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Relatedly, does anyone know of a UPS which accepts some sort of commodity battery and which has a USB/serial port to communicate to a computer when the main pow

by arjie 11y ago

Relatedly, does anyone know of a UPS which accepts some sort of commodity battery and which has a USB/serial port to communicate to a computer when the main power is off? Everything I've seen has a proprietary battery design resulting in a battery that gets more and more expensive as the hardware gets older and fewer and fewer people have it. The batteries don't have to hold much energy after all. Just enough to flush to disk and power off safely.

bluedino 11y ago
APC UPS's will fit a standard battery
- arjie 11y ago
  Thanks! This looks like the best option. I'll just have to confirm that the ones available in my parents' part of the world also have a similar design.
reitanqild 11y ago
We used an inverter-type with standard 12V lead-acid car batteries recently. Had a plug-in monitoring solution.
- arjie 11y ago
  Ah, I see. Probably more hefty than the use-case I'm envisioning (just keeping a few NAS devices online until they can power down).
  - reitanqild 11y ago
    I think the pricing is reasonable but I've forgot the exact name of the thing we used (and I have switched job so I cannot just look it up.) Another benefit of using a standard inverter is that it is fairly lightweight so you can send it with the rest of the gear halfway around the globe and just source car batteries locally.
    - arjie 11y ago
      That's a fairly significant advantage, especially in my case. Thanks for the advice!
Kadin 11y ago
I've never seen a UPS with truly proprietary batteries (not saying they don't exist, but I haven't ever seen one). Most of the time I've opened up dead UPSes, they're just commodity lead-acid SLA batteries slapped together into a 24V or 48V pack with a minimal wiring harness. Quite a few seem to use 12V 7AH SLA batteries frequently used in emergency lighting, which cost about $15-20 per online, if you're willing to fuss with getting them bundled up and shoved back in tightly. Many of the bigger rackmount UPSes have a big plug on the back to attach extra battery cabinets. I wouldn't get a big UPS without this feature. They'll let you hang whatever batteries you want off of the charger/inverter, as long as you get the voltage and charge rates right. (Obviously we are in warranty-voiding territory here.) I have a couple of old Tripp-Lites, bought basically at scrap value because the internal batteries were dead, and they use Anderson SB175 forklift-charger connectors on the back. It works fine with just external batteries, giving you the advantage of being able to buy whatever SLAs happen to be cheap on the local market. (Though I'd definitely want to make sure all 4 were purchased at the same time since you're wiring them up together in a set.)
- arjie 11y ago
  You're probably right and thanks for the advice, but this is for on-site storage I'm considering for my parents. They live in a country that takes me about 24h to fly to, with daily power outages, and while I'm sure they could do it if they wanted to, they're rather averse to the idea of doing any wiring work. A user-replaceable battery that can be replaced in the way that an older Thinkpad battery can would be nice. I'm looking at the options suggested [here](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10831796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10831796) and [here](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10831721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10831721), but I'm having a hard time finding APC battery availability in India.

by arjie 11y ago

bluedino 11y ago

APC UPS's will fit a standard battery

arjie 11y ago
Thanks! This looks like the best option. I'll just have to confirm that the ones available in my parents' part of the world also have a similar design.

reitanqild 11y ago

We used an inverter-type with standard 12V lead-acid car batteries recently. Had a plug-in monitoring solution.

arjie 11y ago
Ah, I see. Probably more hefty than the use-case I'm envisioning (just keeping a few NAS devices online until they can power down).
- reitanqild 11y ago
  I think the pricing is reasonable but I've forgot the exact name of the thing we used (and I have switched job so I cannot just look it up.) Another benefit of using a standard inverter is that it is fairly lightweight so you can send it with the rest of the gear halfway around the globe and just source car batteries locally.
  - arjie 11y ago
    That's a fairly significant advantage, especially in my case. Thanks for the advice!

Kadin 11y ago

I've never seen a UPS with truly proprietary batteries (not saying they don't exist, but I haven't ever seen one). Most of the time I've opened up dead UPSes, they're just commodity lead-acid SLA batteries slapped together into a 24V or 48V pack with a minimal wiring harness. Quite a few seem to use 12V 7AH SLA batteries frequently used in emergency lighting, which cost about $15-20 per online, if you're willing to fuss with getting them bundled up and shoved back in tightly. Many of the bigger rackmount UPSes have a big plug on the back to attach extra battery cabinets. I wouldn't get a big UPS without this feature. They'll let you hang whatever batteries you want off of the charger/inverter, as long as you get the voltage and charge rates right. (Obviously we are in warranty-voiding territory here.) I have a couple of old Tripp-Lites, bought basically at scrap value because the internal batteries were dead, and they use Anderson SB175 forklift-charger connectors on the back. It works fine with just external batteries, giving you the advantage of being able to buy whatever SLAs happen to be cheap on the local market. (Though I'd definitely want to make sure all 4 were purchased at the same time since you're wiring them up together in a set.)

arjie 11y ago
You're probably right and thanks for the advice, but this is for on-site storage I'm considering for my parents. They live in a country that takes me about 24h to fly to, with daily power outages, and while I'm sure they could do it if they wanted to, they're rather averse to the idea of doing any wiring work. A user-replaceable battery that can be replaced in the way that an older Thinkpad battery can would be nice. I'm looking at the options suggested [here](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10831796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10831796) and [here](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10831721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10831721), but I'm having a hard time finding APC battery availability in India.