, I did an on-line search for "computer back-up unit replacement batteries," after finding out Best Buy doesn't sell them.

I found what appears to be a small franchised battery store called Batteries + Bulbs that carries BBU batteries. For about $70.00, the guys there were able to replace the batteries with slightly larger units (1300 va) than the ones that originally came with the unit (1100 va), giving me a little more back-up time than I originally had. They also took the old batteries for recycling, at no charge.

If you're lucky enough to have your home connected to a whole-house natural gas or propane powered back-up generator, from, say, Generac, Honeywell or Kohler, you can get by with a smaller BBU, say 350va, for around $50.00, as it will only really be needed for the short time, generally within 20 seconds, or so, for the back-up generator to start up and kick in with AC, until the power is restored by the electric utility.

Too many persons think, well I have a battery back-up and so safe. Only partially true. Battery back-up is not an UPS, which will run for hours or days. The purpose of battery backup is to inform the computer power has dropped, the computer (program normally supplied by the battery backup manufacture) goes into shut-down or snooze mode. This is not an instant response, and depending upon your computer, could take a few seconds of SDD drives or few minutes to fully shut down. Your battery backup has to have the capacity and some to spare to supply power until shut down. Most batteries are similar to car or moto batteries, they have a defined life time and as grow older, their capacity weakens.

One thing that may help extend the life of your batteries is to exercise them periodically. You should unplug your UPS from the wall (many have a test switch so you don't need to mess cords) and run on the UPS for a few minutes. You also can't always rely on the power meter if it has one. Many times it well only be reading voltage and can't really tell you about the overall battery health. Just like a car battery. Sometimes it will read 12 volts until you turn the key and it drops way down. We used to load check our UPS and fire exit light batteries. As far as a true sinewave UPS, wouldn't that run into the thousand dollar range? I used some pretty complicated equipment with a mid range (price vs. quality) inverter before and had no problems. One last thought. I was working in a wind power facility and we had a very heavy duty UPS system for our SCADA. I put off replacing the batteries. Always have a schedule and follow it. It was no fun doing that by flashlight in the middle of the night.

I take the battery out and put alligator clips on the leads and hook them to a car battery. It will keep a computer, monitor, modem and landline up for 4 hours
You can use batteries in series if you need more time

In LA, Goodwill accepts all old electronics.

After recent Hurricane Irma in SoFL, power outage was widespread and lasted for us about a week. Cell service from AT&T and Verizon remained available, TMobile and Sprint not. Sprint was back up about a day after the storm was over; TMobile took about 3 days. AT&T internet (UVerse) was not available until after our entire neighborhood got power back. So, yeah, even though our phones and laptops were good to go (we have solar chargers and extra battery backups), the internet was less so. I think the same was true for Comcast, the other home internet provider. So, we used our phones instead. UPS are useless in such a situation, IMO.