"Hactar" wrote in message
...
Kurtis Bahr wrote:
I have bought these from the school system in the same condition,
replaced
the batteries and usually they have worked fine. I agree with your
problem
though. You never know for sure as my success rate has been 90%, some
were
really bad. If you can hook up any lead acid battery with the correct
voltage, if smaller current it just won't have the lasting power, and
test
before spending the big dollars. If you bought it in 1996 then this
would
be about time to buy batteries.

Yeah, and it was old then, so I have no idea how old the batteries
_really_ are.

Thanks for the encouragement; I'll round up four vehicle batteries and
test it.

--
-eben m home.tampabay.rr.com/hactar
Your pretended fear lest error might step in is like the man who
would keep all wine out of the country lest men should be drunk.
-- Oliver Cromwell

You have the right idea. hook up 4 small batteries in series to the device.
enough to allow it to see 48v and take a charge and pass a self test wothout
load. then you can be sure its the batteries.

I have sucessfully tested a 5kva smart ups using 4 x 7aH batteries.
Ridicuallsly small but enough to get it running without load. Thus proving a
good unit and dead batteries.

Every UPS I have ever had in for repair has been dead batteries. Not just
APC smarts but backups pros, and other makes too.