I have a few years old APC Back UPS Pro-1000 (BR-1000G IN) model UPS. However, the battery unit is dead and doesn't take any charge.

I searched a lot for the official replacement battery kit on Amazon India, and in local shops and one shop owner spoke to an APC distributor also, but couldn't find it.

The only option was to buy a new UPS just to get the battery kit or buy any available UPS battery and join two of them using the existing bracket. There are a couple of videos on youtube on this.

However, after disassembling the older APC kit, I can see there are few differences between those batteries and the ones I bought.

Below are the details of the two sets of batteries:

Old Batteries in the APC Kit---
Brand: Kung Long Batteries
model: WP9-12SHR
cycle use: 14.4 - 15.0 V (20℃)
Standby use: 13.5 - 13.8 V (20℃)
Initial Current : 2.7 A Max


New batteries that I found in the local market: (Note- these are only 7A batteries, couldn't find 9A)
Brand: Chloride Safepower
model: CS 7-12
Constant voltage charge with voltage regulation (27℃)
standby use: 13.6 - 13.8 V
Cycle use: 14.1 - 14.4 V
Max Initial Current: 1.4 A


I would be grateful if anyone with knowledge of electrical engineering or working with such products can guide me regarding what to do now.

Can I replace the old batteries with the new ones?
I am concerned that the difference in max initial current (the newer ones having lower values) might damage the new batteries and thus cause risk.

I ask any kind fellow forum member to provide suggestions on this.

And I am really frustrated that while APC sales so many UPSs here, it is almost impossible to get genuine Replacement Battery Cartridges.

Unfortunately I don't know enough to help you probably, but wanted to clarify some items.

First, I am NOT an electrical engineer. Hopefully one might answer your questions better than my guesses.

If I understand correctly, the backup Powersupply (APC 1000 BRG) still works, but the battery fails to hold a charge any more. (is this the one?

[url=]https://www.newegg.com/apc-br1000g-nema-5-15r-nema-5-15r/p/N82E16842101393?item=9SIA8WVDH59404[/url]

So, instead of buying an entirely new unit, you opted instead to simply buy a new battery. You could not find the original version used in your APC so instead bought a different one?

From the outside looking in, it LOOKS like you bought incompatible batteries in general, though in theory the new ones would be undercharged in relation to the old one. In essence, putting a smaller battery where a larger battery used to be.

The storage and retrieval would be different, and the differences in charging may not be beneficial to the power unit itself, and that difference in charging I think could cause some damage over time to the actual APC.

If I read right your original was using 9 Amps while the new ones use 7 Amps. This can not only shorten the battery life, but also degrade the device you are using it as a replacement in (this is only a guess based on a quick lookup of the batteries you posted, I'm not familiar enough with the batteries themselves to know if I got the right items, but what it appears they are from Google seems to list different amps which is not a good thing...if I got it right).

The device itself probably is made to determine usage with a 9 amp battery, changing that battery for a 7 amp could cause serious damage to the device.

If it were just the amps, that probably might be useable if you kept a watch on it (or it could have failure as you are putting a lower amp rather than the opposite, going the opposite way is what I thought was the safer method, but...not an electrical engineer so I could be wrong).

It also appears there are discrepancies with voltage?

Was there a suggestion that those two batteries were compatible for the device...if not...I probably wouldn't try combining them...but that's just me.

That's just my uneducated look at from a non-electrical engineer viewpoint.

Please do not ever use unofficial batteries.

Only use batteries that are made by APC, and that are made exactly for your specific unit.

Otherwise, if you use unofficial batteries, or even official batteries that are not made for your specific unit, then you are likely to start a fire.

It's not worth creating a fire hazard in order to save some money.

If you can't find batteries from APC for your unit, then you should either buy a whole new unit that comes with new batteries in that new unit, or just stop using a UPS entirely.

Better for you to have no UPS, and also no fires, than a UPS with fires.

Words to live by.

The battery you bought is clearly not compatible with your UPS.

At the same time, official APC replacement batteries are insanely overpriced and not worth it, since they just have the APC label placed on them, possibly over the one of the actual manufacturer, which you'll find underneath if you take that off carefully. But you need to be careful to get batteries with the same characteristics (heck, could even try to find the exact same model, just without the APC label, if you can).
But it would be advisable to let someone who knows what they're doing deal with it. You do NOT want to risk anything with those.
In my case, I replaced the battery on my Back-UPS 700VA twice so far, buying what a specialized firm sell specifically as replacement batteries for this model, with actually slightly better characteristics than the originals and at a third the price, and they also installed them... Granted, also fixing the UPS in the process, though I'm not sure there was any actual fixing to do the first time around, considering how fast they did it and how little they charged for the fix, might just have been that the battery was fully dead and the UPS couldn't see it at all anymore. And this second time it actually wasn't the battery that failed, but the UPS, started to randomly say battery disconnected, I assumed the battery was dying and replaced it, but that didn't fix the issue, so took the UPS back to them and they diagnosed and fixed it (taking and costing quite a lot more), said that both a board and a processor were dying, now let's see how long it'll last. It's over 7 years old now though, so further failures wouldn't be a surprise.

Thank you all for your replies.
So, I will probably need to buy a new UPS just for the battery.

I am building a new PC with total peak power draw (according to PCPartPicker) of 410 watts, and I am building it with a 750watt PSU (80+ gold).
Can someone suggest which UPS would sufficiently power it?
Should I buy the same 1kv model (which is rated for 600watts though).
There are cheaper BX series UPSs availabe in 1100va and also BVX series Easy-Ups models (1200 and 1600 va) , but none of them have good reviews, with people claiming they cant keep up with gaming PCs drawing half the rated wattages.

I am really confused now. Is there any other alternative? Some people, in Amazon India reviews, suggest getting an inverter based UPS; how would that work?

You can get just a battery. I've done it many times.

https://www.apc.com/shop/us/en/tools/replacement-battery-selector?showAll=true

There's also Batteries + Bulbs. Not sure if they deliver to india, but you can always ask.

https://www.batteriesplus.com/

Here's another shop you can try.

http://www.refurbups.com/

Most UPSes pass line power on to the outlets, but then supplement undervoltage or subtract overvoltage.

An inverter style UPS uses line power to charge the batteries and then use the batteries to create outlet voltage. Inverter style UPSes tend to be a lot more expensive and a lot heavier, watt for watt. But do have the advantage of more isolation from line power. Edit: They also tend to create a near square wave output rather than a sine wave which can affect some equipment negatively, but should be OK for a computer switching supply.

The size of your computer power supply is an indication of the maximum it can supply (although you don't want to reach that point). So if it turns out your motherboard/CPU/memory/other storage and peripherals use 410 watts, that's the real wattage you use when picking out an UPS, after allowing some room for expansion or peaks. Figure 150% or about 615 watts.

You probably want to get at least a 1200VA UPS (with about 740 watts usable), although that might give you about 10-15 minutes of off-line power (and don't forget your monitor, your internet box, USB hubs, etc.). But enough that when line power is off, you can cleanly shutdown the computer.

EditEdit: Oh, and make certain that you can find replacement batteries for whatever UPS you buy. The RBC-7 line of batteries should be available in India.

By inverter UPS you mean what's usually called a line-interactive one? If so, I had those before this APC, admittedly they were cheap crap, Mustek, barely lasted till the 2 year warranty ended, with serious loss of capacity by then and battery not replaceable, and one even failed under warranty (and was replaced), and when they kicked in to correct the voltage it caused more trouble than it solved, one of my computers kept messing up when that happened, needed a reboot, usually a hard one, and even the voltage they reported showed that things weren't quite right.
In theory, a good line-interactive UPS would extend the acceptable voltage range and make the battery kick in less while maintaining the voltage closer to the norm. In practice, you need a good one to actually work like that.

The top of the line are online UPSs, which charge the battery from the power line and supply power only from the battery, offering very stable voltage and, if it works right, basically no risk in case of variations or failures, since there's no reaction time involved. But those are only worth it for very sensitive or very expensive equipment.

And if you want the official RBC, for that UPS it seems that you're looking for RBC-124 (though that's a 24V battery, doesn't seem to fit what you said) and can check at https://www.apc.com/in/en/locate/ I'm seeing loads of APC resellers there, can start checking, but you can also check for batteries with the exact same format (size and connectors) and rated voltage and everything else either the same or better.

Oh, as for what you need, a rule tends to be to get an UPS that can support double the system's total draw, but keep in mind that the real power listed tends to be a safe margin, they tend to put a 60% efficiency because they're all certain to hit at least that, but decent UPSs will usually do a fair bit better, with a real max power closer to the VA rating. Of course you should never risk having an UPS with a rated real power below the system's maximum draw, but for the purposes of determining which UPS you need, you can assume a higher value. Or go with 150% instead of 200%, like drrhodes said, so the 1000 VA one should pretty much be fine, if that's the system's total draw, including monitor and other peripherals.

I have searched for RBC 124 , but couldn't find it. Most resellers sell the APC ups units but not replacement batteries. One local shop that I mostly buy stuff from even spoke to their contact in APC service centre, they apparently don't stock those and asked to buy any battery available in the market, which is not a great advice.

I am now thinking of plugging the PC directly into the wall socket which is connected to a Home Inverter unit with UPS function. This thing might not be well known to those living in countries where power cuts are rare. Here, as power cuts (load sheddings, in common parlance) happen regularly, we have these Home Inverters that are used to run lights, fans, refrigerators etc. These units are used with large tubular batteries with capacities like 150Ah or 200Ah, and sometimes larger.

Nowadays, the pure sine-wave inverters also come with a UPS mode, that makes the switch from line to battery instantaneous (earlier model used to take a second or two to switch).

So I am thinking of using a Home Inverter for power backup and maybe use a surge protector for added safety.

Also, while these Inverters don't have Active Voltage regulation, using UPS mode on these limit the voltage range between 180-260 Volts (220 volts is standard here) and if the voltage goes above or below the output switches to battery instead.

So if you have any suggestions I will be happy to hear them.

Amazon India seems to claim to have it, sold by something called Cart2India SLP.

That is being sold for 20K rupees ($260). One can buy a New BR1000G 1KV UPS with included battery for around 12k rupees. The price is beyond ridiculous.

For around 25k rupees I can buy a Home Inverter with UPS mode and a 200 Ah battery.

So there lies the dilemma.

Damn. Using the current exchange rate, here the equivalent of those 12000 rupees would seem about half of the price of a Back-UPS Pro 1000 (estimating based on the prices for the 900VA and 1200VA models, 1000VA is discontinued and not available anywhere here it seems, except as used, where it's sold for not much less than the equivalent of those 12k you mention actually), but can find RBC124 packs starting from the equivalent of around 7600 rupees, and compatible ones for less than half that... And even less if you do it yourself, since according to the store I replaced mine at, RBC124 is basically just 2 12V/9Ah batteries in a casing, so keep the casing, replace the batteries and will be cheap, but that's if you know a bit about what you're doing.

And that takes us back to my original post.