More Backup Battery Headaches

[n2ize]

When the hurricane knocked out my power the APC UPS's kicked in and did their job. The one connected to my workstation gave me ample time to shut my system down cleanly. Had I not been present it would have automatically shut down once the battery level dropped to a specified level. The one connected to my servers and routers downstairs worked well. Kept them up and running for around 15-20 mins and then shut everything down cleanly.

Okay, so yesterday the power comes back. The UPS's come on line, the systems come up and everything reboots just fine. I check the status on the UPS's and they show batteries charging as normal. It took a while but the UPS controlling my servers and routers downstairs charged up to 100%. But, for some crazy reason the UPS connected to my workstation won;t show charge beyond 98%. It's been hours and hours and the max charge reported is 98%. The battery is new. I replaced it a month or two before the hurricane. So the batt should be ok. The only issue I can see is that my incoming line voltage is lower than normal. We are usually at 121-122 VAC. But since power has returned my line voltage has been hovering around 108-110 VAC. Don;t know if this can affect the way the unit charges.

Perhaps it is just a crappy battery. Sometimes you can be sold a new batt but who knows how long its been on the shelf. I may need to contact the vendor and find out if there is a warranty on batts, if it is a battery issue.

Otherwise the UPS works OK.

Any ideas or notions ?

[n2ize]

OKay... Line voltage dipped to 107 VAC and the % charge on the battery dropped to 94%. So, perhaps it does have to do with my low line voltages.

[n2ize]

Disregard. Now the battery is showing a full charge. Line voltage is up higher too. Checking the tech specs for the unit the recharge time I experienced is within the manufacturers specs. So no UPS headaches after all.

[N2CHX]

That's good. My UPS that was acting weird in the days before the storm, barely blipped during the storm except for a couple of times when the lights flickered and has been normal ever since.

[n2ize]

That's good. My UPS that was acting weird in the days before the storm, barely blipped during the storm except for a couple of times when the lights flickered and has been normal ever since.
That's what my UPS handles most of the time. Mostly dealing with brief line voltage changes or those momentary outages that may happen during thunderstorms. Of course the other reason is to automatically cleanly shut the systems down if a full blown blackout occurs. But thus far that has only happened twice, once last year and again this year. Otherwise it's mostly the short events.

Incidentally I just found out that the outlet I have this stuff plugged into is wired reversed... the hot is on the neutral side and the neutral is where the hot should be. While that doesn;t stop things from working it could be preventing the MOV's in the UPS from giving proper spike protection. I am going to have to reverse that outlet ASAP.