Aquired Ferrups 18Kva UPS

[Jedon]

A colleague at work gave me a UPS from a previous company, it was used in a bank and then the bank moved and left it, the new company never ended up using it so it's been sitting for a few years. Specs seem to say it has sealed maintenance free lead/acid batteries. There are two pieces, the main control unit and a battery pack, each weigh about 650lbs.

It's a BEST Ferrups FE18KVA

Here is the manual: http://www.dc-productos.com/bestpower.pdf

Can I use this for off-grid operation as-is or do I need to just salvage the batteries? Are the batteries possible bad?

Seems like the inverter would be useful or is it even really an inverter since the batteries seem to be 120V DC?

Thanks!

-Jedon

[pvale]

Ye Gods! I've got the little brother of that one, a 1.5kva unit. They are very nice UPS's. They have;

True sine wave output

Pulse charging of batteries (Desulphating)

Cold Start capability (Can start with no line power applied.)

Unfortunatley, it's practical use is going to be pretty little. Just buying new batteries for it is going to cost you a small fortune. Yes, it probably does have a 120VDC battery bank in it, mine uses 60VDC. As far as using it, you are going to find no charge controllers for solar panels that work up to 120VDC. You would have to series several sizeable panels to charge that battery bank. You might be able to build a wind generator from this site for a nominal 120VDC, but getting/building a dump controller for it is going to be dicey. I did buy batteries for mine, but they cost me over $300. I'd expect yours to cost probably 10 times that amount. And it's far bigger than any normal house is going to use.

Your best bet might be to scrap it, and keep the battery cabinet for eventual use to hold whatever batteries you might get for solar or wind.

They are nice, serious UPS's. Mine is a full time UPS, as I expect yours is too. In other words, the loads operate full time from the inverter, and there is no switchover time if the grid power fails.

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Don't give up yet.

Contact whomever maintains such devices in your area.  Businesses which need UPS will rotate out old cells for new ones periodically - well before their useful life is over, because they need the capacity to cover them in an outage.  (Our company just swapped out a couple sets after 6 years when they're rated for maybe twice that.)  You might be able to get a recently-pulled half-used set from the dealer at scrap prices - or swap the cells in yours for a half-used set (plus a case of beer or a nominal fee or something. B-) )

[Jedon]

I opened up the units and took a bunch of pictures. The main unit has a big transformer and a bunch of capacitors and of course a couple circuit boards.

The slave unit has 10 batteries, C&D Power Solutions Dynasty UPS Battery UPS12-270FR

75. AH @ 20 hour rate, 282 WPC, IEC rating 67.1 AH @ 10 hour rate. I looked online and these cost anywhere from $180-$280 each to replace.
    
75. AH seems pretty low, I guess because these are rated to discharge pretty quickly?
    
    

It's designed to provide a lot of power for a short time, whereas I need a small amount of power for a long time.

I was wondering if maybe I could keep the electronics but use a different battery bank like 24 6V golf cart batteries?

For this year I'll be charging from a generator so this could work out, I'll just feed it 120 or 240 from the generator and it should charge the batteries up.

When I get hydro and wind going in the next couple years I guess I might need to switch to more traditional battery/inverter/charger setup.

I guess my first course of action is to get it hooked up and see how the batteries take a charge.

[Jedon]

I uploaded some pictures of the units:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jedon13/20080918UPS#

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

...  AH seems pretty low, I guess because these are rated to discharge pretty quickly?

Yep.  They're rated to dump the bulk of their charge in something like 15 min without damage.

I was wondering if maybe I could keep the electronics but use a different battery bank like 24 6V golf cart batteries?

You might have to tweak the equalization and float voltage setpoints for flooded vs. the original VRLA AGMs if you want the UPS to handle the charging.

[Jon Miller]

I would say, sell it or scrap it and buy an in

verter.

two reasons for this in my mind:

UPS uses transformers so the losses in conversion will be 10% - 15% minimal higher then an electronic inverter.

You wont be using the UPS any were near to its maximum rated capacity so its losses will be even higher.

Its runs at an uncommon voltage and all the kit you need to run it (charge controllers, dump controllers, wind turbines, solar) will need to be at the same voltage as the battery bank, so more cost and lots of hassle.

and,

After buying and making all the kit work for it, and say the UPS brakes, you will have to find another 120volt UPS.

Just my thoughts

Regards

[DanG]

I guess I'll share the little bits I've figured out on ferro-resonance UPS's.

The large transformer favors running inductance loads - Since it is rated in KVA note the rated load into resistance figures are probably 30% less or about 12.5Kw.

From the Man'f label photo - If you multiply out the AC line input and subtract the output specs it suggests losses of 416 watts at 208V and 720W at 240V. My bet is when it is online and the batteries are charged those are the parasitic & constant wattages the unit consumes to keep the controls and transformer resonance alive and ready to perform using pass-through AC.

If you need the heat somewhere just leaving it plugged in would make a nice little space heater. Also note is has very little margin between maximum rated load and running overloaded, that transformer probably sits at 120°F just sitting connected doing its line-conditioning service, and the units surge capacity may only be 10% or 15% over its rated output.

DC-input to AC-output is more efficient, the losses are still there but the unit is no longer doing 'line conditioning' on the raw AC, similar losses are there but not as great. People who are lucky enough to have 'excess' RE energy could certainly use the unit as is for a dedicated power source - running it a few hours to power shop tools or pumping water etc. the losses might be acceptable.

[Jedon]

Hmm it's sounding like using the inverter aspect of this setup is going to be problematic due to that huge transformer.
Maybe the batteries are still good, they have 2004 and 2005 written on them so they aren't that old and are AGM so perhaps they still have life in them?
Can I just hook them up individually to a regular car battery charger 10amp or 2amp?
They list the float voltage right on them so that makes that easy.
I ran it through my spreadsheet though and it looks like those batteries are not that great for my application?



I am planning on powering all this with a Lister 6/1 with either an axial flux or ST-5 generator for now, then adding 200-400Watts of hydro next year, then a 1000W wind generator, then some solar as money allows if needed.

Thanks!
-Jedon

[Airstream]

Those cells need disconnecting and testing.

Those are 10-year batteries and should be babied. I'd want to say a long term high-float is required to get the battery charged without damage - but this seems to be a hybrid style with high 14.4V+ equalization given so all bets are off without reading their product sheet and product manual

http://www.cdstandbypower.com/product/battery/vrla/pdf/12_270.pdf

http://www.cdstandbypower.com/product/battery/related/7525.pdf

For long battery life temperature compensation is also a mandate - they say 13.5 volt float charge at 77°F but that will not keep it charged if it is sitting there at 65°F.

You get to look for the exact specs...

[dnix71]

I had the 1.3kva version of that series. It used to back up an AS400 at work. The batteries cost $100 to replace, but it was worth it. It could handle my home computer, monitor and laser printer, easy.

It made lots of noise, because the fans ran all the time. Even keeping it indoors, I had to open the case and blow out the dust a couple of times a year. The spec sheet warns about not putting it in a small room, and to keep it dry and clean.

It's made to be in an air-conditioned building, plugged in all the time. They are not efficient, but are not meant to be. They are made to back up 'mission critical' equipment, no matter what. The output is completely isolated from the input. That bank of capacitors keeps the power factor high under inductive loads.

You don't want to know what that beast of yours cost new. Only banks and gov't can afford (or really need) those things new.

It would be a real shame to part it out. A nursing home or small computer server farm would be the another kind of business that would use something that big. It would run the building liong enough to get a generator up. A place that does dialysis could benefit from something like that.

Maybe you could get a tax write-off if you donated it to a medical facility.

[remember]

I have a friend who could possibly use this.  Remote SE Utah location, grid power with lots of bumps and brownouts, multiple small pumps in a geothermal heat pump system that go crazy when the power quality is bad.

[acapulco]

surely, if these are "so expensive" perhaps selling the entire unit secondhand(ebay?)

then put the $$ towards buying gear more suited to your setup/usage situation.

forget donating it.

i mean, you've gone to the trouble to aquire it so it kinda owes you something now at least...

surely it has to be worth something...

aco

!

[remember]

Yeah, so, test it and tell us all if it works and what you want for it or when you are posting it to ebay or wherever.  I think we could use it if it was reasonable.  We are on the longest power line in the Utah grid and the power quality is so bad the power company put in a 1 Megawatt Hour Vanadium Reduction Battery a stone's throw from here but I heard it never worked like it was supposed to.  It was not supposed to supply full ine voltage in the event of a line failure, just supposed to stabilize the line voltage.  The average load on our line is 4 MW so no wonder they set it up that way, at full load it would run us for 15 min., but anyway, like I said it never worked out and the power quality out here is still terrible.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who could see a use for this thing.

[Jedon]

I'll try and test it this week, might be next week though. I looked it up and these are $14K new! I think they go for $2500 on Ebay, shipping must be a lot since there are two units, each 650 pounds.