They are all garbage. Buy the cheapest ones, and replace every 2 years. Avoid high than usual capacities: they are either lying or indeed have higher capacity — not good for longevity.
Cyberpower and APC do exact same. They buy the cheapest horseshit they can find and slap their label. Batteries are commodities. There is no reason to try to find “a better” one.
Btw requirements for alarms and ups are drastically different, for alarms you want long standby and low discharge current. For ups you want high discharge current.
I don’t know how much power needs a siren, so I can’t debate on this, but both systems use the same batteries. It’s not like I invented the wheel now. Thinking about it, I believe you want to compare a motocycle batterie with an UPS one. Yes, even if they look similar in dimensions, they serve different power needs, so there you are right. But security systems and computer UPSes are similar. So agree to disagree.
Second, if you face 2 choises at the same price, one sais 10 years, the other sais 3, what do you choose? You don’t have any clues about the tech inside, what gels, fiberglasses, etc are in there, so you can take their word for it and get the 10 years one, or you ignore them and think you are smarter than everyone else and flip a coin. I don’t think I’m smarter than everyone else and I don’t like to flip coins.
And the funny thing is that my choise is the cheapest one I found.
Motorcycle batteries doe exact same job as UPS batteries: Very infrequent, very high discharge current. Secirity system batteries – the opposite. Infrequent, sustained low stable discharge.
The difference dictates the geometry of plates and the trade off between longevity and discharge current, that includes susceptibility to sulfatation.
Both of the same type? Is this a trick question? Of course, the one that says 3. Because that one is honest, and the other is already lying in marketing materials, so they proved they are dishonest, and if they lie on the surface – imagine the bullshit inside. Flooded lead acid batteries don’t last 10 years. Nor do AGM (but see below)
You have to pick the battery technology that matches your charger profile in the UPS. Yes, AGM batteries are more efficient, and last longer. But only if you use them with the charging profile they are designed for. If you stick AGM battery into the UPS that expects standard flooded ones, you will get barely any improvement in longevity because the improper charging curve will be actively killing your fancy AGM cells. And yes, they will work slightly longer, because AGM is very good at tolerating abuse, but not as long as it could be with proper charging profile, to justify the extra cost. And why would you choose to actively kill your battery?!
Same shit happens with car batteries where shady places upsell customers to AGM that will die very soon in their 2010 Toyota corolla.
If your UPS is specced for flooded batteries, buy flooded batteries. Even if they are more expensive. Come on dude…
dont search amazon, search in local battery store, they usually sell different types of batteries, and also can suggest good stuff.
I measured around 10 different batteries with special equipment for discharge capacity.
Id discharge battery fully and count how much was really inside.
for example Long shown 11ah in 9ah batterie.
Also UPS batterie should have F2 type connector it 6.3mm width faston connector to be able withdraw more power.
I changed batteries in lot of UPS, as we mantain video security systems, and havent seen f1 connectors anywhere, even in china cheap UPS, but may be yes there are some. I igree that best way to bring to seller and ask for something like it.
In my experience CSB EVX and CSB XTV series last a long time inside a UPS. I guess the EVX series are made for deep discharges and that somehow makes them last a long time when they are not deep discharged often.
For example, I bought a set of EVX12200 in 2010, then a new set in 2020 and those batteries are still inside the UPS and pass the self-test.
I have had bad experience with the HRL series. They tend to develop high self-discharge for some reason.
This makes no sense. They cost $100 and last 10 years. Or you can buy a normal one for $17 and they will last 3 years. Why would you spend $100 up let alone higher overall cost? Batteries are consumables. Only cost per year matters.
These batteries support discharge at 230A. This is entirely different usecase than a UPS.
That UPS is designed for 4x18Ah batteries (this form factor).
EVX12200 costs me 63EUR
The cheapest I can see in the store is NPP NP12-18Ah - 38EUR.
I don’t knw where I could get an 18Ah battery for ~17EUR and whether it would last 3 years.
And I doubt that the NPP battery wil last over 6 years.
I have another, much bigger, UPS. It uses 60x12Ah batteries and the basement where it is gets a bit hot in the summer. Again, I use EVX (this time EVX12120), because I hope they would last longer and the alternatives are not that much cheaper. However, when I need to replace the batteries I also have to carry them to the UPS and then get the old ones to recycling and I would rather do that less often.
I’m watching for people with experience with the LiFePO4 models… with built-in battery management so they can be used in old UPSs expecting lead-acid. (random examples).
If it would actually get me 10 years between replacement (instead of 2 or 3) it would be worth paying more. Assuming no fires
Why though? Seems like a horrible idea, specially if the power loss is infrequent; the only lithium benefit that matters — high cycle life — will go unused.
And yet you get all cons:
more complex battery management
stricter temperature requirements.
higher cost.
Lithium batteries are degrading faster sitting at full charge. if UPS allows to set 80% max charge, you would then be reducing runtime.
higher certification requirements for fire safety.
Lead acid batteries have none of these problems, they are cheap commodities.
Oh, and if you care — lead acid batteries are recycled much better than lithium. So there is that.
I think that is a bit of an extreme take. The lead acid batteries tend to wear out fairly quickly in UPS units that self test. We get less than a year out of them in general. The lithium cells have overload circuits and such to protect the batteries from various mischief as they don’t want a lawsuit anymore than the next guy. Most of the lithium portable generators (their words) have a pass through and work as UPS units. Same with anyone using a modern solar panel system. Those wall batteries are not lead acid.
Also, there are different chemistries of lithium batteries as they can have different functions. Lithium Ion, Lithium Iron, Lithium Cobalt, Nickel, etc… So that matters as well. The UPS replacement batteries that are lithium work well for me. No fires. No shortened life span. And not that expensive.
To your point though, I suggest anyone looking to use them do their own homework. Each UPS is different and I can’t recommend one that is one size fits all. Same as Lead Acids. I wouldn’t point you at a battery and tell you it is the one you need. That could be dangerous.
This has not been my experience. I use APC Smart UPSes almost exclusively. They self-test and recalibrate. Batteries last 2-4 years. And I buy the cheap ones, but not obvius crap, on eBay. And by “last” I mean reduction in runtime to 60% or below.
(Actually, current set has been going strong for 5.5 years and counting in my home ups. Probably lucky batch. I would not count on that)
This adds complexity. Ultimately, a battery is a consumable. The simpler and more recyclable it is — the better. Lead acid ones are [still] leading.
I agree, but what I definitely would not do regardless of what said research happens to yield, is retrofit UPSs that were designed for lead acid with anything else that is not lead acid of the same type, let alone different chemistry requiring various hardware and software adapters.
I don’t know how APC smart UPSes work, but they have like an internal counter; when it reaches a number of months since the battery repacement, they fail to work. Both my old 750 models enetered in overload after like 3 years with no load, with original batteries and the original replacements. In the same working conditions, Cyberpower true synwave models (the cheaper lineup) work after more than 3 years with original batteries. I just replaced them to avoid the end-of-life problems. But never I’ve seen ovearload on them. I have very rare power outages were the APC used to work, like 2-3 per year.
Well, let’s wait 3 years. I put a new Ultracell in one of them. I’m also thinking that maybe they programme the fault at the factory and at official repair shops, when they replace the batteries. I replaced the batteries at one of them, in my country and they behaved like the first time. Now I replaced a battery myself. We’ll see. I sold the other unit.
Another anecdote for support of immediate defenestration any cyber power made product you have misfortune to own.
There are grid some repairs going on around us and electricity was unstable. My servers are on UPS but my desktop Mac wasn’t.
So I connected CyberPower CST135UC2 I did not get rid of yet. And – to take advantage of graceful shutdown – connected the USB cable as well.
UPS --(usb)–> USB hub–(usb)–> Studio Display --(thunderbolt)–> Mac .
And at this point both my Mac and display are unable to enter sleep. 35W power consumption 24/7. I saw a difference on my energy monitor.
I’ll say it again – An UPS prevents connected hardware from ENTERING DUCKING SLEEP. None of other hardware connected to the same cheap amazon hub (shitty USB toslink adapter, Logitech mouse transceiver, etc) had any uses. But not ducking UPS.
What a horseshit company it’s unbelievable. It’s just surreal. What the actual hell. Imagine how much energy waste and carbon emission these acktards cause worldwide.
For those who think I’m overreacting – that’ is $12/month. $150/year, every year, from every customer, because uneducated asshats at cyberpower don’t know how to write usb software.
/rant
Any by the way, I found much better approach to provide power to my network and storage equipment – 12 V marine AGM battery + Victron Multiplus. Almost no parasitic draw, everything is cold as cucumber, 12 hours runtime at my load. How do I manage server shutdown? Battery monitor on a PIC microcontroller with a serial over USB and a simple 12-bit ADC, and shutdown -p now command on the host. I’m done wasting time with commercial UPSes. As the saying goes – if you want to get something done right – do it yourself.
