CS 350 ( older ) fails to provide back up power

[Anonymous user]

As an intro - I inherited this unit, so have no manual or any other items ( ie cable ). It was sitting unused in a garage for at least a year before I plugged it in. I new the battery was probably weak to dead, but figured that it would work as a surge protector at the least, and hopefully provide a couple of seconds of power during lightning induced power drops during a thunderstorm.

I have a CS 350, which seems to work fine - for the past year I thought it was ...
Plugged into the wall the normal operation green LED is lit, unplugging the A/C input cord causes the unit to beep and the red LED lights. Bad Batter LED never lights. Plugging A/C back into source power causes the warning beep to stop. Toggling the power button seems to properly start/stop the unit.

However, when the unit is on battery power - it isn't. Anything plugged into the backup outlets lose power immediately. What brought this to my attention was the thunderstorm last night caused not only momentary power outages - devices plugged into the UPS immediately lost power - but also brown outs which the UPS seemed to be dealing with, however the output power was clearly non-existent because the PC attached would lose power for fractions of a second. This continued for as long as it took me to get under the table and power off the PC. ( there was a lot of lightning! )

I put a volt meter to the battery - it's in good condition without any leaks and shows 12.4v.

Before I go and buy a new battery, my questions are here:
- is this behavior indicative of a dead battery ?
- can it be revived with lead-acid over-charging/cycling techniques ?
- how can I determine if the unit is faulty elsewhere ? ie: can I connect a 12v car battery to see if the unit works properly ?
- is this RJ-45 plug for a CAT5 Ethernet connection or a USB cable adapter ? It is labeled as "Data Port", did early CS 350's have a standard Ethernet connection only ?
- lastly, I've heard various 12v 7amp dirt bike /jet ski/alarm batteries are the same as APC used ?? Is there anything else to check other than dimensions and capacity?

anyway, thanks for the info and any help.

-daniel

[Anonymous user]

Thanks for the response.

I'll order a new battery. Interestingly ( and frustratingly ) I couldn't find the part at apc.com ... at:
http://www.apc.com/tools/upgrade_selector/index.cfm
and entering "cs 350" and various combinations with/without the letters, doesn't get me anywhere. Probably at the wrong page.

Anyway, does this look like a reasonable battery which a non-APC approved replacement might look like, were someone to go that route?
http://www.wholesalebatteriesdirect.com/apc-back-ups-batteries/45213-apc-back-ups-cs-350-bk350-bk350...

-daniel

[BillP]

It's most likely a bad battery. Batteries don't necessarily lose their voltage just because they get older. Is there a model and serial # on the battery itself? What about the UPS itself?

The Rj-45 style plug is for our software only. There is no network connectivity

It may be possible to use 3rd party batteries, however we cannot recommend them. Many on this do use 3rd party batteries however

[BillP · Accepted solution]

CS 350 isn't the model #. It's the family name. If you can confirm the model # on the white stick on the unit, we can confirm the suggested battery replacement. It will be something similar to bk350