I drilled a hole and relocated the wires outside of the case and connected them to a bigger battery, but if you want to keep it inside of the case this is a great option. Good informative video. Thanks!
I tried this with 5 Cyberpower UPS units. Similar situation. I bought batteries too big for the case and instead of cutting the case, I tried extending the cables through a grommet in the side of the unit. Here is what I discovered and want to pass along and add to the conversation here: I used three 100 watt bulbs as a load tester for the AC output and charged the batteries before hooking up to the UPS's as well as letting the batteries stabilize overnight connected to the UPS's. First, the battery current is high compared to the output AC current (10-13x higher). I was seeing over 30 DC amps for 2-3 amps of AC (power in = power out). This is fine, I just had issues with the cheap crimp connectors I chose for the battery cables. Secondly, the battery voltage had a mains voltage component on it. There was 80 volts to ground from both battery terminals, YMMV on UPS brand. Lastly, the UPS circuitry did not like the longer runtime the larger batteries gave the UPS's. Two of the units lost their magic smoke and stopped working. One of them smoked, but still worked. The last two were hot, but worked fine. I highly recommend if you are going to modify the case of the UPS, go ahead and put a small 12v fan on it to bring in cool air, as well as using insulated quality crimps. TLDR: I put bigger batteries on cheap UPS units and some of them did not like the mods, and I found out the mains was not fully isolated from the battery the hard way.
Thanks! Another viewer mentioned the possibility of overheating due to the longer run-time. I 'assumed' this wouldn't be an issue being that APC uses the same external housing for three different sized units. Just to be safe, I'll limit the ones I upgraded to lower current draw devices. Adding the fan sounds like a good idea.
I have an APC BackUPS ES350. The terminals on the end of the wires going to the battery are the bigger 1/4" size. By carefully sqeezing them a little with a small pair of pliers they work with the smaller F1 terminals on the replacement battery. The local battery store doesn't carry the same Ah rated battery with F2 terminals on it. Once I had the opposite problem. The smaller 3/16" size terminals on the battery wires and the bigger F2 terminals on the replacement battery. In that case I made a couple short 3/16" male to 1/4" female adapters. A quick application of heat shrink tubing and it was good to go. I liked the video and next time I need to replace the battery I will look and see if it has the 9Ah battery in it or not. If not, I will be getting out my chisel.
I'll admit to doing the 'squeeze the larger connectors to get them to fit on the smaller terminal trick' Good idea to keep a couple of the short adapters around.
Great tip! We use one for our router and modem only, to keep internet up for a while. It runs for about 90 minutes with only these devices plugged in. Laptops will run for 6-8 hours on their own batteries.
I am thinking of taking one and adding a few 12v DC outputs on it to run those routers and networking boxes without the efficiency hit from the inverter. I'd still need a buck converter so the ~14v charging voltage doesn't let the magic smoke out.
Been tempted to do the same. Somewhere I read that you're not supposed to do that, that it confuses the charging circuit when there's a load on the battery. They make dedicated DC only UPS's now. I have one on my main router and it will run for like 30 hours without power. Has multiple outputs for diff voltages.
I know the BMS should allow this to happen. I always wondered how well this worked out if I upgraded to LIfePo4 on these. WIll they get to the correct higher voltage or always be capped at the Lead Acid Charging Rate. I assume they would just never be fully charged. But, still better than AGM Lead junk. I worked in offices. Seem like 8 -14 months on average they dry out.
That's my concern too, that the LiPo would need a different charging curve. A couple other people have commented that they did it and it works, though. Def something I'll research further before attempting.
I always replace them with lithium, LiFePO4 batteries. For instance I have 3 CyberPower units that take 7ah AGM batteries. I can purchase 10ah LiFePO4 batties that are the same size for $29. These more than double the runtime since lithium batteries will discharge fully before the battery voltage drop unlike lead acid that will only discharge to 50% before the UPS will shut down due to minimum voltage. The one caveat is you need to make sure the continuous current output of that battery is above the rating of the UPS. If it is not the protection circuitry in the battery will disconnect it at a lower output than the UPS max output. I have 950va UPSs but am only using batteries with a max discharge of 40amp. This brings the max output to around 500va, but I'm fine with that since the total amount of load I have connected to each one is just over 100 watts. The trade off is I go from 20 min of runtime to over and hour.
@@ballinator No issues. The batteries I'm using will take a 10amp charge which is well above the charging current the UPS supplies. The max voltage is 14.6v which is similar to the cycle use charge voltage of an AGM battery, float charge is usually under 14v so if anything the LiFePO4 battery will be slighly undercharged. If the UPS has any balance charge or equalize routine that could be problematic but the protection in the battery would prevent any damage. We have some small APC 450va UPSs at the office. The AGM batteries lasted about a year. I replaced them with lithium batteries and we are now on year 3 with them. I don't remember the specs on those batteries but the UPSs are small and each just has a small thin client workstation connected to it.
When I was younger and much much poorer you could pick up old beige big daddy 5ru (5 rack units) rackmout APC's with dead batteries usually just for the cost of finding two more people to help carry all 4 million pounds away from there, into to your '96 Saturn wagon, go home dragging your frame on the ground with a damn fine lead acid "battery charger".. step 2 was gathering up 4 "bad" Interstate car battery returns for about $10 a piece and they did just fine as ghetto home battery backup. It worked! They just worked. And so many went straight into the trash when their batteries failed. AGM batts weren't cheap even 25 years ago
Used to love picking through the dumpster at work for e-waste. Some hidden gems in there. Eventually they contracted with some recycling company and we couldn't get stuff anymore.
Three more caveats. One, by increasing the run time, you might be exceeding the duty cycle of the inverter. If you have a small load like a router you might very well be fine, but if it is more heavily loaded the inverter might overheat, possibly causing it to fail or even start a fire because it was designed to run only the short runtime that the original battery could sustain. Two, if your charging current it too low, you can damage the AGM battery which can cause a much shorter lifespan. One battery site I read said that your minimum charging current should be 10% to 25% of the batteries capacity rating. If you measure with an amp meter and you are within that range, then you should be fine, but there again, if the charger is putting out more current than it is designed to, the circuit may fail, or in a worst case, catch fire. Three, heat. The published runtime of the 350es was 1 min at max load. The runtime of the 650es was 3 minutes 19 seconds. The case on these is plastic with a few vent holes. There is no cooling fan or metal housing to help dissipate the heat from the inverter and charger. Your upgrade will allow it to run 11 times its designed runtime. This very well could present a big problem. One would assume that these circuits are designed to shut off before they overheat, but part of that safeguard system may have been the short runtime battery, so by putting a larger battery in, you could have defeated part of that safeguard. If the inverter and charger are overbuilt and can handle the extra runtime and reliably produce adequate charging current, and the plastic case can handle the extra heat, you might be fine. If not, at best this setup will fail quickly with no other bad outcomes. If it overheats and catches fire, then you won't. In my experience, those grey APC Back UPS es units are complete junk so I would bet they were value engineered within an inch of its life. The old metal case BackUPS were built like tanks. These grey plastic one were not. The ES in the model number stand for Extra Sucky. I used to be in IT and experienced very high failure rates and short lifespans with these units, so your mileage may vary.
Thanks for the info. The inverter load and heat dissipation is def a concern. Are you sure on the lower charging current reducing battery life? I'd expect it to be the opposite, like putting a trickle charger on a car battery.
My biggest concern would be the heat sink size (typically just a couple of small blocks of Al in these units) The longer runtime might possibly heat soak these sinks. IF the transistors don't go into thermal shutdown or outright die, there might be an issue with the heat getting to the solder joints and creating stress fractures.
@@daemoncan2364 You can see two aluminum heat sinks at 3:29. Good point about the solder. Pile on that the fact that it will be the crappy RoHS lead free solder, which is brittle on a good day, that could definitely be a failure mode. Like I said, I had about 30 of these deployed at one point. Some in office conditions and some in non air conditioned warehouses. They didn't like either environment and I never bought another one. And that was with their stock sized batteries.
@@ballinator Trickle chargers are meant to maintain the charge on a fully charged Flooded Lead Acid battery. Not charge a dead one, although they will if you have a couple of days. UPSs use AGM (Absorbed Glass Mat) battery. They behave completely differently than FLA batteries. This is why most decent 12volt car battery chargers have different settings for FLA, AGM and Gel batteries. The article I referenced is on intercel do eu's web site. "What is the charging current of an AGM battery?" and explains it in more detail. If the UPS never runs, so never discharges the battery, the battery might be fine. But if the UPS runs a lot and discharges the battery, and if the charging current is too low, the physical process that happens during the charge of an AGM will not be optimal, and the battery won't live as long as designed.
I drilled a hole and relocated the wires outside of the case and connected them to a bigger battery, but if you want to keep it inside of the case this is a great option. Good informative video. Thanks!
Great idea to 'really' expand capacity. Thanks for watching!
I tried this with 5 Cyberpower UPS units. Similar situation. I bought batteries too big for the case and instead of cutting the case, I tried extending the cables through a grommet in the side of the unit. Here is what I discovered and want to pass along and add to the conversation here: I used three 100 watt bulbs as a load tester for the AC output and charged the batteries before hooking up to the UPS's as well as letting the batteries stabilize overnight connected to the UPS's. First, the battery current is high compared to the output AC current (10-13x higher). I was seeing over 30 DC amps for 2-3 amps of AC (power in = power out). This is fine, I just had issues with the cheap crimp connectors I chose for the battery cables. Secondly, the battery voltage had a mains voltage component on it. There was 80 volts to ground from both battery terminals, YMMV on UPS brand. Lastly, the UPS circuitry did not like the longer runtime the larger batteries gave the UPS's. Two of the units lost their magic smoke and stopped working. One of them smoked, but still worked. The last two were hot, but worked fine. I highly recommend if you are going to modify the case of the UPS, go ahead and put a small 12v fan on it to bring in cool air, as well as using insulated quality crimps. TLDR: I put bigger batteries on cheap UPS units and some of them did not like the mods, and I found out the mains was not fully isolated from the battery the hard way.
Thanks! Another viewer mentioned the possibility of overheating due to the longer run-time. I 'assumed' this wouldn't be an issue being that APC uses the same external housing for three different sized units. Just to be safe, I'll limit the ones I upgraded to lower current draw devices. Adding the fan sounds like a good idea.
I have an APC BackUPS ES350. The terminals on the end of the wires going to the battery are the bigger 1/4" size. By carefully sqeezing them a little with a small pair of pliers they work with the smaller F1 terminals on the replacement battery. The local battery store doesn't carry the same Ah rated battery with F2 terminals on it. Once I had the opposite problem. The smaller 3/16" size terminals on the battery wires and the bigger F2 terminals on the replacement battery. In that case I made a couple short 3/16" male to 1/4" female adapters. A quick application of heat shrink tubing and it was good to go. I liked the video and next time I need to replace the battery I will look and see if it has the 9Ah battery in it or not. If not, I will be getting out my chisel.
I'll admit to doing the 'squeeze the larger connectors to get them to fit on the smaller terminal trick' Good idea to keep a couple of the short adapters around.
Great tip! We use one for our router and modem only, to keep internet up for a while. It runs for about 90 minutes with only these devices plugged in. Laptops will run for 6-8 hours on their own batteries.
Thanks! Yeah these smaller units are great for routers & modems.
Great information thank you
Very helpful video. Love the nod to the TV show Mannix at the end!
Thanks! That outro is from a Mannix "Maddox" parody I did a while back:
th-cam.com/video/oIpd_d8CWuw/w-d-xo.html
@@ballinator Had to check your link out. Very clever!
Another nod to Mannix by using the opening squares! Mannix lives on!
I am thinking of taking one and adding a few 12v DC outputs on it to run those routers and networking boxes without the efficiency hit from the inverter. I'd still need a buck converter so the ~14v charging voltage doesn't let the magic smoke out.
Been tempted to do the same. Somewhere I read that you're not supposed to do that, that it confuses the charging circuit when there's a load on the battery. They make dedicated DC only UPS's now. I have one on my main router and it will run for like 30 hours without power. Has multiple outputs for diff voltages.
I made a replacement with LiPo batteries 3000mah, 18 of them.
I know the BMS should allow this to happen. I always wondered how well this worked out if I upgraded to LIfePo4 on these. WIll they get to the correct higher voltage or always be capped at the Lead Acid Charging Rate. I assume they would just never be fully charged. But, still better than AGM Lead junk. I worked in offices. Seem like 8 -14 months on average they dry out.
That's my concern too, that the LiPo would need a different charging curve. A couple other people have commented that they did it and it works, though. Def something I'll research further before attempting.
Love it! I have 2 of those batteries sitting on a shelf and a few UPS units gathering dust. Time to dust or should that be un-dust?
I always replace them with lithium, LiFePO4 batteries. For instance I have 3 CyberPower units that take 7ah AGM batteries. I can purchase 10ah LiFePO4 batties that are the same size for $29. These more than double the runtime since lithium batteries will discharge fully before the battery voltage drop unlike lead acid that will only discharge to 50% before the UPS will shut down due to minimum voltage.
The one caveat is you need to make sure the continuous current output of that battery is above the rating of the UPS. If it is not the protection circuitry in the battery will disconnect it at a lower output than the UPS max output. I have 950va UPSs but am only using batteries with a max discharge of 40amp. This brings the max output to around 500va, but I'm fine with that since the total amount of load I have connected to each one is just over 100 watts. The trade off is I go from 20 min of runtime to over and hour.
Do you have issues with charging? I'm assuming LiFePo requires a different charging curve than lead-acid?
@@ballinator I just replaced mine (es500) with the LPO4 batt a few of weeks ago and have had no issues.
@@ballinator No issues. The batteries I'm using will take a 10amp charge which is well above the charging current the UPS supplies. The max voltage is 14.6v which is similar to the cycle use charge voltage of an AGM battery, float charge is usually under 14v so if anything the LiFePO4 battery will be slighly undercharged.
If the UPS has any balance charge or equalize routine that could be problematic but the protection in the battery would prevent any damage.
We have some small APC 450va UPSs at the office. The AGM batteries lasted about a year. I replaced them with lithium batteries and we are now on year 3 with them. I don't remember the specs on those batteries but the UPSs are small and each just has a small thin client workstation connected to it.
Interesting. I'll look into them next time I need to replace batteries.
Oscillating tool would be much better for cutting the tabs.
Nicely done
Thanks!
When I was younger and much much poorer you could pick up old beige big daddy 5ru (5 rack units) rackmout APC's with dead batteries usually just for the cost of finding two more people to help carry all 4 million pounds away from there, into to your '96 Saturn wagon, go home dragging your frame on the ground with a damn fine lead acid "battery charger".. step 2 was gathering up 4 "bad" Interstate car battery returns for about $10 a piece and they did just fine as ghetto home battery backup. It worked! They just worked. And so many went straight into the trash when their batteries failed. AGM batts weren't cheap even 25 years ago
Used to love picking through the dumpster at work for e-waste. Some hidden gems in there. Eventually they contracted with some recycling company and we couldn't get stuff anymore.
Three more caveats. One, by increasing the run time, you might be exceeding the duty cycle of the inverter. If you have a small load like a router you might very well be fine, but if it is more heavily loaded the inverter might overheat, possibly causing it to fail or even start a fire because it was designed to run only the short runtime that the original battery could sustain.
Two, if your charging current it too low, you can damage the AGM battery which can cause a much shorter lifespan. One battery site I read said that your minimum charging current should be 10% to 25% of the batteries capacity rating. If you measure with an amp meter and you are within that range, then you should be fine, but there again, if the charger is putting out more current than it is designed to, the circuit may fail, or in a worst case, catch fire.
Three, heat. The published runtime of the 350es was 1 min at max load. The runtime of the 650es was 3 minutes 19 seconds. The case on these is plastic with a few vent holes. There is no cooling fan or metal housing to help dissipate the heat from the inverter and charger. Your upgrade will allow it to run 11 times its designed runtime. This very well could present a big problem.
One would assume that these circuits are designed to shut off before they overheat, but part of that safeguard system may have been the short runtime battery, so by putting a larger battery in, you could have defeated part of that safeguard.
If the inverter and charger are overbuilt and can handle the extra runtime and reliably produce adequate charging current, and the plastic case can handle the extra heat, you might be fine. If not, at best this setup will fail quickly with no other bad outcomes. If it overheats and catches fire, then you won't. In my experience, those grey APC Back UPS es units are complete junk so I would bet they were value engineered within an inch of its life. The old metal case BackUPS were built like tanks. These grey plastic one were not. The ES in the model number stand for Extra Sucky. I used to be in IT and experienced very high failure rates and short lifespans with these units, so your mileage may vary.
Thanks for the info. The inverter load and heat dissipation is def a concern. Are you sure on the lower charging current reducing battery life? I'd expect it to be the opposite, like putting a trickle charger on a car battery.
My biggest concern would be the heat sink size (typically just a couple of small blocks of Al in these units) The longer runtime might possibly heat soak these sinks. IF the transistors don't go into thermal shutdown or outright die, there might be an issue with the heat getting to the solder joints and creating stress fractures.
@@daemoncan2364 You can see two aluminum heat sinks at 3:29. Good point about the solder. Pile on that the fact that it will be the crappy RoHS lead free solder, which is brittle on a good day, that could definitely be a failure mode. Like I said, I had about 30 of these deployed at one point. Some in office conditions and some in non air conditioned warehouses. They didn't like either environment and I never bought another one. And that was with their stock sized batteries.
@@ballinator Trickle chargers are meant to maintain the charge on a fully charged Flooded Lead Acid battery. Not charge a dead one, although they will if you have a couple of days. UPSs use AGM (Absorbed Glass Mat) battery. They behave completely differently than FLA batteries. This is why most decent 12volt car battery chargers have different settings for FLA, AGM and Gel batteries. The article I referenced is on intercel do eu's web site. "What is the charging current of an AGM battery?" and explains it in more detail. If the UPS never runs, so never discharges the battery, the battery might be fine. But if the UPS runs a lot and discharges the battery, and if the charging current is too low, the physical process that happens during the charge of an AGM will not be optimal, and the battery won't live as long as designed.
Interesting. I'll check out the article.
All good ....as long as your insurance guy isn't subscribed
Wait until he sees how I modify a fire extinguisher in an upcoming video...
@ballinator well ya never show your face, just tell him you are sphereinator, not ballinator and you understand the confusion
It's pronounced "jizzle".
Fo shizzle.