These UPS units are harnessing great power. Better to use new APC-cells unless you know the cheaper generic-cell is exact-spec and high-quality. On the nicer pro-consumer/small-business APC units, you can usually replace the battery-cell once or twice. The gel-cell batteries inside these UPS units only last about 3-5 years.
I think a nice "whole house" unit is on the horizon, but good ones are expensive and that does little for the office. I have nice APC UPS units on just about everything (all computer systems, NAS, networking, TVs, Amps, etc.).
Any desktop we install or support get an APC-UPS (now-days with LCD and AVR). Maybe this is just how they work, but for the battery to drain so fast powering nothing just really caught me by surprise.Įven on new-construction and properly grounded 120v AC electrical systems (in the USA), I have seen lightning blow-holes in circuit boards and kill various machines (they act as a giant fuse). I guess this is more of a rant, but I was sort of expecting that these units would be a little more power efficient. Basically, a battery that weighs as much as my desktop lost half its charge powering absolutely nothing during the blackout (in retrospect, I should have turned it off, but I learned something from my mistake). Or I don't know, maybe the monitor uses 2W in the off mode? Anyway, I came back 3 or 4 hours later, the unit was pretty hot, and the 26 ah battery was drained to 40%. My PC is set to automatically shut down during a power outage when the UPS battery gets low, but I didn't want to drain it, just test that it works during a power loss scenario. It transferred over to battery fine, so I shut down the PC and manually flipped the off switch. I thought it would be a good time to test the new battery backup to my Alienware desktop. I was doing some work on the house today and cut power to the circuit at the the breaker box.