How to Quickly Test UPS Batteries Without the UPS Itself
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ม.ค. 2020
- The method start at 4:37 (apparently I'm a fly who can't remember to put timecodes in the video).
Some car battery testers can be used with UPS batteries to quickly and easily tell how much life remains using internal resistance measurements.
Long time no videos. Also, did I just subconsciously steal Ben Krasnow's outro?
I have a second channel:
/ @markfurneaux2659 - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Wooooo, Glad to see you back!
Hooooly hell.... After a year since the last upload.... He's back! Love your videos!
Glad to have you back! I was very excited for all your projects you had originally mentioned! Can't wait for more!
I came here to learn how to change my battery but I became an electrical engineer. You rock.
Congratulations on YT-Certification, Fellow Electrical Engineer!
Glad to hear from you again, hope all is well 😊
Good to have you back. All your videos have been very interesting AND informative.
Glad to see you posting a new Video!
I really like your videos and there aren't really any other youtube channels who do similar stuff in the style as you do.
Also, thanks for your wiki. I find myself using it very often to get new Ideas for my homelab :)
Thank you! I've been using a car battery tester for testing these for a while now, but this video really demystifies how these testers work and make me feel more comfortable trusting the reading it gives.
Great to see you back!
its been a while. Good to see you back
I had no idea the attention span of a fly is even longer than mine...
Thank you for sharing your expertise sir, very helpful indeed. No worries to get caught off guard by a dead UPS back up battery ever again.
Very glad to see this demonstration. I was at my computer when the city power went out and every piece of equipment that was connected to my UPS shut down.
Glad to see you back
Excellent video. Very user-oriented information. Nicely done.
Best video I've seen on testing this style of battery. Off to buy one of those testers right now. Thank you.
I like the videos you make and I am happy to see you making videos again
I know this video is 3 years old now, but the information is still relevant. And the same tool is still available on Amazon. Only difference with mine is it will keep the last test settings, which is nice. Thanks for posting. I browsed a few other videos and subscribed.
Thanks Mark, I wondered how to set up my car battery tester to do my ups batteries. Now I know and it works great. Thanks.
I'm glad I found this video. I have to start testing ups batteries for my work. Great video thanks for making it!!!!
Good to see you back tux man.
Welcome back!! NICE
What an insanely helpful video. I bought an Ancel BST100 for ~£17 and followed your instructions - worked perfectly, and that model did remember the settings between uses as well.
Very informative and well-done. Thank you!
I have similar meter for car batteries and I never thought to test UPS batteries wit it. That is very useful video!. Thanks a lot.
Welcome back Mark, and as always, great vid
The demonstration of internal resistance measurement is excellent.
Also very helpful was your suggestion to buy the 9Ah vs. 7Ah battery.
We subscribed.
This is absolute great stuff. I was wondering why the UPS is rejecting the battery that when measured it tests fine but when I attach a newer batt it stops beeping. Now thanks to your great info, I should be able to tell why. Very useful stuff. Thanks for such great video.
Another thing to look at is the terminals... F1 or F2. You can always squeeze an F2 lug to work on an F1 spade... and you can get an adapter to use an F1 lug on an F2 spade. But if you pay attention to the specs, you can get these batteries with the correct spade terminal for your UPS cables.
0:00 WHY to test them.
4:37 WHAT to use to test them.
8:12 Testing explained (new, good battery for reference)
10:30 HOW to test them (internal resistance)
12:30 BAD BATTERY example, for comparison
Great video. UART, micro controller, BAUD rate. That takes me back in time. Thanks.
If you're counting, I'm interesting in any future videos involving you trying to automate or mess with the USB port of that battery tester. Thanks for the helpful info.
Great information. Sometimes finding the specifications on the battery is difficult or impossible to find because of the stickers on the battery or the manufacturer doesn't give all the specs. This video gives me enough to go on. Thanks!
Pull off the sticker. All the juicy bits are covered under that so they can force you to go to them for a replacement
This is one of the best videos ever, on this subject. I liked the end part about how to save money on these. I need to replace ones in a UPS that I have but never use. But, I live in Houston, and we have power outages often -- during Hurricane season and with lot of electrical maintenance lately. Thanks for sharing.
I don't even have a ups, but still find your video very interesting. Start uploading more frequently though.
Many Thank's , I've been saving, and learning a lot.
Thank you. I appreciate the information and your efforts.
Good Stuff :-) Just replaced a 6 pack of batteries and I'm almost certain that 5 out of 6 are still good. Ordered one of these testers
Merci Mark. Excellent video.
Nice one, very helpful. Thanks mate. :3
wow ! Great video, thanks for sharing !
Thanks guy; simple and informative.
thank youuu - i needed this video
where did you find data sheets for the batteries that show internal resistance values? I can't seem to locate them.
Great Video with Great Information. Thanks
TU...perfect video. Didn't know what amp to select for this type of battery. I have the exact same tester and tested exactly same type battery.
Thanks you, very helpful to be able to be able to test the UPS batteries, better than guessing! I went with the Ancel BT500 that uses a smart phone app via bluetooth, upsides are; can define batteries (for which it retains the settings), keeps all previous reports and lets you send them to text, email, print, etc... and the unit is very compact.
So Mark, what would be an acceptable range tolerance for the measured internal resistance? +- 10%, 50% etc? I am reviving 18650 cells and purchased a meter that measurese intrnal resistance more or less accurately. I've foynd that around 24-25 milli ohms (or less) is acceptable. If the internal resistance hits 30 or above the cells have tested (using capacity tests etc.) bad.
Awesome video
WOOHOO, YOU'RE BACK!!! :D
Thanks. I bought that Ancel BA101 testing on Amazon for $40 CAD (Prime discount plus a coupon). Works great and takes the guess work out of figuring out what are bad batteries, good for smaller UPSs and good for high performance UPSs.
I bought four brand new 9Ah batteries locally from a reputable shop and they all test at 45mohm and fail self tests in the UPS. This video + the tester gave me the ammo to go back and tell them the batteries they sold me are garbage.
This explanation is perfect
Thank you for making this video 🙏
Elementary question but: Why does the internal resistance increase with time?
Thanks for this video Mark. I picked up an Ancel BA301 and it works great! Also, this model remembers the CA setting between sessions. Great little unit. Btw- speaking of trash batteries, I measured a defective one at 194.42 mOhm 😀
Thank you, this is exactly what I was looking for. Internal resistance is a useful indicator of battery health. Thank you for pointing that out. I already have a Foxwell BT-715 that is able to measure internal resistance. It does this in a back handed way by applying a known load and determining the difference between the no load terminal voltage and the loaded terminal voltage along with the current flowing. This is far more difficult to determine with basic tools like a multi-meter and DC capable clamp meter and the ability to perform some basic arithmetic. Anyway, the two batteries from the UPS (APC Back-UPS XS 1300) I was checking had internal resistances 73.54 and 76.67 milli-ohms so it is evident that they are bad as the data sheet indicated they should be around 19 milli-ohms.
When I discovered your video I said, >18 minutes - too long but I decided to give it a shot. When you started talking, I said, OK this guy thinks the same way (asks himself the same questions) as I would, (When you talked about minimizing risk by hot swapping batteries) so I’ll listen a bit more. Eventually you got to the discussion about internal resistance then I was sure I had found a reliable information source. Later you mentioned about $CDN and finally I noticed you are a Canadian Engineer - Electrical I assume. This explained a lot in terms of how you approached this problem, found relevant data, and interpreted that data, etc.
I, too, am a bit of a UPS fanatic. I have four APC Back-UPS XS1300s supporting computer and entertainment equipment distributed throughout the house. I also have four older APC Smart UPS units, 2 X 1000VA, 1 X 1400 VA and 1 X 3000VA. These older units have all been modified to use external 35 AH deep cycle batteries and provide more than an hour of backup for my servers, Internet connection, alarm system and home automation equipment. I also have a 7200 Watt (continuous output) emergency power plant that I use for longer outages. BTW, I had to reduce the sensitivity settings on all the UPS units so that they would accept power from the emergency power plant. I also have a few smaller UPS units that are used for bedroom table lamps, clocks, etc. And no, I don’t have a UPS on my microwave (other commenters) but it runs just fine on the emergency power system.
I have subscribed to your channel and given you a like on this video. I’ll take a look at the other stuff you have posted soon. Thanks again.
You simply connected a larger battery (35 AH) to your UPS and it is able to charge it fully?
I've seen numerous YT videos that show hooking up large(r) batteries to various UPS models. I'd be interested to know what mods you made to achieve this configuration. I just installed new cells in my Smart-UPS 3000 (SU3000RM 5U). Made my own packs using cells from fleabay and the fuse & harness from the previous pack. The unit is charging them as I write this.
This unit also has an Anderson connector on the back for a "SU3000 48V, 816VAh" unit. Is this port something I could use for a (customized) external pack along the lines of what you did?
@@louistournas120 Yes. I normally replace the native battery wiring with longer heavier gauge (2 AWG with red or black insulation). This sometimes means removing and soldering new wires on the UPS motherboard. I drill holes and grommet them in the existing casing to bring the wires outside the enclosure. And I apply suitable connectors (typically crimp on ring connectors with red of black insulators) for the batteries used. The battery type I use is always identical chemistry to the OEM battery (Typically Sealed Lead Acid Deep Cycle). Such batteries normally have the same open circuit fully charged voltage and float voltage as the OEM batteries. This ensure that the native charger will operate fine to charge and float the battery as required. The main difference is that these larger capacity batteries will take more time to charge. For the larger UPS units, the battery can be 24 or 48 V. This is generally achieved by creating these battery banks using a series of identical (both in age and AH capacity) 12 V batteries wired in series.
@@andrewr7820 I have an older SU3000 wired with four 35AH 12 V deep cycle batteries. These batteries are configured as two banks of 24 V batteries matching the OEM setup. I also have an unmodified APC SMX2000L. This is a rack mounted unit. The base unit has one 120V battery module (10 X 12 V batteries and about 50 lbs.) that is integral to the UPS unit with an Anderson style connector. I also have two additional rack mounted (19” X 2U) battery modules. Each of these units holds two of the 120 V battery modules that connect internally with Anderson connectors. These units are back wired and can be daisy chained together with the unit closest to UPS unit jacking into a connector on the back of the base unit. See response above for notes on charging.
@deanrhodenizer938 Thank you for the extremely informative reply. I think I'll look at creating an external pack that connects to the rear (red) Anderson connector port of the SU3000, unless you think there's a better way to do it.
You can also use a power resistor and volt meter as a cheap and dirty alternative to a dedicated tester, ohms law will let you calculate the internal resistance. Even an automotive bulb will suffice as a go/no go test. Just needs to draw several amps from the battery so you can observe the voltage drop. For a capacity test run the battery down at its rated c rate ie 7ah at C20 = 350mA for 20 hours until whatever termination voltage is in the datasheet.
This was really helpful
you wait till 5 minutes in to tell you if you have to buy a product... congratulations you beat the TH-cam algorithm!
Any ideas on testing a battery with
Super helpful! Thanks!
Hi Mark. Brand new 12v 9AH i just picked up are measuring around 20-21 resistance. What resistance do you personally decide to replace a UPS battery? I have some of the same batteries measuring 27-28 resistance now and they are getting long in the tooth. Thanks for the great pointer about the car battery tester. I have the Foxwell and it works great! BTW the new 9AH are measuring right around 165 CA.
Thanks for sharing. I do a very similar test of my Lithium Batteries. Never thought about doing this for my UPS Batteries and like you I use UPS's everywhere in my house. I never change batteries on a live system because of potential arching which presents a potential explosion hazard. Most of my UPS's take 2 batteries others 4 and very few only take 1.
AGM batteries don't pose an explosion risk since the hydrogen is absorbed in the battery itself. The don't vent to the environment unless there is a horrible failure which you will know long before you open the UPS. I've never seen a flooded battery in a consumer UPS for this very reason.
Now this is epic.
Good vid.
I bought an ANCEL BA301 as it had a few more features than the BA101.
- Retains the meter settings you set it to on last test ran.
- maybe the 101 has it, but the ability to print out the setting your meter detected on the battery-under-test.
- lifetime updates via USB cable
Anyway, I ran the test meter BEFORE topping off each cylinder with DISTILLED WATER.
- I THEN TOPPED OFF each cell with Distilled water. Ran battery tester tests.
- I connected a Battery Tender Trickle Charger Junior and let it run overnight.
-The next morning I disconnected the charger and reconnected the battery meter.
-Re-ran tests and impedance looked better, Status was now GOOD BATTERY.
NOTE: even though my charger was a lower end trickle charger, it is a good idea to leave caps off during charging. I had at least one cap emit a LOUD "POP"! Then it came off, flew a bit and landed on the top section of the battery,
So I removed the rest of the battery caps.
Reviewed all cylinders.
Cleaned all-cap areas with Q-TIPS, to remove excess acid/water.
Added water where needed.
So the battery was salvaged, Reinstalled into ups and ups unit works fine.
Battery meter status, after refilling with distilled water, changed to GOOD BATTERY.
Having a battery test meter that checks IMPEDANCE makes a big difference. A very handy piece of test equip to have onhand.
VERY helpful. Thank you.
Thanks for the video. Good suggestion on how to test UPS batteries. I know I get errors on my UPS units alot.. even after replacing the batteries after a short while. Having a little trouble with the Ancel BST100 tester I just picked up. Sometimes it says CHECK CONNECTIONS. But the seem pretty solid. Screen is on and solid. Other times it says the resistance is 0. That can't be right I assume. Ever run into this? Did I just get a bad tester?
Very informative video. I am looking for this type to go in a car jumper box. Thank you. I will be back.
Great tips. Thanks.
Very good video! I have a ton of old batteries that needs to be checked, i just have a question. Do i need to charge the batteries to 100% before i test?
Thanks!
Thank you man!
Great vid. I notice you are wearing your Order of the Engineer ring. Here in the U.S. I don't see many; but, grads from Western New England University are inducted into the order. I wear mine as well. R. Baribeau
Great video thanks. I don't recommend swapping batteries with the power connected though. There are live connections inside and with some UPSs the battery terminals are at mains potential to ground.
What level of internal resistance do you consider the cutoff point for the battery to be usable?
Hi there
I learned alot watching your video.
I have a Canadian Tire Eliminator Booster Pack with Air Compressor that is rated at 1400 Peak Battery Amps and 700 Crank Assist amps. I am trying to learn how to test the battery without having to dissasemble the unit.
First would you say this type of battery would be a AGM Flat plate battery?
Second question ... since the CA or Cranking Amp rating of the battery is needed to perform the test do you have any idea how I could get this CA rating information without taking the unit apart?
My idea was to get a tester like the one you used ... connect the leads to the booster pack leads, turn the power on to the leads and do the test.
Thank you for any information that you can share.
so i have this kind of nice multimeter that has the little resistance symbol, which im guessing means when i switch it to that, it measures resistance. does that work as well? does it apply a small load to test the resistance like the battery tester? thanks!
Thanks, Mark. Do you have any advice for when a cable won't come off the terminal no matter how hard I pull?
Fwiw, that tester has a great alternator tester function also.
Question: OK let me get this right a lower m-ohms is better ? The higher resistance number or m-ohms the closer it is to end of life right ?
I use these for kayaking to power a small fish finder so I only need 5 hours tops and I have a bunch of old UPS batteries that still hold 5+ hours but are no good for the UPS. Now I have 4 old ones not sure what one is the best. I think now I do thanks for the help.
"Everything in my house is on a UPS": microwave, check!
You got me. Although I do have an inverter which can run it off a few batteries in parallel if I reeeally needed some popcorn...
very good info, thanks, i'll buy one tester like this one cause i have 2 ups batteries that shut down in seconds.
1. How do you know that RBC battery is AGM? 2. How do you know the target internal resistance, or peak amps of the RBC battery? I can't find anything online about my RBC109 battery. I also contacted APC, and they couldn't provide me with a rated peak amps, or nominal internal resistance. Do you have a link with specs for APC RBC batteries?
Great video! I put some LIFEPO4 lithium ion batteries into my UPS about 4 months ago and my UPS shut down yesterday during a very rare brown out yesterday. Can your method be used to test those batteries? Would anything be done differently?
Very good
Is there any ups on the market that tests the battery itself in a proper way ? I had several that lasted exactly one second under power interruption test , while the “battery bad” led wasn’t lit.
If you don have th milli ohms you can use the CA result. in this video it is 211 and 212. the slight change is probably due to the first reading heating the battery a bit which changed either the voltage or the ohms slightly
Hi. I just purchased such a battery for my alarm system. The battery connectors are too wide for the wired terminals to connect to. Any suggestions?
While these battery testers might give you an idea they are mostly for starter batteries.(it even shows cold cranking amps) The correct procedure is with an analyzer and charge discharge cycles to determine the capacity or maybe a 1khz test rignal to check the internal resistance too. Deep discharge batteries has a lower discharge rate than starter batteries. These testers determine the resistance by connecting a high load and calculate from the amps derived from it. While it's ok for starter batteries it's not so good for deep discharge batteries like that and you may get false readings. Basically a multimeter will be just fine to determine if they are good from the stand by voltage if you don't have an analyzer.
Hey Mark, do I need to charge the battery completely before testing? I just ordered a BST200, hopefully that works just as well.
He lives!
Would this type of test work for lithium ion batteries? I’ve read that the internal resistance for lithium ion batteries stays consistent throughout its life
Does this test work on batteries that are not fully charged? In other words, batteries in (or out) of a UPS that have not been used for years? Or do I need to make a nominal effort to charge them up for a while before I test them?
wow you are alive ?
So let correct if im wrong. If the battery is rated for internal 12.0 milliohms anything like 30, 40 milliohms will determine this as a bad battery?
Hey Mark, What if the same tester that you're using shows, "check connection" ??? on a 12VDC 3Ah battery attempting to test at "3. Out of Vehicle" and "2.AGM Flat Plate" with Cranking Amps just as you did. If I don't get an actual test result, I can't assume that the battery is bad. This is an actual APC battery pulled from an APC battery backup 350.
I have a Minute man Enterprise E2000RTXL2U that has six BB Battery BP7-12. Two of the batteries test bad. Can I buy 9AH replacements and mix them with the remaining 7AH batteries?
Seems to be mixed results when i try to search this.
Thank You
My ups is seems to be not sustaining charge (computer shutting down, and i also used a heatgun to test, lasted less than a minute on battery backup), i tested the batteries (2x) with a multimeter, and one is 12.66v and the other is 13.4v, i should replace the two batteries right?
Video, I've been looking for something like this but I didn't know what to set my tester on. Mine's made by top-down, similar to what you got.
I had a 24-volt system and it said replace batteries. I took them to the battery supply place and they said they'd give me $0.50 for the pair of them. Two of these is nearly as heavy as my car battery, I was expecting more than that.
Anyhow I brought them home and one charges up to 12.78 volts. I took the Caps off the other one and it took quite a bit of water to bring it up to level. There are two possibly just one cells that aren't charging. I've got a battery desulfator and I've got that connected to it now to see if maybe it'll jump start the dead cell or cells.
I set my tester to SAE instead of CCA.
I reduce the amperage down to 40, as low as it would go.
It tested out one-hundred percent state of health and 97% of charge.
I'll have to dig up the specs on my battery and test it using your method.
Thanks again, very informative. 👍
APC UPS units tend to charge the batteries really fast, they will be back at full float voltage within 2 hours. They will cook the internal batteries pretty fast, just like most small UPS units do. I took those internal batteries out, and instead used an external deep cycle battery to replace it, giving both much longer running time, and also letting the battery run around 20C cooler than it was in the case, increasing it's operational life. Also went for flooded cell, instead of AGM or gel, so that the APC "cook it till full" charge method would not kill the cells prematurely, by boiling off all the water in the cell, now I can just check every 3 months and top up a little, keeping the battery running longer.
As well get a slightly better UPS than the cheapest ones, preferably a little oversize, and one that has monitoring capability on it. The larger units will have both a self test feature and monitoring, so you get a record of the battery health when connected to a computer and running the UPS software, or the open source version, which I do.
Quick tip to tell with those 9Ah and 7.2 Ah units what the current capacity is, is to look at the terminals, the high current capable ones have the 6.3mm spades, the low current capacity ones use a smaller 4mm spade, and thus are capable of supplying much less current reliably. The low current types though are the typical gate motor and alarm batteries. They do not work well in a UPS, where they have to provide 20A or more to the transformer when in use.
Beware though of unknown brand name batteries, if the 12V 7.2/9Ah brick is light weight, typically for these around 1.8kg for the good ones, a light one is a fake unit, with less than half the number of plates, and a fill of polystyrene making up the rest of the cell inside. Only caveat is that you get lithium iron batteries in this form factor, and those are very light compared to lead acid, but are clearly marked as lithium iron, and have a slightly different charge and float requirement, but are a near drop in replacement for low power loads.
All the small UPSes I've dealt with use 10W chargers, so they usually take more than 2 hours to charge. APC units in general all overcharge the batteries, and this is one of the many practises that I don't condone and one of the reasons why I don't buy APC units anymore. For large UPSes, I think your practices make sense since the overall cost is higher.
@@TheUbuntuGuy All the small ones I have gotten for free with dead batteries almost always use the main transformer to charge the battery, relying on the power mosfet body diodes to do the rectification. Lower cost, and high current charge till the battery is near float voltage. Only older ons have a separate small charge transformer and a regulator to charge the battery, and those almost always you see the regulator is well cooked from high power dissipation.
@@TheUbuntuGuy which brand(s)/model(s) would you recommend instead of APC for home/small business use?
Very Good explanation,
I want to know the result from quick test menu? I can enter Ah rating there.
Good video ! But I still question these testers. I cannot see them being able to provide the load needed for testing a car battery for example..
what does this battery charger reading CCA vs CA when i chose CA? maybe its defective idk