On-site battery testing for standby power systems

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jan 19, 2001

Advance-Galatrek has launched a nationwide on-site battery testing service designed specifically to help improve the reliability of older UPS and DC standby power systems

Advance-Galatrek, the UK's leading supplier of extended runtime Uninterruptible Power Systems (UPS) and DC standby power systems for mission critical applications in the telecoms, IT, industrial and commercial sectors, has just launched a new Nationwide on-site battery testing service.

This latest in a long line of Advance-Galatrek innovations has been designed specifically to help improve the reliability of older UPS and DC standby power systems installed within telecom, mobile, Internet and cable installations.

In these critical applications the power protection hardware already installed on site can have few, if any, intelligent battery monitoring facilities.

Although these batteries may have either a five or ten year design life, their actual working life can be far shorter.

This depends on a number of factors, including actual usage in anger, charging regime and the local ambient temperature.

Because of these variables, often the only alarm indication that the battery cannot support the intended application might be just before a mains failure occurs.

Whilst many modern power protection systems incorporate some form of battery testing functionality, these devices tend to be less capable of identifying individual battery cell failure, especially within long duration battery sets.

Because any battery pack is only as good as its weakest cell, any failure or performance shortfall in a single cell can quickly damage the performance of the remainder.

This can result in the need to replace the whole battery set at an earlier than expected date.

Advance-Galatrek's new service also caters for the large field population of less sophisticated devices that have no integral battery monitoring facilities.

Users of these systems are often unaware that their systems are failing to operate to specification, leaving them with serious problems, should a mains failure occur.

Any operational shortfall could cause their system to crash immediately, or to fail after a shorter battery runtime duration than expected.

This new Advance-Galatrek service utilises portable low impedance testers that can identify a variety of separate assessment criteria.

These include individual cell condition, total battery capacity and remaining reliable operational life, allowing early failures to be identified and predicted.

The engineer also undertakes a visual inspection, to identify any visible external or internal damage to the battery set that might compromise functionality or performance.

None of the tests undertaken harm the batteries, nor do they place additional wear and tear on the installed UPS or DC Standby systems.

As a string of batteries providing as little as 40 Volts DC can be lethal, Advance-Galatrek recommends that large batteries should only be handled by trained personnel.

With this in mind, it's not surprising that many users are turning to the Advance-Galatrek Battery Testing Service as the safe and secure route to better battery performance.