All 5 battery lights flashing

NB-23 Member Warrington

We regularly get questions like the below.

"Not sure if you know the answer to this but had a Powercut a few days ago. Since then one of the UPSs keeps flashing all battery lights on the front panel but the replace battery light isn’t flashing, I noticed that the run time has gone down to 5 mins instead of 20mins any ideas ?"

I'm typing a general reply to help people who see the same thing.
This behaviour is on all UPS with the 5 battery LED - with part numbers that start SU, SUA, SURT, SUM,

NB-23, 2024-01-15 09:55:43 +00:00

#31

NB-23 Member Warrington

Hi

the larger cells give ~20% more runtime, but also they tend to last longer in years of use before needing replacement. I'd recommend them, but we offer both as budgets are also important.

This behaviour of the UPS flashing its 5 battery lights (on all SUA type UPS) is to do with what the UPS estimates the runtime to be, and what the initiate shutdown window is set to. The flashing indicates that the UPS thinks the time it can support the load for is less than needed for a shutdown. Note that the shutdown time can be adjusted by the user, to a value that is too large and causes this flashing LED behaviour even with new cells, and the UPS can be incorrectly determining the state of its cell.

Attaching the PDF here, see the section on "battery charge bar graph" which I'll paste below

Battery Charge Bar Graph

The 5-LED display on the right of the front panel

shows the present charge of the UPS’s battery as a

percentage of the battery’s capacity. When all five

LEDs light, the battery is fully charged. The top

LED goes out whenever the battery is not 100%

charged. When the LEDs are flashing, the battery

can supply less than the “low battery warning

interval” time for the load.

The flashing can also be due to either legitimate low cell capacity,

or a UPS with new cells, that has not realised the cells are new, and has an internal battery constant that describes an old, depleted cell.

Options menu of things you can do:

Do nothing - the UPS will run till the cells are drained, and this message will not effect performance in any way. It might predict the runtime improperly, and drop from 100% charge to 20% in one minute, then sit at 20% for 15 minutes before turning off. Each time it runs from its cells it will adjust its battery constant, and become a bit more accurate. A UPS with a good internal battery constant vs one set to a very low value will both support the load for the same length of time, as this depends only on the electron storage capacity of the battery, as the UPS turns off when a voltage threshold is hit rather than on its prediction of anything.

When the UPS does its fortnightly self test it will slowly trim the battery constant upward.

You can perform a runtime calibration in software or via the web interface. These often don't take, and I'd recommend the below manual method instead.

You can perform a manual calibration

- Add a test load of 50-70% (must remain constant throughout the test, and the load will be dropped so must be something you don't mind dropping power on).

- Pull the mains power plug.

- Time for your own benefit how long the UPS lasts. You can give us the results (time and est load level)

- When it drops the load, dont do anything yet - wait for the last LED to stop flashing. You might hear a relay open, this is when the constant would be reset. It does not always reset the constant (possibly due to fluctuating load) but does 4 out of 5 times.

- Plug back in and attach your normal load and see if the flashing behaviour has gone.

4/ use a serial cable to

reset the constant (probably too time costly to set up for a one off)

NB-23, 2024-01-15 09:57:16 +00:00

#32

NB-23 Member Warrington

NB-23, 2024-01-15 09:57:27 +00:00

#33

Jack Bamford likes this.

Jack Bamford Member

Thank for the post,

Yes compairing both UPS01 & UP02 I have noticed that UPS02 with the problem has,

battery.runtime	:	300
battery.runtime.low	:	120

UPS01 which is working fine has these values,

battery.runtime	:	1200
battery.runtime.low	:	120

However I have not changed these values at all, maybe the Power cut we had a few days ago has caused this or maybe the battery doesn't have its normal capacity anymore due to age. We don't have many Power cuts here but mainly ones that goes off and back on a few times.

When I ordered this UPS with the new batteries I did notice that the red replace battery light flashed a few times but letting it charge this problem went away. Last battery replacement on this unit with the problem has the date of 2015/03/03, not sure if this could be a problem.

Regards

However here's what i'll do I will replace the batteries in this unit and I will then calibrate the batteries and report back.

Jack Bamford, 2024-01-15 10:58:51 +00:00

#35

NB-23 Member Warrington

Howdy Jack, nice to have your reply

I think in this case the cell replacment is in order - they wre last done in 2015 or 8+ years ago, which is an exceptional, almost unbelievable duration. Could they have been swapped twice? Its normally every 3 to 6 years.

I think the runtime value will increase on UPS2 when you put a new cell in, hopefully enough to stop the flashing straight away, so you dont need to do anything. Then the fortnightly self tests will get it more accurate as time goes by.

I think you are using APCUPSD for comms here?
The battery.runtime is the UPS's guyss of how many (seconds?) the UPS can support the current load
the battery.runtime.low is set at 2 minutes (normal-ish) and does not need changing. Sometimes people but 10 minutes here.

NB-23, 2024-01-15 11:20:42 +00:00

#36

Jack Bamford likes this.

Jack Bamford Member

"NB-23" said:

Howdy Jack, nice to have your reply

I think in this case the cell replacment is in order - they wre last done in 2015 or 8+ years ago, which is an exceptional, almost unbelievable duration. Could they have been swapped twice? Its normally every 3 to 6 years.

I think the runtime value will increase on UPS2 when you put a new cell in, hopefully enough to stop the flashing straight away, so you dont need to do anything. Then the fortnightly self tests will get it more accuragte as time goes by.

I think you are using APCUPSD for comms here?
The battery.runtime is the UPS's guyss of how many (seconds?) the UPS can support the current load
the battery.runtime.low is set at 2 minutes (normal-ish) and does not need changing. Sometimes people but 10 minutes here.

Not sure when the batteries were last replaced, I did buy them from your eBay back in 27th September 2022, I did email in with the Order Number, Listing did say that it had new cells. I haven't done much with the UPS when i recieved it. Just installed it into my Rack -> APC PDU to second Power Supplies of the Hypervisors & iSCSI SAN.

3753_1705318095_Screenshot 2024-01-15 at

3753_1705318095_Screenshot 2024-01-15 at

First UPS I bought from you guys UPS01 has battery replacement date of

battery.charge	:	100
battery.charge.low	:	10
battery.charge.warning	:	50
battery.mfr.date	:	2021/03/21

I am using NUT (Network UPS Tools) to monitor the UPS's and safely Power Down the equipment. Here is the screenshot of both UPS's.

3753_1705317934_Screenshot 2024-01-15 at

3753_1705317934_Screenshot 2024-01-15 at

Regards

Jack

Jack Bamford, 2024-01-15 11:26:31 +00:00

#37

NB-23 Member Warrington

Howdy - Pulling up the order details

27 Sept 2022
SUA1000rmi2u - special offer (£85.00)

Even though this was a special offer these still included new cells.
The inherent value in that price should be apparent now - the replacement cell kits are almost as much.

Noting that the load level is quite high, the runtime will be "not long" with these UPS from the start and the flashing battery LED's could be correctly signalling that the runtime is lower than the 120s that is set as the value for low battery warning.

The battery runtime is suggesting 5 minutes in your above image - above the low battery threshold,. Are the 5 battery LED's flashing at this point?

If wanting to further diagnose, I would
1/ Perform a real world test with a stopwatch, fake load of a similar % and see how long the UPS lasts.
2/ You have two UPS - if they are the same, you can swap the cells between UPS and see if the runtime estimates also move.
3/ Replace the cells and monitor how the runtime changes.

NB-23, 2024-01-15 11:46:30 +00:00

#38

Jack Bamford Member

"NB-23" said:

Howdy - Pulling up the order details

27 Sept 2022
SUA1000rmi2u - special offer (£85.00)

Even though this was a special offer these still included new cells.
The inherent value in that price should be apparent now - the replacement cell kits are almost as much.

Noting that the load level is quite high, the runtime will be "not long" with these UPS from the start and the flashing battery LED's could be correctly signalling that the runtime is lower than the 120s that is set as the value for low battery warning.

The battery runtime is suggesting 5 minutes in your above image - above the low battery threshold,. Are the 5 battery LED's flashing at this point?

If wanting to further diagnose, I would
1/ Perform a real world test with a stopwatch, fake load of a similar % and see how long the UPS lasts.
2/ You have two UPS - if they are the same, you can swap the cells between UPS and see if the runtime estimates also move.
3/ Replace the cells and monitor how the runtime changes.

Yeah the load is pretty high, when i first put them in I tested them at 70% I had around 15mins on battry from all 5 lights to 1 wasn't until the Power cut the time went down on UPS02.

I think from what it's worth I will replace the batteries in UPS02 and do the real time test again because now the batteries doesn't seem to last as long as the first one I noticed in the last power cut although UPS01 still has orignal batteries from buying the unit back in 2020.

I know due to working in IT for years now batteries degrade as time goes. I will purchase replacement batteries at the end of the month and report back. Probally worth investing in bigger UPS's but not sure what to go with at the moment as I have added servers as time went on orignally 1 Hypervisor and a iSCSI but upgraded to 3 Hypervisors for High Availbility, 2 iSCSI switches & stacked core switches.

Just out of interest what is your prefered way to marking the batteries being replaced ?

Thanks for your replies though appreciate it.

Regards

Jack

Jack Bamford, 2024-01-15 11:59:04 +00:00

#39

Jack Bamford Member

Good morning,

Stayed up super late tonight 3am gone. So I have a update for you folks. Hoping it's possible to Pin it to the top of this post.

However I bought the cells on the 6th, didn't have the chance to replace the batteries until earlier today when the UPS actually decided to send out a ton of emails and beep stating the batteries have failed. I did the old hotswap, unplugged the old batteries and took out the tray and removed the old batteries from the tray. Installed new RBC23-kit-9AH batteries installed the tray and connected it to UPS. Pressed the test button and accepted the replacemenet.

However here comes more problems which is why i asked if it's possible (to Pin this). After the battery test the runtime was still at 3mins which i know isn't right, UPS didn't even indicate that new betteries have been installed.

Steps I did, (Dead brain Procedure)
Power down all the crucial Virtual Machines 100 VMs took awhile.
I left 3 Nodes on & iSCSI SANs. Due to UPS01.
Turned off UPS02
Unplugged Batteries & Power.
Held down the Test / Power Button for 5 secs.
Re-connected the Batteries & Power.

After doing this precedure problem was still there Runtime 3 mins and Battery Lights were still flashing, I checked in NUT nothing changed, then I installed PowerCute on a old Windows XP laptop connected via USB and Powercute was also reporting the same. In Powercute it gives me a option to do a runtime test which i did left it doing the runtime test after the test Runtime went straight back up to 20mins on UPS02. Now I know i didn't need to Power VMs now could of left it all online but better to be safe than sorry. When I started the Runtime Test I used a stopwatch and clocked the uptime at 28mins these Batteries makes a huge difference, Will order some more for UPS01.

End result a Happy UPS and a Happy Life, Can sleep better at night now.

3753_1707881369_Screenshot 2024-02-14 at