"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message
oups.com...
I am the "lucky" owner of a number of older UPSes.

So what can a person build out of these?

The batteries are for the most part dead but the remainder of the
components seem to be in good condition.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

TMT

If you can get your hands on a copy of the 2005 ARRL Handbook, there are
several suggestions in there (radio-related, but you can improvise from
them), and some information about UPS's.

One is a charger for 12V storage batteries in general, including car
batteries. Another is an emergency power supply (you can just run two wires
to your car battery, or a bank of deep-discharge batteries wired in parallel
if you're so inclined). Depending on the model you have, you can get 160 W
to over 300 W of 120 VAC and/or 12VDC from them.

Mine (an APC Back-UPS 600) is now wired to an old car battery. It will run
my computer for a lot longer than the old gel-cell that came with it. Since
we're on the end of a power transmission line, it gets a fair amount of use.

--
Ed Huntress

I have a back-UPS 400 with a useless gelcell. However, touching
terminals of a fully charged and healthy gelcell to the battery
leads causes mega amps to flow, so something is likely fried.
Interestingly, the dead battery has about 10.5 volts on it,
in-circuit, no current!

Anyone got a schematic or wisdom to share? / thanks / mark


Ed Huntress wrote:

"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message
oups.com...

I am the "lucky" owner of a number of older UPSes.

So what can a person build out of these?

The batteries are for the most part dead but the remainder of the
components seem to be in good condition.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

TMT


If you can get your hands on a copy of the 2005 ARRL Handbook, there are
several suggestions in there (radio-related, but you can improvise from
them), and some information about UPS's.

One is a charger for 12V storage batteries in general, including car
batteries. Another is an emergency power supply (you can just run two wires
to your car battery, or a bank of deep-discharge batteries wired in parallel
if you're so inclined). Depending on the model you have, you can get 160 W
to over 300 W of 120 VAC and/or 12VDC from them.

Mine (an APC Back-UPS 600) is now wired to an old car battery. It will run
my computer for a lot longer than the old gel-cell that came with it. Since
we're on the end of a power transmission line, it gets a fair amount of use.

--
Ed Huntress

In article , Mark
wrote:

I have a back-UPS 400 with a useless gelcell. However, touching
terminals of a fully charged and healthy gelcell to the battery
leads causes mega amps to flow, so something is likely fried.
Interestingly, the dead battery has about 10.5 volts on it,
in-circuit, no current!

This is the classic symptom of a 12-volt lead-acid battery with one cell
shorted. Hooking a 12-volt battery to a 10-volt battery will draw lots
of current, as observed. Replace the old gelcell battery with the new
one; do not keep the old gelcell in the circuit.

Joe Gwinn

Um, I didn't make myself clear, I guess - I took the old one out,
clipped to the new one, instant heat. Big heat.
I'm guessing that there's circuitry which avoids draining the
(bad) low voltage one past a certain point. I'm also guessing
that a fully charged battery (the one I tried to hook up) enables
current flow, and that perhaps the input of the invertor section
is shorted. I didn't feel like leaving a perfectly good 17A-hour
battery to fry itself and the surrounding wires etc.....

BUt thanks for the response / mark


Joseph Gwinn wrote:

In article , Mark
wrote:


I have a back-UPS 400 with a useless gelcell. However, touching
terminals of a fully charged and healthy gelcell to the battery
leads causes mega amps to flow, so something is likely fried.
Interestingly, the dead battery has about 10.5 volts on it,
in-circuit, no current!


This is the classic symptom of a 12-volt lead-acid battery with one cell
shorted. Hooking a 12-volt battery to a 10-volt battery will draw lots
of current, as observed. Replace the old gelcell battery with the new
one; do not keep the old gelcell in the circuit.

Joe Gwinn

Do you have to worry about fumes from the car battery, or do you only use
the "sealed" type of car battery?

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message
oups.com...
If you can get your hands on a copy of the 2005 ARRL Handbook, there are
several suggestions in there (radio-related, but you can improvise from
them), and some information about UPS's.

One is a charger for 12V storage batteries in general, including car
batteries. Another is an emergency power supply (you can just run two
wires
to your car battery, or a bank of deep-discharge batteries wired in
parallel
if you're so inclined). Depending on the model you have, you can get 160 W
to over 300 W of 120 VAC and/or 12VDC from them.

Mine (an APC Back-UPS 600) is now wired to an old car battery. It will run
my computer for a lot longer than the old gel-cell that came with it.
Since
we're on the end of a power transmission line, it gets a fair amount of
use.

Do you have to worry about fumes from the car battery, or do you only use
the "sealed" type of car battery?
==================
The 'fumes ' you refer to are hydrogen and oxygen ,with hydrogen potentially
dangerous when not vented.
That's why I keep non-sealed lead acid batteries on a well ventilated loft.

BTW : Hydrogen has such a low density that , as tests (not by me ) have
proved , it is impossible to ignite hydrogen released from vertically
positioned tubing by a naked flame located at a distance of more than 100
mm ( 4 inches) from the hydrogen exhaust.

Providing this info does not mean I wish to encourage anyone to 'mess about
with hydrogen'.
It is only to show that hydrogen doesn't spread throughout an enclosed space
but ,upon release, moves upwards very rapidly .

Frank GM0CSZ / KN6WH

Ed Huntress wrote:
"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message
oups.com...
I am the "lucky" owner of a number of older UPSes.

So what can a person build out of these?

The batteries are for the most part dead but the remainder of the
components seem to be in good condition.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

TMT

If you can get your hands on a copy of the 2005 ARRL Handbook, there are
several suggestions in there (radio-related, but you can improvise from
them), and some information about UPS's.

One is a charger for 12V storage batteries in general, including car
batteries. Another is an emergency power supply (you can just run two wires
to your car battery, or a bank of deep-discharge batteries wired in parallel
if you're so inclined). Depending on the model you have, you can get 160 W
to over 300 W of 120 VAC and/or 12VDC from them.

Mine (an APC Back-UPS 600) is now wired to an old car battery. It will run
my computer for a lot longer than the old gel-cell that came with it. Since
we're on the end of a power transmission line, it gets a fair amount of use.

--
Ed Huntress

Ed from Ed I just picked up a apc bk500. I charged it most of the night
and the voltage only shows 98 volt on battery. The instructions on the
internet show some sort of cd disc for windows which I do not have with
a good battery can I just use it as it is for a usp for the computer.
no alarm led lights on and it appears to be working fine thanks Ed

"Ed ke6bnl" wrote in message
oups.com...

Ed Huntress wrote:
"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message
oups.com...
I am the "lucky" owner of a number of older UPSes.

So what can a person build out of these?

The batteries are for the most part dead but the remainder of the
components seem to be in good condition.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

TMT

If you can get your hands on a copy of the 2005 ARRL Handbook, there are
several suggestions in there (radio-related, but you can improvise from
them), and some information about UPS's.

One is a charger for 12V storage batteries in general, including car
batteries. Another is an emergency power supply (you can just run two
wires
to your car battery, or a bank of deep-discharge batteries wired in
parallel
if you're so inclined). Depending on the model you have, you can get 160
W
to over 300 W of 120 VAC and/or 12VDC from them.

Mine (an APC Back-UPS 600) is now wired to an old car battery. It will
run
my computer for a lot longer than the old gel-cell that came with it.
Since
we're on the end of a power transmission line, it gets a fair amount of
use.

--
Ed Huntress

Ed from Ed I just picked up a apc bk500. I charged it most of the night
and the voltage only shows 98 volt on battery. The instructions on the
internet show some sort of cd disc for windows which I do not have with
a good battery can I just use it as it is for a usp for the computer.
no alarm led lights on and it appears to be working fine thanks Ed

I'm not aware of the inner workings of these things, Ed, nor have I put an
AC voltmeter on the output, running off the car battery, to see what actual
voltage I'm getting. The computer runs fine off of it but now you have my
curiosity going.

--
Ed Huntress

Ed from Ed I just picked up a apc bk500. I charged it most of the night
and the voltage only shows 98 volt on battery. The instructions on the
internet show some sort of cd disc for windows which I do not have with
a good battery can I just use it as it is for a usp for the computer.
no alarm led lights on and it appears to be working fine thanks Ed

I'm not aware of the inner workings of these things, Ed, nor have I put an
AC voltmeter on the output, running off the car battery, to see what actual
voltage I'm getting. The computer runs fine off of it but now you have my
curiosity going.

It might be worth re-checking the AC output voltage using a voltmeter
which reads "true RMS". Most inexpensive voltmeters actually read the
peak voltage, and display an RMS value calculated based on the
assumption that the waveform is sinusoidal.

A lot of backup power supplies use inverters that create a distinctly
non-sinusoidal waveform... it's sometimes a square wave, and sometimes
a "stepped" waveform which crudely approximates a sinusoid.

It's entirely possible that the APC BK500 creates a non-sinusoidal
waveform, whose RMS value is close to the nominal 120 VAC, but whose
peak voltage is lower than that of a true sinusoid having 120 VAC RMS.
This could cause most inexpensive voltmeters to read a value that's
too low.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

The APC BK500 has a step Output waveform that would be no problem for a
computer and monitor.
MGE UPS systems are a sinewave

"Dave Platt" wrote in message
...
Ed from Ed I just picked up a apc bk500. I charged it most of the night
and the voltage only shows 98 volt on battery. The instructions on the
internet show some sort of cd disc for windows which I do not have with
a good battery can I just use it as it is for a usp for the computer.
no alarm led lights on and it appears to be working fine thanks Ed

I'm not aware of the inner workings of these things, Ed, nor have I put an
AC voltmeter on the output, running off the car battery, to see what
actual
voltage I'm getting. The computer runs fine off of it but now you have my
curiosity going.

It might be worth re-checking the AC output voltage using a voltmeter
which reads "true RMS". Most inexpensive voltmeters actually read the
peak voltage, and display an RMS value calculated based on the
assumption that the waveform is sinusoidal.

A lot of backup power supplies use inverters that create a distinctly
non-sinusoidal waveform... it's sometimes a square wave, and sometimes
a "stepped" waveform which crudely approximates a sinusoid.

It's entirely possible that the APC BK500 creates a non-sinusoidal
waveform, whose RMS value is close to the nominal 120 VAC, but whose
peak voltage is lower than that of a true sinusoid having 120 VAC RMS.
This could cause most inexpensive voltmeters to read a value that's
too low.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!