[TriLUG] recommendations for UPS 12V batteries?

Sat Apr 18 09:58:38 EDT 2020

On Sat, 18 Apr 2020, shay walters wrote:

> I usually get much longer lifetime than that with batteries I've used in UPSs. 
> Seems like about 5 years is what I usually get.

Good to know.

The batteries that lasted 10years were in a different UPS that has 2 banks of 4 
batteries outputting 48V. The ones that lasted only 2 years were in an APC with 
1 or 2 batteries. I didn't know if it was the UPS or the batteries.

> I haven't had any particular brand - I've gotten batteries from commercial 
> supply places like ADI (usually PowerSonic) and Interstate Battery (their 
> house brand, often).  The guys at Interstate told me several times that all 
> the brands are made in the same factory in China and have different brands 
> printed on them.

So all the batteries are the same then. ;-\ It might be the UPS that's being 
nicer to the batteries.

> If you go to a commercial supply house, and if you work for a company that has 
> an account with them, you can ask them to write up the sales ticket as a "cash 
> ticket" for that company.  That way you get the pricing that company gets but 
> you still pay for it.

Ah. I used to work at $BIG_GOVT_AGENCY and whenever I'd go into Batteries Plus 
they'd notice my photo_ID hanging around my neck and give me a nice discount 
without me even asking. I didn't know what it was about. I was afraid to ask in 
case they went "Whoops, you don't know the secret handshake. I guess you don't 
get the discount then".

>    One thing to watch out for is that a lot of places sell batteries with
> the F1 terminal which is about 3/16" wide and most UPSs use batteries with
> the F2 terminal which is 1/4" wide, so be sure you get the F2 terminal.  A
> F1 battery will work, but the terminals don't fit as well and probably end
> up with more voltage drop, especially over time.  Both the places I
> mentioned above have both types, and if you're in a physical store you can
> check out what you're getting.  Online, it's often not specified or
> sometimes even specified incorrectly.

Yes I know about this. I call them wide/narrow. I didn't know there was an 
official name for them. Half of my APCs use narrow. It's a real pain. I have to 
pull out the battery to check before I get a replacement. I can't imagine why 
anyone would want the narrow ones. Even so, the connector makes two lines on the 
tabs when you pull them off, so they're really only contacting on two lines 
about 1mm across, rather than the width of the whole flat tab.

> Lately I've been getting batteries from Amazon with pretty good
> results.  I check carefully for the F2 terminal listed in the write-up and
> look for any reviews that say they received batteries with F1 connectors
> when it was supposed to be F2.  I just got a couple of this model a few
> days ago and it has the correct terminals  The description says "T2" rather
> than "F2".  If I'm reading it right, the F2 is the male connector on the
> battery and T2 is the female connector on the wire - whatever, it's the
> right size.  They claim 9 AH rather than 7 AH which is standard for this
> form factor.
> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EUGZMOE

The Batteries Plus people are nice to me and I'm happy to support the local 
crowd. They're a bit more expensive than the Amazon ones, but that's OK.

Knowing that the batteries are likely all the same, I'll see if their's, which 
last 2yrs in an APC last any longer in the 48V big machine.

Thanks Joe

> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 5:59 AM Joseph Mack NA3T via TriLUG <
> trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
>
>> I used to get them off ebay and they lasted a year.
>>
>> Then I've been getting them from Batteries Plus and they last 2 years.
>>
>> I've just had the batteries fail in another UPS and when I pull them out,
>> I find
>> that they've been in there for 10 years. They were made in Vietnam. (This
>> is
>> impressive. Even a car battery doesn't last that long.)
>>
>> Any recommendations for battery suppliers?
>>
>> Thanks Joe
>>
>> --
>> Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
>> jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant
>> map generator at http://www.wm7d.net/azproj.shtml
>> Homepage http://www.austintek.com/ It's GNU/Linux!
>> --
>> This message was sent to: Shay Walters <shaywalters at gmail.com>
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>

-- 
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant
map generator at http://www.wm7d.net/azproj.shtml
Homepage http://www.austintek.com/ It's GNU/Linux!