battery discharges rapidly

[Anonymous user]

hi all, I have a BACK-UPS RS 1000 with an additional battery pack for the same. my problem is that when i have a blackout and i'm on battery, it provides normal backup from 100% to about 50 % (which is about 30 minutes) and then suddenly discharges to 1%. The powerchute software indicates remaining battery time as 76 minutes when the battery is 100% charged. It seems to be taking longer to charge upto 100% too. My power consumption is 252 watts and the ups has a max load of 600 watts. It used to give me atleast 60 to 70 minutes on battery before but now i can only use it for about 30 minutes. By the way the ups and the battery pack are only four months old. Can anyone help me with this please. Thanks

[Cap1_apc]

After looking at a few runtime charts of similar models, the UPS itself will run for about 30 mins with 250w load.

I am not sure what you mean by extra battery, however.

You may have seen other estimated runtimes in Powerchute - perhaps the load has increased since then? Also, when the unit is on battery, the estimated runtime is updated and more accurate...

[Anonymous user]

hi, sorry for the late reply and thanks for the feedback. Well my BACK UPS RS model number is BR1000-IN, it is a model specifically supplied for India and South Africa i think. Anyway it does support battery packs since it has the battery pack input jack at the back of the unit. Also it used to give me at least 60 minutes worth of back up time with the battery pack when i first bought it (as i mentioned my power consumption is 260 watts max).This would be possible only if the battery pack was present and working or else it would only give me about 30 minutes without the battery pack. By the way the battery pack model number is BR24BP. I bought both the units together which is only about four months ago, so there is no question of the battery getting worn out. The unit used to give me the usb communication problem a while ago but all of a sudden the problem went away. It comes back on and of though (the usb communication problem that is). I was wondering if the unit is defective in that area cause the port to which the usb connects to is in the same area as the battery pack port on the back of the ups. I'm using powerchute personal edition 2.0 on windows xp sp2. when i'm on battery the remaining time indicates 76 minutes on powerchute with 100% charge remaining. It of course starts to go down gradually for the first 30 minutes or so upto which point the remaining charge reaches 50%. At this point the remaining charge and remaining time reduces rapidly in a matter of a minute or so to 0% charge and 0 minutes remaining, and my computer goes off without the battery warning that normally pops up when there is only 5 minutes left of battery time. Its really strange. Anyway any help is welcomed, thanks. sorry for the long post.

Message was edited by: zeus2

[Cap1_apc]

Do you have the serial #'s of the UPS and batt pack?

I'm wondering if the battery voltage is dropping off rather quickly, resulting in a lower estimated runtime. Do you have a voltmeter? You could check the voltages before and after a simulated power event of a short period. That would let us know what is happening to the batteries during discharge.

[Anonymous user]

It would appear your application is for consumer use, so I'm guessing a bit of down time won't be an issue. After ensuring it's configured properly to use external battery( read the manual and see if there's a setting that needs to be set), let it charge 24 hours, then connect a 300W halogen floor lamp, 3 lamps each having 100W bulbs or any combination of light bulbs reaching 250-300W. Disable monitoring and see how long it will actually run on battery before it actually shuts off.

This will also re-calibrate the runtime estimate, but it does wear the battery out when you do a total discharge like this, so you shouldn't do it unless you're experiencing a problem.

[Anonymous user]

hi again. cap1 I'm not really that technically sound to be able to use a voltmeter and the likes but thanks for the suggestion anyway. KVAr I'll give your suggestion a shot. By the way could the powerchute application be the problem?

[Cap1_apc]

It is always a possibility...please make sure you are using the newest version of Powerchute Personal (I assume)
XP - Version 2.0
Vista - 2.1.1

http://www.apcc.com/tools/download/index.cfm

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

hi all, I have a BACK-UPS RS 1000 with an additional battery pack for the same. my problem is that when i have a blackout and i'm on battery, it provides normal backup from 100% to about 50 % (which is about 30 minutes) and then suddenly discharges to 1%. The powerchute software indicates remaining battery time as 76 minutes when the battery is 100% charged. It seems to be taking longer to charge upto 100% too. My power consumption is 252 watts and the ups has a max load of 600 watts. It used to give me atleast 60 to 70 minutes on battery before but now i can only use it for about 30 minutes. By the way the ups and the battery pack are only four months old. Can anyone help me with this please. Thanks