New purchase BE750G battery backup; Battery manufacture date says October 2014???

[Anonymous user]

I bought a new APC battery backup tonight. The model is BE750G, and the specs say 750va / 450 watts. When I opened the box there was a slip taped to the unit, and it says that the manufacture date was October 2014. I'm not very happy about that. Based on what I'm reading about the discharge rates of stored batteries, and other forum posts here in this forum, I guess I'm wondering if I should just return it for refund. The battery sat in storage condition awaiting sale for 26 months. Would I be foolish to keep it?

I want to ask about APC's warranty on this battery/unit. I have 14 days to return this unit, but after that the store says I would have to contact APC regarding warranty. If something were to happen 15 days from now, would APC require that I spend my money to ship the unit or battery back to them? I just don't want to have to pay for that, seeing how I bought this tonight and it was rather expensive. Since I wasn't shopping online, I didn't get an especially good deal.

Convince me to keep it or return it please. If a bad battery means I would have to pay to ship it or the whole unit back to APC, I think I'm going to return it unless APC wants to send me a new battery right now. Is that something that APC would do?

[Anonymous user]

I would be quite surprised if this unit came from a major retailer.

I think it'd be worth hooking up the battery, plugging it in and doing a test with a dummy load (a bunch of incandescent light bulbs would work well for this, running to about 50% of the unit's capacity). Let the unit charge for at least eight hours before you do this. If it passes the test, by which I mean it carries that 50% load for at least 15 minutes or so, I'd have no problem at all using it.

I'd give it about 75-80% odds of being just fine and giving you many years of reliable service before the battery would need to be replaced. Electronically it's every bit as good as a new one.

I'm not sure what APC would say about warranty coverage on this unit. There'd be no harm in calling to ask.

[Anonymous user]

I bought it at Batteries + Bulbs. I'm not sure what classifies a "major retailer", but batteries is their business, so I thought it would be safe to buy from them.

I'll do your dummy test and see what happens.

[Anonymous user]

On 12/24/2016 12:34 AM, Robert said:

I bought it at Batteries + Bulbs. I'm not sure what classifies a "major retailer", but batteries is their business, so I thought it would be safe to buy from them.

Color me quite surprised in that case. By "major retailer" I mean any retail business with a multi-state, if not nationwide or even worldwide retail presence. Batteries + Bulbs certainly ought to qualify in at least one of those categories.

Still, I had no idea they sold complete and new uninterruptible power supply products there. Perhaps a lot of other people are similarly unaware, and maybe that would explain the "new old stock" unit you got.

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

So, I waited almost 24 hours before performing the test. Battery as fully charged as it was going to get. I plugged in 3 lamps, with a total of 5 light bulbs. Total wattage of all bulbs is 209 watts. Pulled the plug and the power went out after about 8.5 minutes. According to what I'm seeing online in regards to runtime charts and tests for this model, I should have got more like 12 to 13 minutes.

I'll call APC on Monday. If they want to send a new battery at their expense, then I don't mind keeping the unit, but if they won't I'll just return it.