On Mon, 20 Nov 2017 00:25:45 GMT, Johnny B Good wrote:

JOOI, What did you reset the charging voltage to on that APC SmartUPS?
Presumably it would have originally been set to 27.6v. Did you throttle
it all the way back to 27.0v?

27.6 sounds familiar, I have a feeling I took it lower than 27, to
something in the upper 26's. OK it now takes nearer 15 to 20 mins
(instead of about 10) to get to the 15% recharge level before it
switches the load back on after switching off due to low battery but
I can live with that.

BTW, I've never seen APC batteries so badly cooked as that. More
typically ime, they may swell slightly in the beam, never developing a
noticeable hump on the top.

That was a bad set, other sets have just swollen. Had to junk a rack
mount APC PS as to remove the batteries would have required major
metal work surgery. The batteries had expanded into the framework
gaps.

I've kept a spare 12A SLA in good enough condition by solar panel
charging

I have a small (4 x 12") solar panel permenantly connected to the
gensets starter battery. That keeps it nicely fettled, but is another
thing that I ought to test soon. ie wheel it out, check oil etc,
start up, load with 1 kW fan heater and let it run for an hour or
two. Ocassionally switching the heater off or up to 2 kW for several
minutes.

--
Cheers
Dave.