APC BX1000 Click-of-Death Repair

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Karadjgne

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Repair parts: ebay, radio shack etc. Online is the best bet.
Troubleshooting is easy. All you need to know is what part you are looking at, how it works and what relationship it's in with other parts. That's the hard part. But the very first question you should ask. Is it worth it. No real point in spending months researching and tracing down a 5¢ capacitor on a $30 mobo.

As to Turkey, we'll he can be a smart a$$ at times, but then who isn't?
 
D

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Read it again. Turkey's comment was aimed at and acknowledged by the author of the article. He wasn't talking to you.
 


I should have been more clear ... the reason it is difficult is all to often that the site is not providing the details you say are among the requirements.

When a site says "Suitable Replacement for BX1000" and that's the extent of info provided, you can not proceed in the manner you describe. I have seen some sites with dimensions and weight where dimensions were listed and they were slightly different. I have seen replacements that weighed substantially different. Of course if I dealt in this arena more often I would have a better knowledge of "where to look" ... With Yahoo / Google searches. I usually give up after the 2nd of 3rd page of hits. At that point the time invested ... or better said "lost time billed" often exceeds any potential cost savings

On other electronics have seen posts from folks who bought replacements that found charging rates were substantially different or not compatible with charging control. Where original batteries charged at a certain rate and then the rate dropped as the batteries neared full capacity, this didn't happen with the replacements for whatever reason. My son had a new replacement phone battery that he was given by a friend and I was gonna use it when replacing a cracked screen. Being newer it was slightly smaller and had slightly higher amp-hour rating so fit / life wasn't an issue but the charging voltage was different so chose not to take the chance.

 

Daniel Sauvageau

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If you want to know what you are getting, don't shop for aftermarket refurbished battery packs, shop for the batteries that make up the proprietary battery pack. In the BX1000's case, there is a dozen manufacturers making batteries in the same form format as the CSB BP/HR1272 with nearly identical specs except for the maximum discharge rate and +/- 10% nominal capacity. Charging wise, VRLAs are also nearly identical, there is generally no need to worry about charging profile between models and manufacturers for the sort of slow charging (typically 4+ hours) UPS usually do. Worst case, lead-acid batteries in general are highly tolerant to a mild continuous trickle charge, unlike lithium batteries which tend to fail catastrophically without the correct charging cut-off.

The batteries I put in my BX1000 when the original CSBs died are generic emergency lighting batteries, nowhere near rated for UPS use. Still worked fine to power the ~250W worth of equipment I had connected to it back then. Of course, I wouldn't dare try my luck with anywhere near 1000VA.
 
Never looked for anything "refurbished" so don't see relevance to the discussion. I'd have no interest in anything where the description starts with the words "refurbished"

Searched on "battery packs", searched on "new battery packs", searched on "replacement battery packs", searched on "OEM battery packs" and several more.... but like most web sites these days where the bean counters / sales department is involved, searches don't give you what you ask for. If you search on model ABC 1234, you get pages and pages of items not applicable to ABC 1234, the thought being that if ya don't see what ya want...

a) You will assume it's what you wanted even tho product description doesn't say so
b) You will knowingly buy something else and figure "well they wouldn't list it on the search results if it didn't work".

If you search on "MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X" on some sites ... you wind up with 1060s and 1080s, you will get offerings from other manufacturers, you will get AMD cards on the hit list.

As for the charging rate issue...can't remember where I 1st read it ... perhaps the batterycare site or when i was researching best charging methods for lappies. The manual, always the "go to source" said that letting the battery full discharge **periodically** was strongly recommended because, as the manufacturer detailed in the manual, (paraphrasing here to the best of my recollection) the firmware measures the loss in efficiency of the battery over time and adjusts the charging rate accordingly. A full discharge / full recahrge sequence was necessary to "calibrate" the battery capacity and match it with the charging rate.

Now if you look at forum posts you see just about everyone saying "this is a myth, it only applies to older Nickle-based batteries. So fully discharging and charging the battery is completely useless and even harmful" . This will get reposted and taken as gospel for years and it's not accurate. Yes of course, you don't want to discharge to 0 every day ... but always and never are a long way apart. If ya read further most of the laptop references go on to say to perform a calibration (discharge to 0 followed by full charge) about every 30 cycles.... 3 days of taking ya lappie to 66% .. would constitute 1 cycle.... that would mean once every 90 days.

Well sorry for the side track, but the point I was getting to I found two relevant pieces of info when doing that search. The 1st was a detailed article by one of the Lithium battery manufacturers who went onto explain that the charging rate / voltage used was programmed to be higher when the batter was significantly drained and then as it got near a full charge it was toned down during the last phases of the charge. So if ya didn't do those calibrations, you ran the risk of the procedure holding that higher charging rate longer and not toning down when it should.

The 2nd was a forum thread about laptop batteries and user experiences in which users had chosen to install batteries that fit from other models and even charges that fit from other models ... some worked ... some looked like the recent Samsung Phones. When going back to determine "what went wrong", they posted slight differences in specs which may or may not have been the cause of the problem. To sum up, with my level of knowledge on what might work where, it's risk I was unwilling to take.

So in my situation, unless the manufacturer / vendor is blessing whatever it is that I am buying, and stating that the replacements parts are compatible with what it is going in, I'm not buying it. I don't have the time to educate myself with what may or not be compatible with any item of equipment in fields where my knowledge is scant. The time spent in making that choice is greater than the difference in cost. I selected a $350 1500VA true sine wave UPS for my box. If the manufacturer wants to sell me replacement batteries for $300, I'll likely just buy a new unit. On the laptop, that little one (650VA) cost me $89 (MSRP was $149)... replacement batteries from APC were $125 and I could still get it for well under $100.

But on the workstation / file server ... choices might be:

a) Buy one at newegg for $350 .. + 90 seconds of "on-line time"
b) Buy batteries from manufacturer for $300 .. + 3 minutes of on-line or phone time
c) Find a suitable battery pack for $175 + 1 hour of on-line / evaluation search / ordering time.

I think the big problem with b) and c) is that shipping a truckload of UPS to a big box store has a low cost per unit. I'd guess my UPS weighs about 65 pounds, the batteries about 50 I'd guess. ..shipping 1 set to 1 guy's front door is gonna cost a lot more per unit and even if they say "free shipping", that cost has to be build into the price.

Choice c is the most expensive option as if I take 1 hour of time outta my workday to do this, that's a chunk of money that the company can't bill to a client.

Now, yes... if you already have the knowledge of who is the go to guy for the product you need, you know that they support their product, accept returns etc and treat their customers well, then that time need not be spent. But since I must make this investment it's not a fiscally intelligent decision. I didn't know that the last time and I wasted 2 hours searching for something that I could be confident in.

I'll bookmark this thread and next time, I just may write and say "Hey Dan, what's a suitable replacement for my ABC 1234 UPS" ... that's 2 minutes to log in and ask, 2 minutes to read and 2 minutes to order, I can live with that ... well until I get ya bill ! :)

In fact, will be looking for a 1500VA unit (not from Schneider) for a build I'm supposed to do for a user. Was supposed to be b4 Xmas but now he's thinking of waiting for Z270 / 7700k / 1080 Tis. I went looking for what was currently available till my browsing was interrupted by a phone call after 2-3 minutes. By then only one I checked off was the CyberPower Smart App Sinewave PR1500LCD. user's requirements

20-30 minutes at half load
Fast and "Green" charging options
Replace Battery Alarm + "the usual suspects"
Floor Mounted
3 year or better Warranty
1000+ watts
$350 - $450

Anything else you'd recommend
 

Daniel Sauvageau

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Glad to see someone put what I wrote to practical use and get a successful fix out of it :)
 

Karadjgne

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I guess I got lucky. I have a 12yr old Minuteman Pro 700 which uses the same 1200Va battery found in most all older incandescent exit lights. Still works like a champ, even though I bumped the battery upto a 1500va, which costs me @ $20 every 2 years or so.

On a side note, be careful of battery types. You don't ever want to take Lithium or Lead acid to 0%, fastest way I know to kill one. That's for NiCad only
 

Daniel Sauvageau

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That shouldn't be a problem since there aren't many (if any) lithium or NiCd batteries available in typical VRLA form factors. You shouldn't hook up a lithium battery to a lead-acid charger anyway since the end-of-charge voltage of a VRLA battery is ~13.5V vs ~12.8V or less for lithium. The lithium battery would get grossly over-charged and potentially fail catastrophically.
 

Burn baby burn!
 
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