• LunchMoneyThief@links.hackliberty.org
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    19 days ago

    Retail UPS batteries don’t even last a single year, in my experience. The weekly brownouts and momentary blackouts probably aren’t helping.

    At this point, I’m just thinking of building my own with a charge controller, inverter and a bank of car batteries.

    • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business
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      19 days ago

      If you do, make sure you get deep-cycle/marine batteries as a normal car battery will die reeeealllly fast under the typical workload you’ll have from a UPS.

      They’re pretty simple and I considered one before deciding I really didn’t want to deal with a whole bunch of batteries sitting on a shelf and just bought a normal UPS.

    • Wolf314159@startrek.website
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      19 days ago

      Do you mind sharing what brand retail UPS weren’t lasting a year?

      I’m dealing with similar brownouts and also an area with lots of lightning. I got about 5 years out of my UPS batteries. Wondering if I’ve just been lucky.

      • LunchMoneyThief@links.hackliberty.org
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        19 days ago

        Schneider Electric APC Back-UPS 1500VA, 900W.

        They power on self-test okay, but go on to just fail to switchover during outages. I’m still trying to figure out if it is a factor of cumulative time, running hours, or they’re only good for a fixed number of power failures. And whether its the battery or the UPS device itself.

        It feels like crashing your car, and then the airbags go off after you’re already mangled and bleeding out.