News Another CyberPower UPS Goes Up in Smoke, Reader Reports

[az_r2d1]

I would say 10:1 these are sealed lead acid battery problems and not having adequate circuitry to protect against battery failure.

In USA you have only a couple lead acid battery mfg. 99% of auto mfg use the same company in the USA. However as soon as you go China and India there are THOUSANDS of mom and dad shops all with varying quality. (All because environmental regs are so much lower there) And as with most mass consumer non durable goods, it goes to lowest bidder whom can make supply demands.

Correct, they are lead acid, sealed. I just replaced a set.
The circuitry should be in the ups itself. Most of it is already there. Cyberpower just didn't implement the last part of detecting if it actually charges to 100% within a certain amount of time.

 

[az_r2d1]

Very astute. Batteries can float voltage at 12V with a failed cell. But very quickly drop in voltage under a test load.

As it takes several hours to charge. I would say during the charge cycle, check temp and every hour or so check the load voltage drop as it charges. While it will take longer to charge it, such two safeties will prevent these kind of failures.

It could be a win win design. Including new sticky pad temperature sensors with a battery pack increases safety and encourages users to buy oem replacements.

This issue happens when the battery doesn't even get to 100% charge. I just had this issue and replaced the batteries. It wasn't even close to 12V. Front panels showed 50% charge, even after sitting with power for several days. Never went higher.

 

[az_r2d1]

From the way my CP UPS failed with the battery shorted down to 17-18V (no bouncing back from that) and the software still reporting 24V even when the battery is removed and battery wires are floating at 27V, I'd say CP had a systemic issue with battery monitoring and reporting.

BTW, my CP LX1500 was purchased around the same time as the ones in these burning UPS reports as well.

And now that I think back on it, I do remember hearing a popping noise some time before the UPS first failed to hold and I couldn't find what quit working. May have been one of the cells' pressure relief vents popping.

Edit: also, if a cell is failed with relatively high impedance (ex.: plate sulfation, which is how my APC batteries usually die), although the rest voltage may 'recover' to 12V, the battery simply doesn't take a charge current. You crank the charging voltage to 15-20V on such a 12V battery and may still not be able to push more than 100mA through.

I think the monitoring is fine. It's the reporting of it that is lacking.
I had this exact issue and front panel kept showing 50% charge and never increasing while it tried to charge. And that's it. no reporting of the issue and it kept trying to charge for days and days. I changed battery just in time. It got quite hot.

 

[az_r2d1]

Looks like a typical AGM battery failure due to lack of properly maintaining the UPS. Charging system dried up the electrolyte, case was probably already cracked on the battery before the smoke failure, and when the power went down and the UPS failed to kick in should have been a huge red flag to not let it power back up again.

I've seen the same on APC, Vertiv, Tripp-lite, Eaton and other brands. Why do people seem think the battery will last forever? Or they swap them with crap generic chinesium batteries and think they will last past 12 months.

But let's blame the UPS shall we?

People should NOT expect them to last but we do need to blame the UPS for not reporting a degrading battery. IT does show the charge of the battery. Mine stayed right at 50%, even after several days of charging. THAT part should be reported by the UPS with alarms.

 

[az_r2d1]

I purchased Cyberpower genuine replacement batteries: CyberPower RB1280X2B UPS Replacement Battery Cartridge, Maintenance-Free, User Installable, 12V/8Ah https://a.co/d/2mmJP62

I am not sure what other units they are compatible with but it was an easy replacement process.

I replaced mine with the same. Amazon had a very reasonable price. There's even non-Cybe3rpower brand replacements for even cheaper.

 

[az_r2d1]

The battery exploding because the UPS failed to detect that the battery has gone bad and kept overcharging the heck out of remaining cells is entirely the UPS' fault for not monitoring the battery's working state and this is how you explode SLAs like what appears to have happened here. If you pump 2A into a 24V 10Ah battery for 10+h and it is still at 18V due to shorted cells yet the UPS just keeps charging forever, you've got a problem and this is exactly what my CP LX1500 did.

This EXACTLY ! This is a UPS issue !

 

[InvalidError]

The circuitry should be in the ups itself. Most of it is already there. Cyberpower just didn't implement the last part of detecting if it actually charges to 100% within a certain amount of time.

I'm going to guess the charging circuit in CP UPSes is a CC-CV supply with no control. It just keeps pumping whatever current the battery will take up to float voltage whenever there is AC input.

I still have my LX1500. Still "works" apart from the apparent lack of working battery monitoring and reporting. I've been meaning to open it and see if I can find the cause for the battery monitoring/reporting failure, though it is quite possible it never worked and I never paid enough attention prior to failure to notice. I mainly looked at reporting for power draw and AC voltage.

 

[digitalgriffin]

This issue happens when the battery doesn't even get to 100% charge. I just had this issue and replaced the batteries. It wasn't even close to 12V. Front panels showed 50% charge, even after sitting with power for several days. Never went higher.

I'm not disagreeing at all. There are multiple failure modes for batteries. Sulfating is the biggest and most common. Charge is built by stacking lead plates. But the sulfating causes internal shorts and degrades and erodes the lead plates. This can result in reduced capacity, or in your case a lowered potential. (Imagine taking a battery out of a series of batteries and your potential lowers. It works the same way inside a SLA battery when a plate shorts)

 

[InvalidError]

But the sulfating causes internal shorts and degrades and erodes the lead plates.

Sulfation is inert. It robs the battery electrodes of active surface area and the electrolyte of available ions, which reduces effective capacity, makes burst current capacity shallower and increases internal resistance in general.

In wet cells, desulfation uses over-charging electrolysis bubbling to knock the sulfation off, which is where electrodes shed some material to at best restore the part of performance loss from clogged plates and settle in the battery sump. Got to make sure wet cells are fully topped off to quench any shorts that may occur at plate tops from bubbling moving conductive flakes around which could detonate the oxygen-hydrogen mix trapped inside the battery housing. Doesn't work with SLA/AGM batteries where the mats or gel will keep the sulphate crystals in place.