dla1500RM2u cycles between "replace battery" error and fully-charged state

[Anonymous user]

Hello community,

I have a dla1500rm2u connected to one of our school's servers. I installed a new set of batteries about 2 months ago and has been working fine for the most part. I replaced each of the internal 4 lead-acid batteries separately, not the entire unit.

However, within the past 3 or so weeks, the bad battery/disconnected battery light has been blinking red and beeping continuously. And by continuously, I mean it'll do so for a few hours in the morning, and then be fine (show full green bars on the battery LEDs) the rest of the day. It will beep for an entire day, and be OK the next. It seems random.

I've done hard resets and unplugged and re-plugged all computers a few times as well as the battery connector. No change. Just now I disconnected and reconnected the battery to the unit and the full green bars showed for about 1 minute before going back to "disconnected".

I can post pictures on the batteries and wiring if necessary, but if something was significantly wrong there, I don't know why it worked so well for the first month or so.

What could be the problem and how could I fix it?

Many thanks,

-Shaun

[BillP]

SUA1500RM2U, the APC equivalent to DLA1500RM2U, indicates it uses RBC24 which are batteries that come pre-wired in the tray that you just slide in and connect a single connector to. Can I ask why you did not purchase an RBC24 or is that what you did?

Were you able to measure the voltage on the batteries in addition to the resistance? Or in PowerChute data log, does it have the history of the battery voltage that it reports from the UPS?

I am thinking the voltage is dropping below a certain point which I would think indicates a problem with these batteries (maybe that was there since manufacturing) but I am just guessing at this point until I see the voltage.

[Anonymous user]

Shaunk,

When you re and re'ed the batteries in the tray did you re-tighten every last one of the 1/4" faston terminals ? (via careful crimping with pliers). If you didn't , all it takes is one intermittent connection and the ups will either not see the full capacity of the tray, or be unable to charge all the batteries fully and lead to deterioration of cells and charge levels, and if in conjunction with this the UPS internal battery constant has drifted badly over time, it may not see the batteries at all per Angela's comment. Also, if you used 7.2 Ah batteries instead of the 9.0 Ah cells you may experience runtime and capacity issues over time. 

[Anonymous user]

Hello community,

I have a dla1500rm2u connected to one of our school's servers. I installed a new set of batteries about 2 months ago and has been working fine for the most part. I replaced each of the internal 4 lead-acid batteries separately, not the entire unit.

However, within the past 3 or so weeks, the bad battery/disconnected battery light has been blinking red and beeping continuously. And by continuously, I mean it'll do so for a few hours in the morning, and then be fine (show full green bars on the battery LEDs) the rest of the day. It will beep for an entire day, and be OK the next. It seems random.

I've done hard resets and unplugged and re-plugged all computers a few times as well as the battery connector. No change. Just now I disconnected and reconnected the battery to the unit and the full green bars showed for about 1 minute before going back to "disconnected".

I can post pictures on the batteries and wiring if necessary, but if something was significantly wrong there, I don't know why it worked so well for the first month or so.

What could be the problem and how could I fix it?

Many thanks,

-Shaun

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Hi Shaun,

Can you clarify - did you replace just the APC Replacement Battery Cartridge or are you saying you took the battery module out and replaced the four batteries in the tray with 3rd party batteries (and have to wire them)? Can you measure the DC voltage from the battery connector or at least view it through PowerChute or a Network Management Card?

The flashing replace battery LED indicates a disconnected (or not detected battery) versus a battery needing to be replaced. This tells me the the battery is maybe going down to a lower voltage where the UPS cannot even see it.

If it is an APC battery, it'd have a serial number/date code on it and technically, we can only support this if you replaced this with a genuine APC battery but if its a third party battery, they also might have a date code that we could verify or figure out how to read by the manufacturer's website.