Around Feb 2020. I posted on a UPS that almost caught fire starting from the batteries 2by 12V for 24V seriously hot, as one dropped a cell.

Well Well, here we go again, around Midday I noted the battery percentage at 98% and on investigation same problem. Battery still warm 2hrs after I removed them.

In both cases as its in the main Workshop / Office I caught it out. But It now leaves me wondering as to how many well intentioned UPS units with clearly no battery current, or thermal overload protection, have been responsible for fires?

Marc

I'd say quite a few.

At work, we have a 1,500VA UPS of reputable brand in every nurse call system network rack. Every two years all the batteries have to be replaced. Same for the emergency generator, same for the fire alarm system, same for the swipe card system.

The quality of gel cell batteries is questionable at best. In the case of the fire alarm, it is mandatory to replace the batteries this often. In the remainder of cases, it is just good practice.

When a UPS snuffs its batteries here in the past, there have been times when I have had to remove the UPS and pull it to pieces to get the batteries out because they expand when they dry out.

It's a case of more Chinese-made junk filling our rubbish tips.

I think this one was designed to be cheap nasty, & throw away. Especially if one caused a house to be razed to the ground. Here computers all their bits plus all of the radio servicing toys are kept out of the house: They all live in the Office / Radio shed former Studio. They cannot get the house.

A cousins hubby has informed me that he has had the same fail experience. Clearly just another example where all that is cared about about is making a quick buck, not value for money, designed to almost comply with slack regulations & to hell with safety as that costs money & makes it too expensive. Love to know who lets this stuff into the country.

The fact that both of these batteries are dated (by me) 5.2.20, does not say a lot for quality. The one in the no break is marked 1998 & it recently tested good by running it down. It has no inverter. It's a direct feed via diode, if its own supply via the mains falls over.

It has appropriate fuses, but the battery is charged via a regulator chip that locks upon overload & has a barretter that also ensures that the current cannot exceed parameters & burn out the transformer, nor cook the battery.

I know a place in Karachi that makes very reliable power units to order!

Seriously though UPS are just one of the devices that uses gel cell batteries with a 50/50 probability of failing dangerously. I was amazed when I saw that the NBN modems for FTTP had a 12V battery fitted on its side to reduce the space required. My experience with alarm panels would suggest that this is a good way to facilitate early failure. There are a lot of these batteries fitted in houses across the land probably located in spots that get very hot in summer. One wonders how many of these have caused fires in recent years?

I pose the same question.

In the early 2000's there was a KTX (from memory) CRT Monitor that developed a board crack which arced & eventually set up a fire. The fire bears got jack of them razing houses, & managed to succeed in getting them banned & recalled: A good thing.

Mine gets plenty of air & the shed has an A/c for cooling & and forced venting. Today another incident when the circuit only that the computer is on went dead. Chucked out by RCD only? Fascinating.

Primary suspect was a sump pump sitting in water, on the same circuit. After isolating everything on the line. I got it right water ingestion due to corrosion. In clean water. Bought August 2016 (Chinese manufacture)

Not to mention LG Electronics OLED TVs: https://www.smarthouse.com.au/lg-moves-to-fix-oled-overheat-hazard/

(At work we used to say that LG stood for Low Guality).

Bad news there - that video ain't about LG tellies.