Symmetra PX, how can a battery discharge test be done?

[BillP]

This question was originally posted by Dennis on APC forums on 6/27/2017

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  Our preventive maintenance program requires a 30 minute battery discharge test every 6 months on our UPS system.  What would be the recommended procedure for doing this?  I'm new to the work site and have not went thru this test before.  I've heard that the last time this was tried by tripping the fed breaker, there were problems during the test and bringing the system back online.  We have generator controls, monitoring systems, fire/gas systems and lighting being fed from the UPS.  The manuals I've read on board list a "simulate power failure" option in the menu, but I have read in the forum that this is only for a few minutes.  Any help and recommendations would be appreciated.

[BillP · Accepted solution]

This reply was originally posted by Bill on APC forums on 6/28/2017

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Hi,

A 30 minute test is a long time for batteries and would degrade the life of the batteries. If you wanted to just run on the batteries without the generator or utility available you could open Q1 which would force the unit to battery.

 The battery self-test simulates a power failure and the UPS will run on battery for 1 minute or 10% of the available runtime.  In this situation the utility is still available.

If you require assistance you should contact local 3 phase technical support. Local support can be found at this link http://www.apc.com/au/en/support/contact-us/index.jsp