SURTD5000RMXLT3U working before calibration, now 0 runtime

[Anonymous user]

Good morning everybody!

So I put a second SURTD5000RMXLT3U in our server room in preperation for a new L3 switch, I let it charge up and ran the calibration test with about 12% load (I know it should be 30% but its 200v only connectors) this finished up after about 45 minutes and charged back up. I then descided I should do this on my other in-service SURTD5000RMXLT3U since Ive never done one, it was at 30% load and said it had about 10 minutes. I had it do a self test first which passed fine, then I hit calibrate, at that moment it immediatly went to runtime of 1 seconds and said the battery was discharged and also that the battery power is too low to support the load; if power fails, the UPS will be shut down immediately.

I then took swapped the batteries between the 2 units (we just bought new batteries for these last year), the new unit was still happy as a clam and the problematic unit still says its batteries are discharged.

Before I left work yesterday I unplugged utility power from the UPS and then let it run down all the way, its initial uptime with no load on it at all said around 6 minutes from 100% battery. It counted down from there to 45 seconds at 14% fairly quickly but once it got to 45 seconds it just hovered there for a long time counting up and down in 1-2 second intervals, I ended up just letting it go overnight to fully discharge. When I came in this morning it was off, I powered it up and the runtime based on load didnt look at all changed, 1 minute for 25%, no alarm or warning at all once it charges upto a point but the runtime is so low, and I know its wrong becuase it runs down and then essentially freezes the runtime at 14% until it actually dies.

I googled this a bit and I have found alot of similar posts, especially concerning some kind of "undocumented" bug or condition with somthing called the Battery Constant, which appears to be some kind of date the unit uses to determine how old the batteries are, which would make sense as I mentioned I bought new batteries last year but I never set the changed interval in the UPS when I did that, so I tried setting it do this year, last year random dates in the NMC no change in runtime at all.  

I found alot of posts / blogs about needing to console upto the UPS and issue some kind of manual config change for this setting which seems to have magically fixed this issue for alot of people , however I have not been able to get any responce on the console, this unit has an RJ45 serial interface and Ive tried very combination of cables, and also crimped some based on some pinout I have found online, I may need to order the correct cable.

I called support and went through the basic troubleshooting steps, they insisted I needed a new battery even though these are not even a year old and Ive tested another pack in it. I asked about the console setting and they ignored the question. They just seemed to want to sell me a new $3000 UPS when mine was working fine prior to hitting calibrate only becuase its manufacture date was 2009.

Can anyone tell me if there is a setting I can adjust via the console for battery age? Can you tell me which cable I need?

I appreciate any assistance!

SURTD5000RMXLT3U

Smart-UPS RT 5000 XL

Serial: NS0915004936

FwRev: 3

04/09/2009

[BillP · Accepted solution]

The "battery constant" setting you'll find reference to only affects older style UPS models with prefixes SU, SUA, SUM, SURT, SURTA. SURTD that you have is a newer UPS communication type and is a different platform so it doesn't communicate via the serial port like the older models. You won't be able to change battery constants here (which I am not even sure if they have them in this UPS). 

In reviewing this article, would you say that you followed the manual calibration steps? http://www.apc.com/support/index?page=content&country=ITB〈=en&locale=en_US&id=FA156538 You may want to try it again with a higher load but that will be the only option if you feel there is no issue with these batteries. It will be the only option to calibrate this model outside of issuing the command like you did. 

I would also check the "low battery duration" value and make sure it has not been touched which could cause this issue. You'll see this in the shutdown settings and the default value is 2 minutes. If this value is within 2 minutes of the low battery duration, these alarms could occur as well.