Many people think that batteries need not be maintained, especially when using UPS power supply. In fact, the problems caused by the lack of maintenance of batteries account for a considerable proportion of all UPS failures. Therefore, routine maintenance of UPS batteries will greatly prolong the life of UPS batteries and reduce the failure rate. This article will introduce the UPS battery maintenance methods.

Maintain appropriate ambient temperature

Generally speaking, environmental temperature is the major factor affecting battery life. The optimum ambient temperature required by battery manufacturers is between 20 and 25 degrees Celsius. Although the discharge capacity of batteries is improved with the increase of temperature, the cost is that the life of batteries is greatly shortened. According to the test results, once the ambient temperature exceeds 25 C, the battery life will be reduced by half for every 10 C increase. At present, UPS batteries are generally maintenance-free sealed lead-acid batteries. Their design life is generally five years, which can be achieved only under the environment required by battery manufacturers. If it fails to meet the required environmental requirements, its life span will vary greatly. In addition, the increase of ambient temperature will lead to the increase of chemical activity inside the battery, which will generate a lot of heat energy, and in turn will promote the increase of ambient temperature. This vicious cycle will accelerate the shortening of battery life.

Regular Charging and Discharging

The floating charge voltage and discharge voltage in UPS power supply have been adjusted to the rated value at the time of leaving the factory. The discharge current increases with the increase of the load. The load should be adjusted reasonably in use, such as controlling the number of electronic devices such as microcomputers. Normally, the load should not exceed 60% of the UPS rated load. Within this range, the discharge current of the battery will not be excessive discharge.

Because UPS is connected with municipal electricity for a long time, in the environment of high quality power supply and few blackouts, the storage battery will be in floating charge for a long time, which will lead to the reduction of the activity of the conversion between chemical energy and electric energy, accelerate aging and shorten the service life of the battery. Therefore, the discharge should be completed every 2-3 months, and the discharge time can be determined according to the capacity and load size of the battery. After discharge of a full load, recharge for more than 8 hours according to regulations.

Utilizing Communication Functions

At present, the vast majority of large and medium-sized UPS have the operability of communication with microcomputers and program control. The corresponding software is installed on the computer, and UPS is connected through serial/parallel ports. By running the program, the computer can communicate with UPS. Generally, it has the functions of information inquiry, parameter setting, timing setting, automatic shutdown and alarm. Through information inquiry, information such as input voltage, UPS output voltage, load utilization ratio, battery capacity utilization ratio, in-machine temperature and power frequency can be obtained. Through parameter setting, basic characteristics of UPS, battery maintenance time and battery exhaustion alarm can be set. Through these intelligent operations, it greatly facilitates the use and management of UPS power supply and its batteries.

Replacement of Waste/Battery in Time

At present, the number of batteries equipped with large and medium UPS power supply varies from 3 to 80, or even more. These individual batteries form battery packs through circuit connections to meet the needs of UPS DC power supply. In the continuous operation and use of UPS, due to the difference in performance and quality, the performance of individual batteries is degraded and the storage capacity is not up to the requirements and damage is inevitable. When one or more batteries in the battery pack are damaged, maintenance personnel should check and test each batteries to eliminate damaged batteries. When replacing new batteries, we should strive to purchase batteries of the same type as those of the same manufacturer. It is forbidden to mix acid-proof batteries with sealed batteries and batteries of different specifications.

This article gives four methods to prolong the service life of UPS batteries, which can be summarized into four sentences: appropriate temperature, regular charging and discharging, good use of communication functions, timely replacement of damaged batteries. There is no university or elementary school question in the study of power supply. As long as we pay attention to observation, we can summarize a variety of characteristics and methods to facilitate our design.