374 lines
11 KiB
HTML
374 lines
11 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
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<HTML
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><HEAD
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><TITLE
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>Maintaining Your UPS</TITLE
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NAME="GENERATOR"
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TITLE="Testing Your UPS"
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>UPS HOWTO</TH
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></TR
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect1"
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><H1
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CLASS="sect1"
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><A
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NAME="maintaining"
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></A
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>5. Maintaining Your UPS</H1
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><P
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>Make sure the UPS keeps in contact with its electrical ground at all
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times. Don't overload it. If it shows signs of misbehavior or
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malfunction, yank it until it's repaired, or replace it.</P
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><P
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>Your UPS has a battery inside it. Usually it is a lead-acid
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type (those are the least expensive for the manufacturer), but both
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lithium and gel-cel batteries are sometimes used.</P
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><P
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>The battery is by far the most vulnerable and failure-prone part
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of your UPS. If you have your UPS long enough, you will probably have
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battery problems. Once every six months to a year or so you should
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recalibrate your UPS's battery sensor, and once every several years
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you will have to replace the batteries.</P
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect2"
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><H2
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CLASS="sect2"
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><A
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NAME="AEN230"
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></A
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>5.1. Service contracts</H2
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><P
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>Some consumer-grade UPSes, and all UPSes designed for serious
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data-center use, can be bought with vendor service contracts. These don't
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make sense for low-end units that can be replaced cheaply from a local
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electronics store. If you're an IT shop with a bunch of UPSes scattered
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over a campus, a service contract might make sense, depending on circumstances.
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If you have a larger UPS in the 5-10 KVA range, a service contract may be a
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valuable hedge against extended downtime.</P
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect2"
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><H2
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CLASS="sect2"
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><A
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NAME="AEN233"
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></A
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>5.2. Extending battery life</H2
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><P
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>To extend your battery life, (a) avoid deep discharges, and (b)
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don't expose them to extremes of heat, cold, or humidity.
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Unfortunately there is not much you can do to avoid deep-discharging
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your UPS other than living in an area where power outages are few
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and short.</P
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect2"
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><H2
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CLASS="sect2"
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><A
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NAME="AEN236"
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></A
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>5.3. Recalibrating Your UPS</H2
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><P
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>Your UPS's dwell-time calibration will lose accuracy over the life
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of the battery. The usual symptom of this problem is that the UPS
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overestimates the dwell time it has remaining during outages, but
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occasionally it can also lead to an actual bad-battery condition going
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undetected and very odd symptoms as a result.</P
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><P
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>UPSes have a recalibration procedure built into their firmware.
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It generally involves deep-discharching and recharging the battery
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while the UPS is in a special test mode. Your recipe for triggering
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such a recalibration will vary according to your UPS software.</P
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><P
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>You always need to do this when you install new batteries (see
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below). It is a good idea to do it once every six to twelve months
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as routine maintenance, but no more often than that; as we noted
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previously, deep discharges shorten your battery life.</P
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect2"
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><H2
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CLASS="sect2"
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><A
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NAME="AEN241"
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></A
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>5.4. Replacing Your Batteries</H2
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><P
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>All modern UPSes have a low-battery alarm and run a periodic
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self-test; they will alert you when replacement is needed. Usually
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they both flash an indicator and make an alarm sound. If you have a
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monitoring daemon set up, they will alert it and you will probably get
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warning mail. If you ignore the alarm it will time out, but be
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repeated at intervals.</P
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><P
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>You will occasionally get a false alarm. It's a good idea, if you
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get an alarm, to explicitly trigger a UPS self-test the next day and see if
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the alarm goes away (the procedure for doing this varies depending on
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your UPS software). If the alarm is persistent, you need to replace
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the batteries.</P
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><P
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>It has been reported that bad batteries can also produce symptoms
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that mimic inverter failures or wonky control electronics. Even if
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your UPS is displaying epileptic symptoms like repeating alarms and
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flashing panel lights, a bad battery is the first thing to
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suspect.</P
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><P
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>UPS manufacturers would of course prefer that you replace your
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entire UPS when the batteries die, since they make more money that
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way. But in fact there is nothing unique or magic about UPS batteries.
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They are standard types also used for other applications such as
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powering marine electronics, with standard connectors. You can buy
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them from sources other than the UPS manufacturer, and sometimes replace
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them with equivalents that are better and less expensive.</P
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><P
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>It's best to wait until the low battery alarm before ordering a
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replacement; keeping batteries on the shelf reduces their life unless
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you keep them fully charged.</P
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><P
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>Do not throw old batteries in your regular trash! They contain
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toxic metals and acids. Be kind to your environment and hand them to
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a qualified party for recycling. Most battery dealers will cheerfully
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do this for you. If not, your local garbage company or waste-disposal
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authority can explain to you how and where to turn them in
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safely.</P
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><P
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>Many UPS models use gel-cel batteries in standard formats like 12.0
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V, 7.2Ah (151x64x94 mm). Warning: Many manufactors sell two or three
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different types: standard use, cyclic use and high-current use. UPSes
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require high-current and some UPS don't work well with batteries for
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standard use, because the voltage goes low too early under high load (the
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UPS turns off too fast or the output voltage drops so that the computer
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turns off). Standard batteries are for alarm devices, emergency lights or
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things like that. For instance Panasonic sells the "LCR127R2PG1"
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(standard), and "UPRW1245P1" (high current), Fiamm the "FG20271" (standard)
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and "FGH20902" (high current), CSB the "GP1272" (standard) and "HR 1234W"
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(high current).</P
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><P
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>Below, you will find some suggestions for buying replacement
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batteries. One <EM
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>important</EM
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> note of caution: at
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least one user purchased one of the aftermarket batteries noted below
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and found out that they would not fit into his unit. This required
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cutting and soldering and other very undesirable things, so be
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extremely careful in measuring your batteries — including every
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millimeter of the terminal connections, which can cause
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problems.</P
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><P
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>Although you can do a hot swap of your batteries while the
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computer is running, it may not be very satisfactory, because the unit
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will not know that the batteries have been swapped and your monitor
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daemon will continue to show a low-battery indication. To correct
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this situation, you must do a discharge and recharge of the
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battery. At that point the battery should be calibrated better.</P
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><P
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>It may take several discharges and recharges of new batteries
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before they reach full capacity and the dwell-time calibration is
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accurate. If your UPS contains two or more battery units and your
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monitoring software reports separate voltage levels for them, one way
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to tell is to watch the divergence in voltage levels. As the cells
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reach nominal full capacity, their voltages should converge.</P
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect2"
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><H2
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CLASS="sect2"
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><A
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NAME="AEN254"
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></A
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>5.5. Buying Batteries</H2
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><P
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>APC makes "Replacement Battery Units" for each of the
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SmartUPS models, but they sell them directly only in the U.S. Your
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local Yamaha SeaDoo shop (if you have one) carries 35 ampere-hour deep
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cycle marine batteries that are direct replacements for the kind APC
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uses in many of its models. These are gel-cel and will double the
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runtime and/or cut your recharge time in half. Here are some West
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Coast sources:</P
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><TABLE
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BORDER="0"
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BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0"
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WIDTH="100%"
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><TR
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><TD
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><FONT
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COLOR="#000000"
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><PRE
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CLASS="programlisting"
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> Jet Works
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1587 Monrovia Ave.
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Newport Beach CA 9266?
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Tel: +1 714 548-5259
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J-W Batteries, Inc.
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Tel: +1 714 548-4017
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WPS 49-1200
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GEL-CELL KB-35 BATTERY
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</PRE
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></FONT
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></TD
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></TR
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></TABLE
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><P
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>The company I've heard most strongly recommended (by Carl
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Erhorn, a core developer on the <SPAN
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CLASS="application"
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>apcupsd</SPAN
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>
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project) is called Battery Wholesale Distributors of Georgetown,
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Texas. If you have questions, you can reach them by phone at (800)
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365-8444, 9:00AM to 5:00PM (their local time), Monday through
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Friday. Carl reports having gotten email from them on the weekends,
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although the office is not open then.</P
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><P
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>The web site, with current pricing, is <A
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HREF="http://www.batterywholesale.com"
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TARGET="_top"
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>www.batterywholesale.com</A
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>.
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They will ship outside of the US, they take all the usual credit
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cards, and they accept orders by phone or Web.</P
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><P
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>Carl reports that BWD has found manufacturers who make batteries
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in the standard case sizes, but have additional capacity over original
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UPS batteries. Often, the difference is as much as 15% or so, and this
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can result in additional runtime. It's a nice upgrade for a minor
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increase in price.</P
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><P
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>BWD is also 'green-aware', in that they encourage you to
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recycle your old batteries, and will accept the old batteries back
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from you if you cannot find a local place that recycles them. You
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pay the shipping but other than that, there is no charge.</P
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><P
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>Carl says <SPAN
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CLASS="QUOTE"
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>"I've been very pleased with their
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products, service, and pricing. I hope you find them as helpful to
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you as I do. I've been dealing with them since about 1994, and have
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never been disappointed. The owner of the place also is very good
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on technical issues, so if you have questions on their products, he
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can get as technical as you need to go."</SPAN
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></P
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>Testing Your UPS</TD
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> </TD
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