Equipment Autopsy - Uninterruptible Power Supply

[mspeir]

What brand were those grey power connectors. I could use some of those for a robotics application, but cannot find them.

[Arabhacks]

I have disassembled nearly the same model.

First off, one cell shorted and has left that classic bulge.

Second, in place of ripping out rivets and parts why not loosen the top shelf move it up an inch or so?

And, yes, marine deep cycle batteries work wonders!

Mine has 2 big marine batteries and runs for hours.

[AngusVFF]

I'm Chris Boden And Your Not

LOL

[TheColinputer]

I wouls say that UPS's charging regulator failed. And thus it just kept charging the batteries non stop and killed them.

Whats fun to do with those old UPS units too is to ditch the small batteries and hook it upto like a 100AH deep cycle battery or a couple of car batteries. But you will need to rig up your own way of charging such batteries as there is no way the UPS's built in charger can do it.

[AintBigAintClever]

When the batteries fail like that it's usually not worth replacing them, the UPS will overcharge and destroy the next set as well, unless you strike lucky and find a fault using APCFIX.EXE. We've seen the same issue on a few of ours (I'm responsible for about 50 APC UPSes of various shapes and sizes at work, plus 2 at home) regardless of battery brand.

At 16:35 that's a 12V 7.2Ah battery, standard fare for intruder alarm panels. 14.5V is the charging voltage.

[lpg42t]

I admire your enthusiasm, but you showed that UPS no respect at all! you tore it apart like a criminal would rip a stereo out from a car dashboard.. I bet there was nothing even wrong with it besides the bunged out battery's. The only thing I learned from this video is how not dissemble a piece of equipment.

[thegeekgroup]

@lpg42t We've done a few autopsies, they don't all go easy.

[parp12345]

I have always found it very impressive how quick a UPS would "kick in" during a black out or brown outs resulting in a seamless power supply. Very informative video - thank you Geek Group.

[ndiboomer]

Have I told you before - I love equipment autopsies. I especially like Low Voltage, High Amp stuff like APC UPS's - (I have several waiting under my desk!)

This week I have 7 PC's waiting for autopsy or resurrection. I expect to have at least 5 running Ubuntu! BTW - what model is the AS/400 you have - and do you have an RPG compiler installed? I'm game.

[ndiboomer]

GO UP GO UP! I keep saying to him, but he wants to go through the front...

[thegeekgroup]

@ndiboomer Tried up first, front was actually easier.

[weasel2htm]

Warning, Bad Joke coming: That black boxy thing should somehow be integrated into Boscy!

[MrkBO8]

The first thing I go for is the gold teeth...oh, wrong autopsy room.

[dehve86]

@experimentboy I don't know the exact details, but it's done with a circuit called an inverter. The DC is basically run through the circuit and it outputs a mangled-looking AC waveform that's "good enough" for AC devices.

See the article on "Inverter (electrical)" on Wikipedia for a better explanation.

[randacnam7321]

Those batteries are hosed due to their age (that they were American made alone tells you that they are old), not because they were made by Panasonic/Matsushita. The crappy Chicom ones that dominate the market nowadays are a LOT nastier when they die, and you don't even have to wait for the end of their service life or short them out or anything.

[hobomnky]

ya! make a video explaining how to go from dc to ac. seems really interesting

[ixthys]

Ha ha the batteries did not want to corporate, way to go Chris like a boss.

[NGinuity]

I've got 4 of these stacked in the garage. They're heavy, even with the batteries removed... By the way, those grey connectors are Anderson SB series connectors I believe.

[Rodsur]

When i watched this, youtube gave me commercials about used UPSes, and if they have been through and equipment autopsy, i wont buy them!

[mraiford]

Ohhhh, that's why I see some outlets that have the regular 2 slots, and some with a straight and a T slot. I had no idea the T meant it was a 20A plug. Now I know! Sweet!

[thahelp]

Schneider probably made the Caps, since they are APC's parent company.

[Jackup460]

Your Gerber is Chinese to. ;-)

[dolzaolcom]

"They'll treat you with kindness", as he pounds on them with a hammer and crowbar. lol

[CongletonDirector]

Awesome as always ... from the U.K :-)

[jsnhart]

I enjoyed that more than I should have.

[99Chemicals]

15:00 Its funny because I've done the same thing!

[expertmax1]

Finally another autopsy :P

[kb3nzq]

if i remember that plug is a NEMA 5-20R

[MrBilllyboob]

i just watched the vlog again were he is in that t-shirt :)

[msylvain59]

Even if I know how it does look like into a UPS, I enjoyed the video, thanks for it. And yes, these batteries where really bad.

[iman10000]

Kinda neat seeing other types of UPS systems... I worked in a UPS factory locally here for a while myself... I've got a couple hundred pounds of scrap boards too :P

[jjlwis]

Battery removal.. you're doing it wrong..

but given the situation... i would of done the same thing..

[eldaine]

gnarly. looks fun :]

[Dozzer]

I'm digging the "commercials"! Pretty nifty!

[errold32]

LOVE the random artistic zooms and focuses.

[Jorourke92]

5:30 GERBER NINJA!

[dgfia]

This video was really informative and also a lot of fun esp. that swelled battery., it made you freaked out.

[grassulo]

that 20uf foil cap would be awesome as a speaker crossover cap. especially with its high AC voltage rating, those caps are really expensive but work and sound much better than bipolar electrolytic ones in crossover circuits.

[amfan12]

Was it completely dead? Couple new batteries and normally they are good as new. Would cost nearly $1800 to replace that with an equivalent new unit.

[grassulo]

I wonder if that had a true sine wave or square wave inverter?

Some things really freak out when plugged into a square wave type inverter like CFL lightbulbs and anything with a vacuum tube rectifier, also some motors aren't happy at all running off it. Certain AC powered devices just do not like square wave AC and need the true sine output to function properly.

[experimentboy]

It'd be really cool if you could make a video explaining/showing how to change DC back to proper 120VAC.. I'm wondering for YEARS how it's done !

I understand you might have other things to care about, but maybe roughly expound how it works ;)

[randacnam7321]

@experimentboy The usual ways are either a pair of transistors and a transformer (think a full wave center tap DC supply with transistors instead of diodes and with electricity supplied to the DC side) or a DC/DC potential converter and an H bridge. Most consumer inverters use the latter design because it is much more compact. The former is used for reliability and where the fact that it is heavy as crap doesn't matter because it lives in an equipment rack.

[colt4547]

You MOSFET Murderer! Why you hate them so bad? Those parts attached to the heatsinks you ripped from the board are some of the most expensive useful parts :(

[cableguyi7]

@colt4547 The mosfets maybe the reason the batteries exploded like that, some part of the charging circuit in the ups failed and i doubt the parts inside the ups work properly or even near the rating anymore.

[zackx]

@colt4547 exactly, i couldn't believe it when he just snap them off

[sythenelexia]

I remember servicing a similar looking model a few months back, they can get real nasty if a battery or two rupture.

[salsa20]

To bad you dont have faith in panisonic batteries as they do produce most of all batteries we use in today's world.

[mtearle]

The empty black box is for where the optional network or dry contact management cards are fitted.

[kivikask]

gotta love jabronis commercial XD

[darksecond]

that's the big boy version of the UPS i have at home :)

[kylebike128]

nice

[HomeDistiller]

you know if you want high amp 24v then you can run 2*12v transformers as a single center tap transformer for 24v?

[thiesenf]

@Cris:

Don't ever use THAT prybar when handling batteries... you have done it once with a laptop battery and that battery caught on fire while using that prybar... :-)

[thegeekgroup]

@thiesenf This is a MUCH more rugged battery.

[thiesenf]

@thegeekgroup I know it is... just wanted to make a little fun of you Chris... :-)

[mraiford]

@thegeekgroup I dunno... if it were me, I'd feel much more comfortable with a pair of nitrile gloves while prying at lead-acid batteries.

[manicer]

@thiesenf Laptop batteries are lithium-ion batteries that contain cells that when ruptured can explode or ignite. The batteries in this video are acid batteries, so he was risking bad chemical burns, but there was little risk of fire or explosion.

[Ralphgtx280]

@thiesenf wont catch fire, SLA don't burn only batteries containing reactive metals like Li polymer ones SLA if punctured will leak some lead and ~20% sulfuric acid which isn't to much of a problem to clean up

[MrControColpo]

Do yourself a favor, skip to 19:05 if you do NOT like to see him struggle with batteries for 12 minutes.

[ExtremeSciences]

These batteries thought that they had had a bad life before;that was until they met Chris Boden.

[baldbrad]

The box on the back is a card slot for the APC SNMP network card. (I have a few)

[Heeimweired]

I love the way the artistic camera shots have chris in the background going 'Argh, F**n move, grrnh' ect. Its good.