Your UPS advise
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@fireodo said in Your UPS advise:
I agree with you. Maybe I had a lot of luck until today!
No, it's a known problem for the SMART series of APC. This is the so-called battery thermal runaway, mostly happening with old batteries that were not replaced in time. I have replaced many of those swollen and leaked batteries, and I have also replaced capacitors on the UPS board. Known issues, known solutions. Not bad at all, but you will need some skills. New items should work for 5+ years without issues.
Why I prefer Eaton now? Just because of their ABM technology and price. Extended battery life is important for me. As far as I know, APC uses trickle charge till nowadays — when the battery is full, so it rests/pulse charges. Depending on your room temperature (ex. over 30 Celsius UPS temperature), this may dry your liquid acid battery in 2-3 years, making it unusable very quickly. That's why you should always buy a UPS with sufficient power. More power means more time until the battery life ends, and you will also have more on-battery time.
Yes, I know that Eaton also has problems, including with their ABM technology. There are situations when, after a power outage, if the battery was in rest/storage mode, the remaining capacity might be incorrectly determined, and the battery runtime can be critically reduced. However, this only happened to us once, and the batteries were initially sold old along with the UPS. Not everyone is aware that lead-acid batteries need to be charged every six months… at least.
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FWIW, I have moved to Lithium for my main UPS. Really good units, offering 8-10 years of battery life rather than 3-5.
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@dennypage
The main reason I refused to switch to lithium is that it burns in a way that firefighters still have trouble extinguishing it. Not to mention what to do at home if it catches fire... -
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@w0w I have used Smart APC for over 20 years at my home with no issues other than replacing batteries.
I turned off my rack since I retired and I dropped down to a small Smart APC I use in a closet now that backs up my Cisco POE+ switch and all 3 Cisco wireless APs. This includes my Pfsense PC and my modem. -
@coxhaus
That's what I said. The batteries must be replaced in time, and everything gets worse when the temperature rises. This doesn't always happen. I'm not going to assert anything or provide any statistics, but it's not a rare occurrence if you don't perform maintenance or scheduled replacement. If you replace the batteries on time and use high-quality or original batteries, the chances of this happening are practically zero. -
@MaxK-0
I don't know who talked about what, but I meant replacing lead batteries with lithium ones, not replacing entire UPS. There are battery options available now, both homemade and industrial, but I don't trust them. Even the UPS option from Schneider Electric doesn't convince me. Maybe I'm paranoid, but despite all the standards and so on… No, I'm not ready to place lithium batteries at home yet, especially for that kind of money. The only lithium-based chemistry that seems acceptable for me is LTO, but it's larger and costs as much as 20+ lead-acid batteries that can last 50 years. -
@MaxK-0 APC are now Schneider Electric. I've had two Smart UPS. The earlier APC variant was more robust and had a slave device function which I found useful and that the later Schneider versions lack.
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@w0w said in Your UPS advise:
I don't know who talked about what, but I meant replacing lead batteries with lithium ones, not replacing entire UPS.
That would be very dangerous. The design of the charge and discharge circuits needs to match the battery chemistry.
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I have been using an APC SCL500RM1UC since 2021. I have the Apcupsd package installed on my Netgate box and it works as expected. I have had multiple power outages ranging from a few minutes to days. The UPS handles the short outages without any issues and Apcupsd has successfully shutdown (halted) pfSense when the battery level gets to a predefined level (and the Netgate box recovers without issue when power is restored).
My UPS unit failed last year (not the battery) and I was sent a replacement unit under warranty (it had a 5 year warranty). My model of APC UPS has been reviewed elsewhere and it does not get high ratings. I might switch to a different unit if/when this one fails.
I do not have that much experience with different manufacturers of UPS units so I cannot recommend one brand or model over another. But I do have some experience with different battery chemistries (lead acid, AGM, LiFePO4, etc.) in various applications (automotive, marine, and commercial UPS).
I consider the current LiFePO4 battery technology to be a better value than lead acid or AGM because it can handle more cycles and the cycle count is not reduced by running the state of charge (SOC) to zero. Lead acid and AGM battery cycle count is significantly reduced when SOC is dropped to zero. So, cost per cycle for LiFePO4 is typically less than lead acid or AGM. There are other well documented cost advantages to LiFePO4 but comparing based on initial cost and not total operating cost may be a mistake.
Safety is a concern for any battery technology. My post above was to highlight how APC addresses safety concerns for Lithium-ion batteries - not to promote their UPS. In general, most reputable manufactures are keenly aware of the safety perception of Lithium batteries and have worked hard to make sure their batteries are safe and reliable. Look for the certifications, testing, and safety devices they install to achieve this. I have not found a similar level of safety for lead acid or AGM. And I have personally experienced catastrophic failures of lead acid and AGM batteries - all due to the battery not being able to protect itself from faulty external factors (wrong polarity, bad charger voltage, etc.).
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@dennypage
There are batteries that are fully compatible with regular ones. These are usually LiFePO4. There are even supposedly compatible ones with UPS that use lead-acid batteries. It doesn't matter. I also don't consider them safe. -
@w0w said in Your UPS advise:
There are even supposedly compatible ones with UPS that use lead-acid batteries. It doesn't matter. I also don't consider them safe.
On this we agree.
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You may be right, but I've seen many examples of how Li-ion and LiFePO4 batteries catch fire. This can happen despite all the protection classes. The fire protection class is just the time before the fire starts to spread; it doesn't mean they don't burn at all. Yes, maybe 99.9% of them are safe... I don't know, it's just my personal paranoia.
As for lead acid batteries, I don't know what you have to do to set them on fire. I've only seen cases online involving hydrogen emission and subsequent explosion, more like a pop, that blew the lid off. But these were car batteries with open caps for topping up, and there was always an ignition source nearby when it happened. I've never heard of regular UPS sealed batteries catching fire or exploding. They can crack and melt, but not burn. That's why no one takes such safety measures as it usually takes for Li-ion chemistry. Of course, I'm not talking about cases where fires occur due to related factors, such as charger fires and the like.
I am also speaking solely for myself, I am not a fan of any particular company, can't say that everything is perfect with any specific one... Our world is imperfect, unfortunately.
