UPS General Questions...

[CGriffith]

I am setting up a policy for our UPS. I am looking for recommendations on the following things:

Battery Replacement- How often should you replace a battery?

UPS Calibration Test-How often should this be ran?
(not quite sure what calibration is, so if someone could give me a good explaination of this that would be helpful.)

Discharge of Power-How often should you completely drain the UPS of power?

I think thats it..If you have any other suggestions or comments that would be helpful too.
Thanks
Charlene

 

[stallard]

Battery Replacement- How often should you replace a battery?

This can vary by the type of battery in the UPS and the environment, in general I would say 4 years would be a reasonable period of time, but I have seen people replace them regardless at 24 months and some people do not do it until they fail.

UPS Calibration Test-How often should this be ran?
(not quite sure what calibration is, so if someone could give me a good explaination of this that would be helpful.)

Calibration is done to determine the runtime available to the UPS under load. I would recommend doing a calibration test when you first purchase the UPS and when you replace the batteries, most modern UPS's will have a built in formulae for calculating the remaining runtime and regular calibraitons are not required or desirable.

Discharge of Power-How often should you completely drain the UPS of power?

You shouldn't, continuous deep discharge of a dry cell battery is not required.

 

[airbourne]

Get your specification from the MFG, and subtract 40% from their estimation.

So a 5 year est. battery life, should be at the very very least, checked in 3 years.

Take into consideration what does this device power. If it powers your server room, check the batteries at a minimum annually. If it powers a PC and the est. life is 5 years, replace in 4 (-20%). You can also keep a schedule and provide regular testing for your batteries.

If you don't have a battery tester, simply unplug the UPS and see how long it lasts. Check the load, and compare it to the MFG chart of the est. uptime. If it is significantly less that expected, time to replace.

NEVER UNPLUG A LARGE UPS TO TEST IN THIS MANNER IF IT IS IN YOUR SERVER ROOM. I can't stress enough how quickly you could be fired if a server becomes damaged in this manner. For Server Room UPS devices or UPS of a large scale, always pay to have them tested professionally. This will require that your data center go offline, so a weekend is probably best.