Smart-UPS RT 3000 XL: UPS: At least one faulty battery exists.

[Anonymous user]

Hi All,

We have an SURTD3000XLI unit with an External battery pack connected.  So we have x1 RBC44 in the main unit and x2 RBC44 in the external battery pack.

We have just started getting notifications saying: UPS: At least one faulty battery exists.

As the UPS itself has no kind of intelligent monitoring of the batteries I tested them all (while disconnected) with a multimeter.  The results were:

Main unit: both batteries measured 109V

External battery pack: all batteries measured 101V

So I have a few questions:

1. Why the discrepancy between the main unit batteries and the battery pack.  Does this mean the entire external battery pack is faulty?!  Surely all the batteries can't have failed, they are less than a year old.

2. If these figures are normal how can I proceed in finding the faulty battery?

Any help greatly appreciated!

Regards

Rob

[BillP]

Hi Rob,

On these models, you'd have to individually connect the internal batteries and the external battery pack and try to run a self test on the UPS with each connected to see what happens. Though typically, if all the batteries are the same age, we tell people to replace all of them at the same time to avoid having a faulty battery on the bus damage the reset. This could very well be the case of a bad cell or module in the string of batteries but this UPS doesn't have the technology to pinpoint that. 

If the batteries are APC replacements and are less than a year old, they should have a one year warranty on them.

I know I've talked to people that know their way around batteries and are able to test each string for a faulty module/cell on their own but we wouldn't tell people to do that due to liability reasons and just the fact that we cannot replace anything smaller than an RBC44.

Good battery voltage also doesn't necessarily mean you have a "good" battery that can support a load/capacity. Your voltage is good. I'd be you do indeed have a problem with a single module or cell inside one of the RBC44s.

[Anonymous user]

Hi Angela,

Thank you for getting back to me.  I think I will try as you suggest and individually connect the batteries.  The batteries are less than a year old so should still be under warranty.  I guess the question is how do I convince your support guys to exchange all of them?!

Thank you for the comment on the voltage, I had no idea if what we were getting was good or bad.  I'll proceed as you suggest and get back to you to let you know how it goes.

Many thanks for your help.

Rob

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Hi Rob,

I am not sure how support deals with this scenario if it is under warranty. Because they are under a year old, it is not as big of a concern if you do find the string that has the problem. I'd be more concern if you put fresh batteries in with 3, 4, 5 year old batteries. You can also show support this forum thread if we get to the point we're ready to look into getting some replacement RBC44.