Jerry said:If you remove the battery, there are some numbers on it, including its
rating. Take a tape measure and measure its dimensions. You will see
the Voltage, Amp Hours, and then the part numbers on the battery.
These batteries are an industry standard. In the APC, they mount them
up with their own mountings. You can either go directly to APC and
order a battery replacement kit, or go to an electronics parts
distributor, and order the battery as a part. I would believe your
UPS uses 2 of 12 Volt batteries. I have no idea of the Ampere Hours
of them in your particular model.
Because of the way the batteries are mounted in, it will take someone
who is used to doing some technical work in this nature. Most of the
TV service shops, should be able to change the batteries for you,
especially if you supply the batteries, and pay them the labour for
their time.
I have 2 APC 1000's here at the office. They are using 12 Volts, 12
Amp Hour batteries. The part number is LC-RA1212P. This may not be
the same for yours. Going from memory, I think these batteries cost
me about $60 each. There are two in each UPS. They last about 3 to 4
years.
Now this comes to mind about batteries. I was thinking along the lines of
regular batteries that supply power all the time and get recharged and
reused. This battery has a total usage of 1 minute 35 seconds. Is this a
factor or will the battery fail at the same age as others of this type.
J.
kony said:The originally spec'd sealed lead-acid cells are the best
bang for the buck. Even with no use they will degrade in
3-5 years' time and have lower capacity towards the end of
that period. Think of them like a car battery, they just
wear out eventually but if you let them run down to nothing
frequently they'll have an even shorter lifespan. Some
companies consider a 2-year replacement interval prudent
when it's typical, little-to-no-usage pattern.
Jimmy said:You sure seem to know your batteries. Would you happen to know where I
can get a USB cable for one of these? It looks different than any I
have around here.
Vanguard said:Some have the A ends, some have the B ends, and some have one of each
at each end. See http://www.hardwarebook.net/connector/bus/usb.html.
There are also miniature versions of these connectors.
Neither of those looks like the one I need. It looks like a telephone plug
but wider at one and fits into any of the USB jacks on the computer.
Noozer said:Are you sure that it's USB and not Serial?
The jack is similar to a network jack. The cable has the RJ45 plug to
go into the network jack and the other end goes into the PC. It
should have the USB or Serial (9 pin DB) plug at the PC end.
Jimmy said:It would seem to me it is USB. One end is plugged into the front USB
port and the other end goes in what says Data Port on the Backup Unit.
I just checked and a network cable does plug into it.
You know of where to find this cable?
Thanks.
J.
Vanguard said:Sounds like a proprietary cable. Some USPs use specialized cables.
Mine has one that looks like two DB-9 connectors on each end except
the wiring does NOT match RS-232 wiring specifications. The DB-9
connector at the computer end is RS-232 compliant but the DB-9
connector at the UPS end is some specialized pin-out used by the UPS
manufacturer.
This special cable didn't come with the UPS?
You sure the port is actually a USB port? Maybe it is a Firewire
(IEEE-1394) port; see
http://www.hardwarebook.net/connector/bus/ieee1394.html. Best place
to ask would be APC.
It would seem to me it is USB. One end is plugged into the front USB port
and the other end goes in what says Data Port on the Backup Unit. I just
checked and a network cable does plug into it.
You know of where to find this cable?
kony said:It's proprietary as are many UPS cables. They even had an
annoying tendency to take a standard looking serial cable
and rewire it so you'd need their special cable. You could
buy one from them, but if it were me, I'd at least take a
multimeter and get the pinout for that one while it's still
sorta-working, as this would be useful if you ever decided
to make your own cable (which shouldn't be too hard, merely
crimping on the same RJ plug onto a USB cable, once you know
the pinout).
Great idea. I bet someone has already done that by now when I think of it
but I have a meter and wouldn't mind the experience. I wonder if I would
need a special crimping tool for either of those connectors.
kony said:Might be easiest (and just as cheap) to just cut the end
off of an old USB cable (with the plug already moulded on),
then for the RJ plug, yes you'd need a type-specific RJ(nn)
crimper for that, which doesn't actually "crimp"... but call
it that if you want anyone to know what you're talking
about.
Maybe I can just splice the middle of two cables.
kony said:Sure, there are a bunch of different alternatives, including
opening up the UPS and putting a USB socket on it (to repace
the RJ socket or wired parallel to it) so it accepts a
standard USB cable.