Uses for Old UPSes
I have a back-UPS 400 with a useless gelcell. However, touching
terminals of a fully charged and healthy gelcell to the battery
leads causes mega amps to flow, so something is likely fried.
Interestingly, the dead battery has about 10.5 volts on it,
in-circuit, no current!
Anyone got a schematic or wisdom to share? / thanks / mark
Ed Huntress wrote:
"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message
oups.com...
I am the "lucky" owner of a number of older UPSes.
So what can a person build out of these?
The batteries are for the most part dead but the remainder of the
components seem to be in good condition.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
TMT
If you can get your hands on a copy of the 2005 ARRL Handbook, there are
several suggestions in there (radio-related, but you can improvise from
them), and some information about UPS's.
One is a charger for 12V storage batteries in general, including car
batteries. Another is an emergency power supply (you can just run two wires
to your car battery, or a bank of deep-discharge batteries wired in parallel
if you're so inclined). Depending on the model you have, you can get 160 W
to over 300 W of 120 VAC and/or 12VDC from them.
Mine (an APC Back-UPS 600) is now wired to an old car battery. It will run
my computer for a lot longer than the old gel-cell that came with it. Since
we're on the end of a power transmission line, it gets a fair amount of use.
--
Ed Huntress
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