Dave Liquorice wrote:

No Name wrote:

My choice of UPS make would be APC.

I'd look very hard at other makes before getting another APC. They
have (had?) a habit of cooking the batteries.

I think that reputation is not particularly deserved, yes if left in
poorly ventilated places they get hot (and I've seen the resulting
distorted batteries and short life) but mine runs at ~30C and the float
voltage as measured by a multimeter is is bang-on 54V which is Yuasa's
recommendation, allowing for -3mV compensation per degree above 20C.

Meaning that they'd be
knackered enough after 4 years to make the runtime

My last two sets have made 5 years (or rather 4 years 11 months for the
last set, I don't allow it to do the regular self-test).

even at low loads, rather too short, read tens of minutes rather than
half a dozen hours.

I've had 6-8 hour runs from mine (router, switch, DECT phone, a lowish
powered PC that records TV)

I got ****ed off at this "feature" and attacked mine 5
years ago to reduce the charge voltage and fit a fan. The new
batteries fitted at that time are still good. Yes, it takes longer to
reach the 15% capacity switch on point after switching off due to low
battery but I'm not getting through batteries...

When I measured voltage on mine, I was expecting to find it
significantly high, but it wasn't, I did knock it down 0.5V but spread
over 24 cells I doubt they notice.