APC SURTD5000XLI battery led blinking green

Anonymous user · ‎2021-06-29

Hi All,

I have a APC SURTD5000XLI UPS with the battery led blinking green and web status showing critical alarm battery discharged.

After replacing the batteries, the fault is still the same. We performed self-test, test passed. However, the run time is approximately 2 minutes.

The status shows batteries are charging and run time is very little. We have an extra battery pack connected and the load is about 41%.

Please advise the next course of action. This UPS is critical to operations and cannot afford to be down.

The serial number is NS0807029920.

Please advise on the procedures to perform manual battery calibration or remedy action.

Many thanks in advance.

Cheers

BillP · ‎2021-06-29

I assume by battery LED, you mean the battery bar graph is flashing. This means your runtime is within two minutes of low battery signaling time which makes sense since you're runtime is two minutes and the low battery time is by default two minutes as well. So basically, you probably do need to do a calibration to update the runtime with the new batteries.

You can do this within the network management card but I am not sure what the result would be since runtime reported is so low - it might not even try.

Here is how to do a manual calibration:

A manual runtime calibration is the process of completely discharging a battery by simulating a power outage (pulling the plug of the UPS from the AC power circuit or tripping upstream breaker). This process is sometimes necessary in order to reset the estimated runtime calculation if it does not appear to be correct. In order for the calibration to work properly, and for the runtime to be estimated correctly, there are four conditions which must be met when initiating and running the calibration. They are as follows:

1. Battery must be at 100% capacity when the Runtime Calibration is initiated/started.

2. The UPS must have at least a 30% load on it during the calibration.

3. The load cannot fluctuate more than +/- 5% during the calibration.

4. The battery must be discharged to at least 25% capacity (it is best to allow the UPS to shut off due to a discharged battery).

In addition to the above conditions, any UPS monitoring/shutdown software should be stopped from running in the background, management card uninstalled, and the serial cable should be detached from the UPS. This is necessary in order to prevent the software from shutting down the server/UPS due to an on-battery or low-battery condition.

So, you may need to do this during some downtime..

See Answer In Context

BillP · ‎2021-06-29

I assume by battery LED, you mean the battery bar graph is flashing. This means your runtime is within two minutes of low battery signaling time which makes sense since you're runtime is two minutes and the low battery time is by default two minutes as well. So basically, you probably do need to do a calibration to update the runtime with the new batteries.

You can do this within the network management card but I am not sure what the result would be since runtime reported is so low - it might not even try.

Here is how to do a manual calibration:

A manual runtime calibration is the process of completely discharging a battery by simulating a power outage (pulling the plug of the UPS from the AC power circuit or tripping upstream breaker). This process is sometimes necessary in order to reset the estimated runtime calculation if it does not appear to be correct. In order for the calibration to work properly, and for the runtime to be estimated correctly, there are four conditions which must be met when initiating and running the calibration. They are as follows:

1. Battery must be at 100% capacity when the Runtime Calibration is initiated/started.

2. The UPS must have at least a 30% load on it during the calibration.

3. The load cannot fluctuate more than +/- 5% during the calibration.

4. The battery must be discharged to at least 25% capacity (it is best to allow the UPS to shut off due to a discharged battery).

In addition to the above conditions, any UPS monitoring/shutdown software should be stopped from running in the background, management card uninstalled, and the serial cable should be detached from the UPS. This is necessary in order to prevent the software from shutting down the server/UPS due to an on-battery or low-battery condition.

So, you may need to do this during some downtime..