Refurbishing a UPS

[bigben2k]

I salvaged this unit from the office: it's a "Personal Powercell", by APC. It never quite worked well, beeping away every few minutes.

I thought I could at least add a bigger battery to it, but as I found out from reading, the charging circuit probably couldn't handle it.

This unit doesn't have a serial connection, for monitoring, like the bigger models do.

[bigben2k]

Upon inspection, I found that the gell cell battery pack was cracked. Voltages were around 7~8.

I'll be ordering a replacement from Allelectronics. These things are quite common.:D

The UPS is only rated for 170 Watts, so I'm not sure how well it'll do with a new PC:(

[jtroutma]

With most UPSs, that's all that needs to happen. Someone with a bit of time on their hands and a few bucks can replace the battery and have a fully functional unit in no time. The batteries only last 2-3 years at the most and need to be replaced about that often.

There is probably nothing else wrong with the unit.

I have personally "refurbished" 3 UPS myself and they are now all in perfect working order. All I had to do was just replace the battery :)
My best find was a TrippLite 750W UPS (Watts, not VAC) that was sitting in the corner of an insurance company and they claimed that it never worked and wanted to get rid of it. They said that all I had to do was carry it out of the place and it was mine. :D (Not an EASY task but manageable; unit weight 50+ lbs) All I had to do was plug it into the wall for 24 hours with no load and now it works great. I have my main rig, 19" monitor, pump, router, and dual DSLs running on it and it works great!!!!!

Hows that for knowing what to do............... :D

[murray13]

I've refurbished one also. Mine is a APC 1400. It had no output at all in either battery or with the line plugged in. Got it from the IT guys at work. They replaced it without really checking if it could be fixed. They did check the battery and said it was fine. So I took it home, found a bad relay, replaced it (cost $5) and I had a $650 UPS, w/monitoring. Best $5 I ever spent. It powers my entire system, PC, chiller, mini-fridge, 21" monitor, cable modem, router, and I get about 25 min of backup. Winblows even had the driver so I didn't have to go looking for one.

[jtroutma]

That is a really nice unit there murry13. I also have an APC 1100 w/ monitoring. Only problem was that this one must have taken a lightning hit because 4 out of the 16 MOSFETS were smoked and (litterally) blown to bits. :)

Now I can ship the unit out to a company back east and they will completly refurbish the unit, repair any damage, replace the batteries, and ship it back to me with a 3 year warranty for $250. Only draw back is that if their is any damage to the printer circuit board itself (not the components on the board) then they can only scrap it for parts and I am out that money.

decisions decisions......

[BillA]

Ben
you're gonna order a battery ??
those things are $13 or less
go to EPO on Fondren, or the one in Webster

[mfpmax]

Ah, its so cute...its like my APC 420 had a little brother or something :)

[bigben2k]

Originally posted by unregistered
Ben
you're gonna order a battery ??
those things are $13 or less
go to EPO on Fondren, or the one in Webster
Thanks for the tip! I was going to order it here (http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=160400&item=GC-1270&type=store), but if I can get it cheaper than $22... I'm in NW, so I think Fondren would be closest. I'll be in the Galleria area today.

Originally posted by mfpmax
Ah, its so cute...its like my APC 420 had a little brother or something :)
LOL! I know what you mean! What I really wanted was an APC 800 smart UPS, but this was WAY cheaper :)

[bigben2k]

Got it.

It was 16.95, not 13.00 . They also had an 8.5 Ah battery, same size, but it was 23.99, so I passed, and stuck with the 7 Ah one.

It's charging now...

[BillA]

hmmm . . . .
I paid 13 something 3 wks ago at the EPO in Webster (same name, different store)
and as I recall they were even more at Frys
the best deal is a wholesale battery place on Clark St (United ??)

the itty bitty UPS wont support too much
I have a ($15 garage sale) smart 420 and with only one 21"er and the box I have only 5 min or so to kill it
won't support the dual monitors at all (excess currrent drain)

[Joe]

most IT geeks seem to get UPS's for cheap this way. I have 1 1250vA SmartUPS and am looking to get another one. All I needed to do was swap the batteries for new ones... 100$ per UPS gives me 35 min of uptime for my servers, and 25min uptime for my workstations.

[hardwired]

I've gotten quite a few units from people the best was an extra battery unit for the stacking APC UPSs guy didn't know what he had so he gave me one for telling him what he bought, the guy does company buy outs.