Hello all!
Long time lurker, first time poster.
I stumbled upon a local commercial UPS refurbisher selling a whole lot of Eaton PWHR12280W4FR's pulled from decommissioned units. I have been looking for a way to extend my UPS's runtime and figured this was the way to go. I have 2 Back-UPS Pro 1500, a SMT1500 and a SUA1500. I figure the two Back-UPS Pro's are technically designed to have an external battery pack so they might be the ideal candidates. If not the SMT and SUA are both pretty stout units and maybe they can be used with the batteries.
As for the batteries I figured, even if they are down on capacity, they will be significantly better than the tiny 9 or 18 ah ones in the UPS's now. So in an uneducated purchase of passion, I grabbed 4! The kicker is they were only $50 each.
Having brought the batteries home and started connecting them to the UPS I get they feeling I should do some more research and land here. ( I am realizing a inverter/charger is the better option over these UPS's but I am going to have to save up for that.
Reading through the forums I am curious about how these batteries should be working. When I got them, they all were sitting at 12.8-12.85v. I have a benchtop power supply (inexpensive Chinese unit used for electronics testing) that can do 150w out. If I hook one of the batteries up and set it to the voltage of 13.8v and turn it on the current will bounce up to the 6A current limit then quick drop down to under 1A and slowly keep falling while the voltage stays constant.
From other threads it seems like the current should stay maxed much longer until the battery voltage comes up? Does the drop in current mean the batteries are essentially full or is my power supply not strong enough? Do I need to find a higher current battery charger, 30 or 60A, to true charge the batteries? Will charging at low currents hurt the battery life?
Should I just send these to the recycler and start saving for an inverter/charger setup and some LiFePO4? Am I going to blow up or burn down my workshop?
Last disclaimer, I now realize that 10ga wire in my setup is very undersized for the batteries used. I have an 80 amp fuse between the bank and the UPS, but I did not think about the link between the batteries being a problem. I will rectify this oversight asap.
Long time lurker, first time poster.
I stumbled upon a local commercial UPS refurbisher selling a whole lot of Eaton PWHR12280W4FR's pulled from decommissioned units. I have been looking for a way to extend my UPS's runtime and figured this was the way to go. I have 2 Back-UPS Pro 1500, a SMT1500 and a SUA1500. I figure the two Back-UPS Pro's are technically designed to have an external battery pack so they might be the ideal candidates. If not the SMT and SUA are both pretty stout units and maybe they can be used with the batteries.
As for the batteries I figured, even if they are down on capacity, they will be significantly better than the tiny 9 or 18 ah ones in the UPS's now. So in an uneducated purchase of passion, I grabbed 4! The kicker is they were only $50 each.
Having brought the batteries home and started connecting them to the UPS I get they feeling I should do some more research and land here. ( I am realizing a inverter/charger is the better option over these UPS's but I am going to have to save up for that.
Reading through the forums I am curious about how these batteries should be working. When I got them, they all were sitting at 12.8-12.85v. I have a benchtop power supply (inexpensive Chinese unit used for electronics testing) that can do 150w out. If I hook one of the batteries up and set it to the voltage of 13.8v and turn it on the current will bounce up to the 6A current limit then quick drop down to under 1A and slowly keep falling while the voltage stays constant.
From other threads it seems like the current should stay maxed much longer until the battery voltage comes up? Does the drop in current mean the batteries are essentially full or is my power supply not strong enough? Do I need to find a higher current battery charger, 30 or 60A, to true charge the batteries? Will charging at low currents hurt the battery life?
Should I just send these to the recycler and start saving for an inverter/charger setup and some LiFePO4? Am I going to blow up or burn down my workshop?
Last disclaimer, I now realize that 10ga wire in my setup is very undersized for the batteries used. I have an 80 amp fuse between the bank and the UPS, but I did not think about the link between the batteries being a problem. I will rectify this oversight asap.
