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Post by papaof2 on May 12, 2020 20:08:05 GMT -6
Went to the basement to do my daily check on the solar backup system and heard what had to be a UPS alarm - not the Beep! Beep! of power off but the continuous Beeeeeeeeeeeep! of a problem in the UPS itself. The UPS is an ancient* APC Back-UPS 280 (180 watts/280VA) which I've had for years. It powers the wired network hardware (24 port gigabyte switch) and an ancient tower PC that's my backup for almost everything old, such as source code for software I've written (personal and contract) and about 15 years of email - in 3 different POP3 email programs as things changed over time - (not sure of the total storage but it's on multiple drives and maybe up to 2000GB across 5 drives now?). The PC is old and slow but has multiple disk drive controller cards (IDE and SATA), has space for many drives and the "choose boot drive" screen is just one keystroke away during boot. This PC is only on when needed to back something up or to retrieve some bit of backed up data but it needs UPS protection when backing things up.
Anyway, the 12 volt 8AH battery in the UPS died at about age 2 1/2 years. Some of the older UPS units tend to push the batteries with a high-end-of-acceptable charging voltage and this battery experienced early death from over-charging. Newer UPS units usually do somewhat better with charging. The Back-UPS 280 manual says the battery will have a life of 3 to 6 years but this one didn't make the 3 year mark so the charging circuitry in the UPS needs to be checked (need to do that when I'm having a good day as some UPS units have the charging circuitry at line voltage when charging and you need to have tools and test equipment properly arranged so you don't get zapped while working on the UPS). I replaced the Back-UPS with one of two Tripp Lite OmniSM1000LCD UPS units (500 watts/1000VA) I got for free (from Craig's List). Getting those units functional just cost me the price of a replacement battery (about $20 for each UPS). Both of the Omni UPS units have been used to replace much older APC Back-UPS 280's this year, the first Back-UPS replaced when it couldn't power the 5 watt Raspberry Pi in-house web server during a short hit on the power a week or so ago. Not sure if I want to dig that Back-UPS out from under the stack of books and hardware under that desk and spend the time to repair it or the one that died yesterday. Maybe just put both of them on Craig's List?
* A quick online search found an ad for the Back-UPS 280 in PC Magazine in June 1995 so my units are possibly more than 20 years old - guess you could say they were well made? Wonder if there is a date of manufacture somewhere on/in the units? Maybe I will open them up just out of curiosity…
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Post by 9idrr on May 12, 2020 21:12:14 GMT -6
Subject line made me think it was a muse caught in a rat trap... or a rat caught in a muse trap.
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Post by papaof2 on May 12, 2020 21:44:29 GMT -6
I think a muse in a rat trap would be screaming and not beeping ;-)
The closest thing to a muse trap is the chocolate at various places in the house: dark M&Ms in a covered cut glass dish in the living room, Hershey's Miniatures (Special Dark version, heavy on the special dark) in another covered dish in the family room, Nutella in the pantry and Hershey's Dark syrup in the fridge for the vanilla ice cream (or to fill out the flavor in Starbucks very weak hot chocolate K-cups - only tried those once - the Cafe Escapes Cafe Mocha is better but think hot chocolate with a coffee flavor instead of coffee with a chocolate flavor). I guess that much chocolate might be classed as a muse trap - but it was my better half who opened the Nutella jar as soon as she got home with it ;-)
While there are rodent traps in the house, they are in the attic because of a squirrel problem we had a few years ago (and spent a good bit of $$ getting all the little places closed up with sheet metal). Having one squirrel crawl into the insulation and die is ten too many. The traps are intended to be bolted in place because the force of the springs when tripped can tumble a trap across the floor, but not securing them ensures you hear more than just a "Thunk!" which might have been a small limb dropping on the roof - the traps have been silent for several years.
I remember mouse traps, D-Con and lots of Flit and Raid from the places we lived when I was a kid and I prefer having a very effective perimeter pest control service that's good enough that even roaches - some of the most durable creatures - don't survive long after crossing the barrier. I might see a half dozen of those in a year but they're either moving slowly or on their backs twitching. That's one maintenance expense that's worth it. I also have baited sticky strips near some doors to stop things as soon as they enter.
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Post by papaof2 on Sept 11, 2020 8:35:46 GMT -6
Had an unfamiliar and rather soft "Beep Beep Beep" when I went to the basement for the daily check on the solar backup system. The power supply for the Uverse "terminal" (their router) includes a 12 volt, 8AH battery for backup power - the specs say it's good for about three hours but that's on a new battery - and the box had the "Replace Battery" LED lit. Stole the battery from the APC Back-UPS 280 that I had re-batteried a while back and got the Uverse router powered back up. I ordered replacement batteries (one for the Back-UPS and a spare) and USPS Tracking says they'll be here today. I'll put both batteries on charge, run a partial discharge on each to determine their actual (versus labeled) capacity then recharge both and replace the one in the Back-UPS and simply date the other one and keep it handy to run the battery-powered fan the next time the power is out ;-)
Not sure whether I'll put a small solar panel out back for some "real world" testing or just use an AC powered charger. Might use the solar panel today but then switch to the AC charger because of tomorrow's forecast thunderstorms as a proper charge (per the manufacturer's specs) will take ten hours or so and we won't have that many hours of sun.
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Post by 9idrr on Sept 11, 2020 17:24:57 GMT -6
Ah, hope springs eternal. Somebody wants to believe the trackin' info! Actually II bet it showed up and is already installed. That's the point of havin' backups, to keep 'em ready.
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Post by papaof2 on Sept 12, 2020 0:10:52 GMT -6
USPS is at least honest about tracking data so when they say "Delivery today between 9:45AM and 1:45PM" I can reasonably expect it to get here that day. Much more reliable then Fedex's "On truck for delivery" which might or might not happen that day - or even that week :-( I knock Fedex in a story that's in progress for that very reason.
The batteries showed up as scheduled and both got a small discharge (to 12.5 volts under the same load, so they were equally discharged and could be paralled for charging) and are now on a "smart" charger that will bring them to 13.8 volts and then switch to float charge at 13.65 volts until I take them off charge. Probably a few hours from now. Then each battery will get a controlled discharge at 0.4 amp (the 20 hour discharge rate) until it reaches 12.2 volts (approximately 50% discharge under the 20 hour load) and then the date and the amp hour capacity written on the battery with a sharpie. Then they both go back on charge until full. In the future, I can run the same test and see what the remaining AH capacity is.
The batteries should be very close to the same capacity, as both have a manufacture date code of 200629 (2020 June 29) so from the same day's production and that's as close to identical as mass production can assure ;-)
I also have a "battery impedance" meter (reads the internal resistance in milli-ohms) which works for any size lead acid battery. You enter the CA or CCA or AH value and it does a quick (30 seconds) check and gives the measured CA/CCA/AH and the impedance. It can work with a vehicle battery in or out of the vehicle. For starting batteries, the in-vehicle test has you start the vehicle so it can check battery voltage under load and then the charging circuit when the engine starts. Pretty good info for a $30 meter.
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Post by papaof2 on Sept 24, 2020 22:00:49 GMT -6
That beeping noise in the basement - Book 2.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
Pause about 45 seconds.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
Pause about 45 seconds.
We're in the kitchen and that's not a familiar sound. Not the smoke alarm in the laundry or the UPS for the TV and DVR. Not the UPS for the desktop computer with gigabytes of family tree data. Must be coming from the basement.
Down the stairs and it's the three-year-old smoke alarm over the solar power rack. No smoke. No combustion scent. Just Beep! Beep! Beep! about every 45 seconds. Take it down from the joist it's mounted to. Wipe and blow the dust off it. Press the test button - get red LED and a single Beep!
Back up to search for the manual. The smoke alarm is a 10 year throwaway - lithium battery not replaceable (the ionization sources and the photoelectric sources and detectors have about a 10 year life so the experts say you need a new one every 10 years). The 3 beeps every 43 seconds is the end-of-life warning. Not when this one has a May 2017 manufacture date and an October 2017 activation date. However, the thing did NOT beep again while I was looking at the manual so I'll mount it back where it was and see what happens.
It's now the next evening and the smoke alarm is still silent so the "glitch" is resolved for now. Ah, the joys of home ownership...
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