Grand Apagon - Electricity (not) in Spain...

[Liz Tuddenham]

Martin Brown <\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 08/05/2025 17:19, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Martin Brown <\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 08/05/2025 13:43, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:


I don\'t think I\'ve ever (regardless of where I\'ve lived) experienced
a deliberate power cut. A drunk may take out a telephone pole or
a branch may fall on some high tension wires but no one has ever
said \"sorry, we\'re turning the lights out\" (for whatever reason)

That was exactly what happened in the UK in the early 1970s; we had a
rota of power cuts lasting 4 hours each. I made up an automatic
lighting unit based on a car battery for my parents. It used relays to
switch on when the mains went, then recharge at a fast rate until the
battery voltage rose high enough, then trickle charge.

That was during the various coal miners strikes which were at their peak
then. Local newspapers had rotas for planned supply cuts.

ISTR there was still the odd planned power cut even in the late 1970\'s
but they became increasingly rare after that.

A \"Disconnection Rota\" marker has recently started appearing on my
electricity bill.

You still get paper ones? I confess I haven\'t actually looked at my
virtual \"paper\" electricity bill for ages. I use the online portal to
check usage and how much they have taken in DD for prepayment.

I still pay individual paper bills. Last year they sent me a ridiculous
bill which they said was recalculated from several bills going back over
more than a year. Their calculations were a load of nonsense and, after
three hours working on it, a friend who is a retired accountant gave up
in despair.

I made payment conditional on a satisfactory explanation of how they had
calculated the bill. Then they started sending weekly automated threats
of bailiffs being sent to recover the \'debt\' and the damage they would
do to my credit rating. I sent many letters asking for an explanation,
which merely received standard replies that didn\'t address my questions.
Eventually they ceased replying and I never paid the bill.

The government has now made that practice illegal, but if I had been on
Direct Debit, they would have taken the money and I wouldn\'t have been
able to get it back.


--
~ Liz Tuddenham ~
(Remove the \".invalid\"s and add \".co.uk\" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2025-05-09 00:38, Don Y wrote:

My mobile phone worked all the day, I could send and receive
whatsapp messages.

Are those processed \"locally\"?

No. I don\'t know if they have centralized server or distributed.

Some have \"content distribution networks\".

I have a small computer doing server things, and it tried to email
me as soon as the UPS said it was running on battery. That email did
not reach me till the power came back; this could be that the fibre
went OOS, or that the UPS at my router went down instantly. I do not
know.

Doesn\'t your UPS deliver log messages (to a syslog server or data
dumps to an FTP service)?

The one on the server did, yes, but the one on the router doesn\'t have
that facility.

I used to think syslogd support was just another gimmick.  But,
I\'ve come to appreciate being able to find ALL of the logs
on ONE server (that is always up).  Hard to examine a log on
a device that won\'t boot, etc.

I agree. But my current router, for instance, doesn\'t have the feature.
Doesn\'t even log locally. It is supplied by the ISP. The previous unit
did have remote syslog capability, so I used it.

I have each of mine configured to give me summaries of power consumption
and line conditions each minute.  And, use a syslogd on that same
server.

I don\'t think any of mine can report power usage.

IIRC, they report:
Date/Time
Vmin/Vmax (input)
Vout/Iout
%Wout/%VAout/%capacity
Frequency
Vbat
Internal temperature
\"external\" temperature & humidity (intended for use in a server room)

cer@Isengard:~> upsc salicru
battery.charge: 100
battery.voltage: 13.60
battery.voltage.high: 13.60
battery.voltage.low: 10.40
battery.voltage.nominal: 12.0
device.type: ups
driver.name: blazer_usb
driver.parameter.pollinterval: 2
driver.parameter.port: auto
driver.parameter.synchronous: no
driver.version: 2.7.4
driver.version.internal: 0.12
input.current.nominal: 3.0
input.frequency: 50.0
input.frequency.nominal: 50
input.voltage: 229.4
input.voltage.fault: 229.4
input.voltage.nominal: 230
output.voltage: 229.4
ups.beeper.status: enabled
ups.delay.shutdown: 30
ups.delay.start: 180
ups.load: 13
ups.productid: 5161
ups.status: FSD OL
ups.temperature: 25.0
ups.type: offline / line interactive
ups.vendorid: 0665
cer@Isengard:~>


It doesn\'t report current. There is \"ups.load: 13\", but no idea of the
units.

Charging at a slower rate and to a lower float voltage would
compromise the UPS\'s availability -- but provide less maintenance costs
(of course, the manufacturer wants to sell you batteries, so you
can see where their priorities will lie!)

Indeed.

I saw in an Eaton model they mentioned two strategies - translated
from Spanish:

UPS Topology: Standby (Offline) or Standby (Offline)

Eaton Ellipse ECO 650 IEC SAI Offline 650VA 400W
Eaton P/N: EL650IEC

I have a couple of eatons in the garage.  I didn\'t like them for
use in the office as their fans (run continuously) are louder
than I would like (and I have no desire to go tweaking fans)

Ah, no, no fan in mine.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2025-05-09 02:13, Don Y wrote:

On 5/8/2025 7:18 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
On 08/05/2025 14:41, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-05-08 14:44, Carlos E.R. wrote:

UPS Topology: Standby (Offline) or Standby (Offline)

{Phrase translated by DeepL, so inconsistent: Topología UPS: En
espera (Fuera de línea) o Standby (Offline)}

There are (at least) two major UPS topologies in play.

One is where the power to the protected device is always made by the
inverter and maintained at the correct main voltage irrespective of
input voltage to the UPS. Useful in places where the local mains
supply voltage goes up and down a lot depending on load.

These are usually called \"double conversion\" (some call them \"online\"
but that can be misleading).

Yes, I have seen that name, online, on some units.


The DeepL translation is not good. The vendor said \"on wait (out of
line) or Standby (Offline)\", the second part in English. Probably a
translation itself. I\'m thinking the \"or\" is because they used \"Spanish
term or English term\"

Most of these (that I\'ve encountered) are less efficient (cuz they
are always in-the-loop) and often won\'t START without a functioning
battery.

Right.

At a telephone exchange I found one \"online\" UPS cascaded from an
\"offline\" UPS, IIRC. Used on the control room hardware (displays and
printers).

The other is a pass through of input mains voltage to the load under
normal conditions and an isolation relay plus cold start of the
inverter within a couple of cycles of the supply failure. This is more
than good enough for PCs. Mine can withstand a 1s blackout unprotected
without any difficulty but kitchen white goods clocks cannot.

These often can do some line voltage adjusting with an autotransformer
\"for free\" (part of the design).

Yes, I have seen this. The house goes slightly \"brown\" and the UPS
becomes active, I hear the clack of the relais and the buzz of the
transformer.

They, also, are available in models that can be started only with a
valid battery or not.  Some require mains voltage to be present, as well.

Right, they call this \"cold start\".

There are also cheaper units that use \"stepped\" waveforms to approximate
a sine wave; others that are more religious in their determination.

This is more difficult to find from the specs. Price could be an indication.

I do not see a reference to that \"topology\" except at the vendor. But
it says that the expected battery life is 4 years.

Ask for a guarantee on that... :

Hah! The warranty is two years :-D

However, I do have another unit from this brand, and the battery did
last longer. This particular unit uses two batteries, 24 volts, actually.

Usually, I stick a label outside where I write the date when I replace
the battery, and the price, but on this particular UPS I don\'t see the
label. So I don\'t know the actual duration. Maybe I put the label inside?

[ObTrivia:  SWMBO\'s vehicle needed a starting battery replacement
~3 years after purchase (battery life is about that for all vehicles,
here; the heat cooks them).  As that was within the ~5 year \"factory
warranty\" period, it was no charge -- so I didn\'t bother to get
involved!

THAT battery, of course, failed 3 years later.  But, as it was
considered part of the original vehicle (despite being a replacement),
there was no warranty extended to it.

So, I went to Costco and bought one to avoid the dealer\'s insane
charges!]

That\'s funny. My car battery is currently 6 year old, and going fine,
according to the garage (they just checked it). There was some
\"sulphate\" on the lead stud which I told them to check.

And here it is hot weather, for about 5 months a year. :-?

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Don Y]

On 5/9/2025 1:21 AM, Martin Brown wrote:

On 08/05/2025 22:18, Don Y wrote:
On 5/8/2025 12:51 PM, KevinJ93 wrote:
When the coal miner\'s strike power usage reductions were in effect I was
working at Marconi-Elliott in Borehamwood.  We were not allowed to have the
lights or heating on but it was permitted to use test equipment so we would
huddle around our Tektronix 547 scopes to keep warm, they used to put out a
lot of heat.

The only \"utility\" that I can recall being VOLUNTARILY rationed was water,
back east, during a period of drought.  We were \"strongly discouragd\"
from watering lawns, washing cars (car washes are far more efficient
at this as they recycle the water), etc.

We also live on the watershed for that. Just far enough north to be on the
copious Northumbrian water supply (intended for all the now defunct steelworks)
but with sewage outflow going downhill to Yorkshire Water.

We always had ample water -- so it was *common* to use a hose as a broom.
Or, to water a lawn, wash a car in the driveway, etc.

The \"drought restrictions\" were a bit of a shock to people as everyone
always thought water was limitless. Driving around town there were
many reservoirs -- some in places where only a single lane road would
separate you from the reservoir to your left vs. the one on your right.

It has great advantages - Yorkshire Water has many leaks and not enough
reservoirs so hose pipe bans are almost inevitable every summer. One
particularly bad year they were moving drinking water in tankers from
Northumberland Water to Yorkshire to maintain supply. When it gets really
serious they have had to resort to stand pipes in the street.

Looks like this year will be a bumper year for drought orders as there hasn\'t
been any significant rain here for nearly a month now and we have have broken
record temperatures for May already. Reservoirs in sensitive areas are at
abnormally low levels for this time of year.

We\'ve (here) been in a state of drought for ~25 years. And, that\'s
with an normal annual precipitation of ~11 inches. The shift in mindset
is astonishing -- to go from ~50 in/yr to less than a quarter of that.
And, for it to be confined to just 2.5 months out of the year...

Here, of course (desert southwest), peer pressure and threats of fines
tend to keep folks inline.

The idea of using a garden hose to \"sweep\" debris off your
driveway or sidewalk would be met with a gasp and a glare.

Fair enough. Where I live the water supply is the huge Kielder reservoir built
to service a once thriving major steel industry on Teesside. Even if it didn\'t
rain at all for a year we would still be on supply.

Next village is on Yorkshire and often get hosepipe bans in summer.

We \"store\" water in the ground. The hope being that we can extract
it when the time comes.

There have been some foreign companies exploiting our water supplies
(deep wells to farm and then export the farmed products). I htink
there is some action being taken to confound this practice.

 

[Don Y]

On 5/9/2025 3:29 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

cer@Isengard:~> upsc salicru
battery.charge: 100
battery.voltage: 13.60
battery.voltage.high: 13.60
battery.voltage.low: 10.40
battery.voltage.nominal: 12.0
device.type: ups
driver.name: blazer_usb
driver.parameter.pollinterval: 2
driver.parameter.port: auto
driver.parameter.synchronous: no
driver.version: 2.7.4
driver.version.internal: 0.12
input.current.nominal: 3.0
input.frequency: 50.0
input.frequency.nominal: 50
input.voltage: 229.4
input.voltage.fault: 229.4
input.voltage.nominal: 230
output.voltage: 229.4
ups.beeper.status: enabled
ups.delay.shutdown: 30
ups.delay.start: 180
ups.load: 13
ups.productid: 5161
ups.status: FSD OL
ups.temperature: 25.0
ups.type: offline / line interactive
ups.vendorid: 0665
cer@Isengard:~


It doesn\'t report current. There is \"ups.load: 13\", but no idea of the units.

It may be percent of maximum or somesuch.

I saw in an Eaton model they mentioned two strategies - translated from
Spanish:

UPS Topology: Standby (Offline) or Standby (Offline)

Eaton Ellipse ECO 650 IEC SAI Offline 650VA 400W
Eaton P/N: EL650IEC

I have a couple of eatons in the garage.  I didn\'t like them for
use in the office as their fans (run continuously) are louder
than I would like (and I have no desire to go tweaking fans)

Ah, no, no fan in mine.

These are 2KVA and larger. When on battery, there is a
fair bit of waste heat that has to be blown off lest the
internal temperature rise too much.

I figure whoever specified the fans must have considered
their efficiency so wouldn\'t want to go playing around
with alternate devices and discover something died
prematurely, as a result.

[And, lots of UPSs available for rescue. I brought home
four 2200VA units two weeks ago and decided to scrap them
as they were double-conversion models. I cut off the
#12AWG power cords and made four \"extension cords\" from
the set!]

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2025-05-09 10:23, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

Martin Brown <\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 08/05/2025 17:19, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Martin Brown <\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 08/05/2025 13:43, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:


I don\'t think I\'ve ever (regardless of where I\'ve lived) experienced
a deliberate power cut. A drunk may take out a telephone pole or
a branch may fall on some high tension wires but no one has ever
said \"sorry, we\'re turning the lights out\" (for whatever reason)

That was exactly what happened in the UK in the early 1970s; we had a
rota of power cuts lasting 4 hours each. I made up an automatic
lighting unit based on a car battery for my parents. It used relays to
switch on when the mains went, then recharge at a fast rate until the
battery voltage rose high enough, then trickle charge.

That was during the various coal miners strikes which were at their peak
then. Local newspapers had rotas for planned supply cuts.

ISTR there was still the odd planned power cut even in the late 1970\'s
but they became increasingly rare after that.

A \"Disconnection Rota\" marker has recently started appearing on my
electricity bill.

You still get paper ones? I confess I haven\'t actually looked at my
virtual \"paper\" electricity bill for ages. I use the online portal to
check usage and how much they have taken in DD for prepayment.

I still pay individual paper bills. Last year they sent me a ridiculous
bill which they said was recalculated from several bills going back over
more than a year. Their calculations were a load of nonsense and, after
three hours working on it, a friend who is a retired accountant gave up
in despair.

I made payment conditional on a satisfactory explanation of how they had
calculated the bill. Then they started sending weekly automated threats
of bailiffs being sent to recover the \'debt\' and the damage they would
do to my credit rating. I sent many letters asking for an explanation,
which merely received standard replies that didn\'t address my questions.
Eventually they ceased replying and I never paid the bill.

The government has now made that practice illegal, but if I had been on
Direct Debit, they would have taken the money and I wouldn\'t have been
able to get it back.

Over here, it is not possible to not use direct debit.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2025-05-09 12:38, Don Y wrote:

On 5/9/2025 1:21 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
On 08/05/2025 22:18, Don Y wrote:
On 5/8/2025 12:51 PM, KevinJ93 wrote:
When the coal miner\'s strike power usage reductions were in effect I
was working at Marconi-Elliott in Borehamwood.  We were not allowed
to have the lights or heating on but it was permitted to use test
equipment so we would huddle around our Tektronix 547 scopes to keep
warm, they used to put out a lot of heat.

The only \"utility\" that I can recall being VOLUNTARILY rationed was
water,
back east, during a period of drought.  We were \"strongly discouragd\"
from watering lawns, washing cars (car washes are far more efficient
at this as they recycle the water), etc.

We also live on the watershed for that. Just far enough north to be on
the copious Northumbrian water supply (intended for all the now
defunct steelworks) but with sewage outflow going downhill to
Yorkshire Water.

We always had ample water -- so it was *common* to use a hose as a broom.
Or, to water a lawn, wash a car in the driveway, etc.

The \"drought restrictions\" were a bit of a shock to people as everyone
always thought water was limitless.  Driving around town there were
many reservoirs -- some in places where only a single lane road would
separate you from the reservoir to your left vs. the one on your right.

It has great advantages - Yorkshire Water has many leaks and not
enough reservoirs so hose pipe bans are almost inevitable every
summer. One particularly bad year they were moving drinking water in
tankers from Northumberland Water to Yorkshire to maintain supply.
When it gets really serious they have had to resort to stand pipes in
the street.

Looks like this year will be a bumper year for drought orders as there
hasn\'t been any significant rain here for nearly a month now and we
have have broken record temperatures for May already. Reservoirs in
sensitive areas are at abnormally low levels for this time of year.

We\'ve (here) been in a state of drought for ~25 years.  And, that\'s
with an normal annual precipitation of ~11 inches.  The shift in mindset
is astonishing -- to go from ~50 in/yr to less than a quarter of that.
And, for it to be confined to just 2.5 months out of the year...

Here, of course (desert southwest), peer pressure and threats of fines
tend to keep folks inline.

The idea of using a garden hose to \"sweep\" debris off your
driveway or sidewalk would be met with a gasp and a glare.

Fair enough. Where I live the water supply is the huge Kielder
reservoir built to service a once thriving major steel industry on
Teesside. Even if it didn\'t rain at all for a year we would still be
on supply.

Next village is on Yorkshire and often get hosepipe bans in summer.

We \"store\" water in the ground.  The hope being that we can extract
it when the time comes.

There have been some foreign companies exploiting our water supplies
(deep wells to farm and then export the farmed products).  I htink
there is some action being taken to confound this practice.

Yesterday I heard on the news that most cities in the USA are sinking
down, due to water extraction from wells.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On 9/05/2025 4:16 pm, Tom Del Rosso wrote:

john larkin wrote:

Making money implies efficiency. And vice versa.

That\'s what the Left fundamentally fails to understand.

What the right fails to mention is that making money mostly involves
cheating people. If you can do something more efficiently that other
people you can make money out of it, but it\'s a lot easier to claim that
you are more efficient and simply cheat.

The left goes in for detailed enquiries about what is actually going on,
which the right like to characterise as officious invasions of privacy,
and often subvert by tricks like regulatory capture.

Look up \"rent-seeking\" sometime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

That\'s what Trump\'s tariffs are doing for American manufacturers - they
can suddenly 10% more (or whatever) for their products than their
foreign competitors, purely because they are American.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On 9/05/2025 4:20 pm, Tom Del Rosso wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:
Spain suffered a very spectacular near total loss of its national grid
yesterday taking parts of France and all of Portugal down with it.
This is an unprecedented failure of a supergrid system by cascade
failure.
It seems likely they had got the effect of widespread solar PV has on
load shedding wrong (much like happened in the UK) and so it failed
completely. Two events a second apart delivered the coup de grace.

It looks like they spent a lot more effort simulating climate than they
did simulating the grid system.

Simulating the climate is science, and nobody spends a lot on that.
Simulating the grid system is business, if it is done right, but there
are lot of different mechanisms active in regulating the grid, and most
of them are commercial in confidence, so only the businesses that make
the mechanisms know enough to be able simulate them, and it takes a
regulatory agency to force all the businesses involved to get together
to work out how their various mechanisms will interact.

Regulatory capture means that the agency is unlikely to force the
businesses to do it.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2025-05-08 23:32, Don Y wrote:

I don\'t think I\'ve ever (regardless of where I\'ve lived) experienced
a deliberate power cut.  A drunk may take out a telephone pole or
a branch may fall on some high tension wires but no one has ever
said \"sorry, we\'re turning the lights out\" (for whatever reason)

Not the same, but past Monday someone stole the signalling cable in
the high speed railway to Andalussia, leaving the entire line OOS. I
heard that trains were authorized to run at 40 Km/h, so that they
could see the other train in time and tail it. Not sure it worked.

The authorities talked of sabotage. The price of the cable when new is
not even a thousand euros, but the damage to thousands of people is huge.

There are places where copper products (wire, plumbing) are stolen
for their \"recycle value\".  The solution, so far, has been to
require recyclers to get and record identification of people
bringing in such items.

Not enough, apparently.

The hut they vandalized has a notice board that says all the cables are
aluminum.

A friend had the copper stripped from the roof-mounted cooling unit at
his business.  Landlord held *him* responsible for its repair/replacement.

Uff.

I think there have been cases of people trying to steal the wiring in
outside lighting systems -- and not taking adequate provisions to
protect against electrocution!

Yeah, here too. They even tried to rip the railway catenary at some
place. Some of those died on the spot.

I would like to make some backlit copper lighted displays for the house
(AZ is The Copper State) but am afraid its oxidized color would attract
some thief eager to make a few dollars off it.

Sigh.

Some places have copper roofs.

Yup.  They have a rationalization, though -- they are trying to
provide the
highest availability.  Else, how much availability do you sacrifice to
maximize battery life?  Do you then start specifying battery life as a
primary selection criteria?

[Most SOHO users buy a UPS -- thinking they are being \"professional\"
-- and
then discard it when the battery needs replacing and they discover the
costs charged by the UPS manufacturer -- or local \"battery stores\"]

25€. A 9Ah item, high discharge rate.

Different grades exist, here.  If you buy from an electronics supplier
(e.g., Digikey), you will likely get a \"fairer\" price (value for money)
than a local battery store (which may be 50% higher).  UPS manufacturers
typically charge about double what a reasonable price might be (though
the usually assemble the batteries into the requisite \"packs\"...
a trivial exercise for even 48V units).

Let me check. The computer place here offers:


Phasak PHB 1209 Batería SAI/UPS 9Ah 12V 29,17€

Salicru UBT 12/9 Batería para SAI/UPS 9aH 12v 18,98€ (was 20,63€)

So the brand name battery replacement for my UPS is actually cheaper
than what I paid. Surprise!

Digikey used to have a policy of free shipping for prepaid (cash)
orders.  I would buy batteries in lots of 10 and send prepayment.
Shipping charges can be a significant fraction of a battery\'s
cost.  They now exclude batteries from this policy (when I last
checked).

Right, they are very heavy. Yep, the place above charges 5.25€ for shipping.

I suspect the problem (rationalized by the manufacturers) is trying to
bring the battery back to full charge ASAP -- as well as keeping the
highest state of charge that the battery can support.

Which taken to extremes is very bad for battery life.

Of course.  But, they are in the PRIMARY business of selling batteries,
not UPSs!

Ugh.

And having disgruntled customers.

Think about it.  If the *UPS* (hardware) failed at 3 year intervals,
no one would buy them!  They\'d be seen as poor quality.

But, no one is surprised that BATTERIES need replacement!

With the exception of multi-user servers, individual workstations
usually have auto-backup provisions *in* the key applications.
And, in the event of an outage (even if the machine stays up),
the user is usually distracted by the rest of the house/office
going black; is ~15 minutes of uptime going to be enough if the
user isn\'t AT the machine when power fails?

You need software monitoring to hibernate or power off the machine.

I have every workstation set to hibernate after ~20 minutes
of inactivity.  This gives me time to get a cup of tea, go to
the bathroom, answer the door/phone, etc. without the workstation
cycling off and on.

As \"activity\"  is defined by user interactions, this means I
have to deliberately start an application that disables \"sleep\"
if I won\'t be interacting with the machine and want to prevent
it from sleeping.  E.g., an SSH session with a remote host that
will be busy for a while; if the workstation sleeps, the SSH
session terminates and the shell on the remote is killed off.

frown

Right.

No one has yet to address the market where TCO is the driving
criteria.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2025-05-08 23:57, Don Y wrote:

That is a feature of UPS design that specsmanship to get the longest
run time for the sales datasheet means that they cook their
batteries. I have seen them swell to the point of bursting inside a
UPS. Thick rubber gloves needed to remove the remains. Support
metalwork was a real corroded rusty mess but electronics above it
remained OK.

That level of \"not working\" has not happened to me. Maybe because some
power failure makes me find out that the battery is dead.

I\'ve rescued a fair number of UPSs over the years.  In probably 80% of
them, the batteries have swollen to the point where removing the battery
or battery PACK is difficult.  This is especially true of the \"better\"
UPSs (sine output, 48V battery, metal fabrication) where there is
little \"give\" in the mechanical design.  Often one has to disassemble
the UPS to see where one can gain leverage on the battery pack
to force it from the case.

They really think I\'m going to buy their vastly overpriced replacements?

I don\'t.

But last battery I replaced was not even two years old, rather 5
months short. I replaced it just in time to serve during the Gran Apagón.

That\'s the problem; you don\'t KNOW how long a particular battery will last,
even in an environment where it is never called on for backup!

Instead, you are forced into a \"reactive\" mode -- waiting for something
to tell you you\'re screwed and need a replacement, now!

My largest UPS uses 50 pound batteries (8 of them).

Are they 12 volts each, or just one cell?

On phone exchanges I saw huge batteries, actually individual cells
connected in series. 48 volts nominally, so 24 cells. I don\'t think they
were gel types, they needed adding water now and then.

It\'s
REALLY inconvenient to have to replace them *now* cuz they
are costly and physically inconvenient to man-handle.  I
would much appreciate some advance notice that they are likely
to need replacement in, say, 30 days (given the current usage
pattern).

Maybe folks will start putting more smarts into their product
designs instead of simple \"threshold\" events.

Some UPS say they can test the battery. Mine do not, or the software I
have doesn\'t.

When looking at specs for a replacement UPS, possibly an Eaton, I saw
they mentioned emitting a beep when battery is bad.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Don Y]

They, also, are available in models that can be started only with a
valid battery or not.  Some require mains voltage to be present, as well.

Right, they call this \"cold start\".

It\'s handy during outages -- especially if you have a lot
of UPSs! :> With CFL and LED lights, you can light up
a house for hours off battery, run a TV, computer,
etc.

But, if you can\'t get the UPSs to power on in the absence of mains
voltage, then you are limited to whichever units happen to be
on at the time of the outage!

There are also cheaper units that use \"stepped\" waveforms to approximate
a sine wave; others that are more religious in their determination.

This is more difficult to find from the specs. Price could be an indication.

Usually \"pure sine wave\" is part of the description

I do not see a reference to that \"topology\" except at the vendor. But it
says that the expected battery life is 4 years.

Ask for a guarantee on that... :

Hah! The warranty is two years :-D

Why is that not surprising?

However, I do have another unit from this brand, and the battery did last
longer. This particular unit uses two batteries, 24 volts, actually.

Usually, I stick a label outside where I write the date when I replace the
battery, and the price, but on this particular UPS I don\'t see the label. So I
don\'t know the actual duration. Maybe I put the label inside?

When you replace the battery pack in my units, you are prompted
to make that declaration and the date (month/yr) is remembered.
Mine have alphanumeric displays so you can query these things
if you don\'t have a network interface installed.

[ObTrivia:  SWMBO\'s vehicle needed a starting battery replacement
~3 years after purchase (battery life is about that for all vehicles,
here; the heat cooks them).  As that was within the ~5 year \"factory
warranty\" period, it was no charge -- so I didn\'t bother to get
involved!

THAT battery, of course, failed 3 years later.  But, as it was
considered part of the original vehicle (despite being a replacement),
there was no warranty extended to it.

So, I went to Costco and bought one to avoid the dealer\'s insane
charges!]

That\'s funny. My car battery is currently 6 year old, and going fine, according
to the garage (they just checked it). There was some \"sulphate\" on the lead
stud which I told them to check.

And here it is hot weather, for about 5 months a year. :-?

It is hot almost all year round, here. We\'ve already hit 100F and will
be back there in another day or two (brief cold spell -- 70\'s -- from
a storm front).

Driveways have tire marks as the hot concrete makes it far too
easy to \"scuff\".

The three years is so predictable that you just remove the
battery AT three years, even if it isn\'t defective. It
will be replaced (without prorating) no questions asked.

Wait for it to die of its own accord and you\'ll be grumbling
about the inconvenience and cost (as the warranty prorates
the value of the battery beyond the 3 year mark)!

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2025-05-09 13:05, Don Y wrote:

On 5/9/2025 3:29 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
cer@Isengard:~> upsc salicru
battery.charge: 100
battery.voltage: 13.60
battery.voltage.high: 13.60
battery.voltage.low: 10.40
battery.voltage.nominal: 12.0
device.type: ups
driver.name: blazer_usb
driver.parameter.pollinterval: 2
driver.parameter.port: auto
driver.parameter.synchronous: no
driver.version: 2.7.4
driver.version.internal: 0.12
input.current.nominal: 3.0
input.frequency: 50.0
input.frequency.nominal: 50
input.voltage: 229.4
input.voltage.fault: 229.4
input.voltage.nominal: 230
output.voltage: 229.4
ups.beeper.status: enabled
ups.delay.shutdown: 30
ups.delay.start: 180
ups.load: 13
ups.productid: 5161
ups.status: FSD OL
ups.temperature: 25.0
ups.type: offline / line interactive
ups.vendorid: 0665
cer@Isengard:~


It doesn\'t report current. There is \"ups.load: 13\", but no idea of the
units.

It may be percent of maximum or somesuch.

I saw in an Eaton model they mentioned two strategies - translated
from Spanish:

UPS Topology: Standby (Offline) or Standby (Offline)

Eaton Ellipse ECO 650 IEC SAI Offline 650VA 400W
Eaton P/N: EL650IEC

I have a couple of eatons in the garage.  I didn\'t like them for
use in the office as their fans (run continuously) are louder
than I would like (and I have no desire to go tweaking fans)

Ah, no, no fan in mine.

These are 2KVA and larger.  When on battery, there is a
fair bit of waste heat that has to be blown off lest the
internal temperature rise too much.

Ah, ok.

I figure whoever specified the fans must have considered
their efficiency so wouldn\'t want to go playing around
with alternate devices and discover something died
prematurely, as a result.

[And, lots of UPSs available for rescue.  I brought home
four 2200VA units two weeks ago and decided to scrap them
as they were double-conversion models.  I cut off the
#12AWG power cords and made four \"extension cords\" from
the set!]

Heh.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Don Y]

On 5/9/2025 4:24 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

We \"store\" water in the ground.  The hope being that we can extract
it when the time comes.

There have been some foreign companies exploiting our water supplies
(deep wells to farm and then export the farmed products).  I htink
there is some action being taken to confound this practice.

Yesterday I heard on the news that most cities in the USA are sinking down, due
to water extraction from wells.

I don\'t know about \"most cities\"; here, we rely on ground water
pumped FROM wells. But, other places I\'ve lived had surface
reservoirs to draw from, filled \"from above\" (precipitation)

\"Subsidence\" is a problem as buildings tend to crack as they
settle. And, once that portion of an aquifer collapses,
there\'s no real way to \"refill\" it. So, you lose capacity.

I suspect most parts of the country will start having water
problems. It will likely be hardest on those places who
have been gluttonous with their water usage.

Great Salt Lake is apparently a foul waste puddle, now.
Folks in Utah have tended to feel water was theirs to use
without concerns for conservation.

<https://www.sciencenews.org/article/great-salt-lake-shrinking-utah-drought>

Note before and after pics about 1/3 of the way through the article.

\"Daddy, my teacher said there used to be a LAKE here...\"

 

[john larkin]

On Thu, 8 May 2025 14:18:47 -0700, Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>
wrote:

On 5/8/2025 12:51 PM, KevinJ93 wrote:
When the coal miner\'s strike power usage reductions were in effect I was
working at Marconi-Elliott in Borehamwood.  We were not allowed to have the
lights or heating on but it was permitted to use test equipment so we would
huddle around our Tektronix 547 scopes to keep warm, they used to put out a lot
of heat.

The only \"utility\" that I can recall being VOLUNTARILY rationed was water,
back east, during a period of drought. We were \"strongly discouragd\"
from watering lawns, washing cars (car washes are far more efficient
at this as they recycle the water), etc.

Here, of course (desert southwest), peer pressure and threats of fines
tend to keep folks inline.

The idea of using a garden hose to \"sweep\" debris off your
driveway or sidewalk would be met with a gasp and a glare.

Here in San Francisco you can do that, or wash a car, but the hose
must have an automatic shutoff nozzle on the end. Of course nobody
enforces that.

We rarely have lawns (real living ones) here, and no pools that I know
of, which helps.

I hated mowing lawns. What stupid things.

 

[john larkin]

On Fri, 9 May 2025 13:24:51 +0200, \"Carlos E.R.\"
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2025-05-09 12:38, Don Y wrote:
On 5/9/2025 1:21 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
On 08/05/2025 22:18, Don Y wrote:
On 5/8/2025 12:51 PM, KevinJ93 wrote:
When the coal miner\'s strike power usage reductions were in effect I
was working at Marconi-Elliott in Borehamwood.  We were not allowed
to have the lights or heating on but it was permitted to use test
equipment so we would huddle around our Tektronix 547 scopes to keep
warm, they used to put out a lot of heat.

The only \"utility\" that I can recall being VOLUNTARILY rationed was
water,
back east, during a period of drought.  We were \"strongly discouragd\"
from watering lawns, washing cars (car washes are far more efficient
at this as they recycle the water), etc.

We also live on the watershed for that. Just far enough north to be on
the copious Northumbrian water supply (intended for all the now
defunct steelworks) but with sewage outflow going downhill to
Yorkshire Water.

We always had ample water -- so it was *common* to use a hose as a broom.
Or, to water a lawn, wash a car in the driveway, etc.

The \"drought restrictions\" were a bit of a shock to people as everyone
always thought water was limitless.  Driving around town there were
many reservoirs -- some in places where only a single lane road would
separate you from the reservoir to your left vs. the one on your right.

It has great advantages - Yorkshire Water has many leaks and not
enough reservoirs so hose pipe bans are almost inevitable every
summer. One particularly bad year they were moving drinking water in
tankers from Northumberland Water to Yorkshire to maintain supply.
When it gets really serious they have had to resort to stand pipes in
the street.

Looks like this year will be a bumper year for drought orders as there
hasn\'t been any significant rain here for nearly a month now and we
have have broken record temperatures for May already. Reservoirs in
sensitive areas are at abnormally low levels for this time of year.

We\'ve (here) been in a state of drought for ~25 years.  And, that\'s
with an normal annual precipitation of ~11 inches.  The shift in mindset
is astonishing -- to go from ~50 in/yr to less than a quarter of that.
And, for it to be confined to just 2.5 months out of the year...

Here, of course (desert southwest), peer pressure and threats of fines
tend to keep folks inline.

The idea of using a garden hose to \"sweep\" debris off your
driveway or sidewalk would be met with a gasp and a glare.

Fair enough. Where I live the water supply is the huge Kielder
reservoir built to service a once thriving major steel industry on
Teesside. Even if it didn\'t rain at all for a year we would still be
on supply.

Next village is on Yorkshire and often get hosepipe bans in summer.

We \"store\" water in the ground.  The hope being that we can extract
it when the time comes.

There have been some foreign companies exploiting our water supplies
(deep wells to farm and then export the farmed products).  I htink
there is some action being taken to confound this practice.


Yesterday I heard on the news that most cities in the USA are sinking
down, due to water extraction from wells.

Not most cities, but many. Some places that have lots of water are
sinking because pumps kick in when there\'s lots of rain. And because
most of the surfaces have been paved over. New Orleans is on the
Mississippi river but is sinking, because levees now keep the river
out of town and pumps export the rainwater. Usually.

(Many of the older pumping stations ran on 25 Hz power, and shut down
in a hurricane.)

The California Central Valley is sinking from groundwater extraction,
most by farms. It\'s crazy to grow nuts and rice and wheat, export
crops, in what is legally a desert.

It\'s getting harder and harder to sink a well deep enough to hit
actual water.

 

[Joe Gwinn]

On Fri, 9 May 2025 14:18:53 +0200, \"Carlos E.R.\"
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2025-05-08 23:57, Don Y wrote:
That is a feature of UPS design that specsmanship to get the longest
run time for the sales datasheet means that they cook their
batteries. I have seen them swell to the point of bursting inside a
UPS. Thick rubber gloves needed to remove the remains. Support
metalwork was a real corroded rusty mess but electronics above it
remained OK.

That level of \"not working\" has not happened to me. Maybe because some
power failure makes me find out that the battery is dead.

I\'ve rescued a fair number of UPSs over the years.  In probably 80% of
them, the batteries have swollen to the point where removing the battery
or battery PACK is difficult.  This is especially true of the \"better\"
UPSs (sine output, 48V battery, metal fabrication) where there is
little \"give\" in the mechanical design.  Often one has to disassemble
the UPS to see where one can gain leverage on the battery pack
to force it from the case.

They really think I\'m going to buy their vastly overpriced replacements?

I don\'t.

But last battery I replaced was not even two years old, rather 5
months short. I replaced it just in time to serve during the Gran Apagón.

That\'s the problem; you don\'t KNOW how long a particular battery will last,
even in an environment where it is never called on for backup!

Instead, you are forced into a \"reactive\" mode -- waiting for something
to tell you you\'re screwed and need a replacement, now!

My largest UPS uses 50 pound batteries (8 of them).

Are they 12 volts each, or just one cell?

On phone exchanges I saw huge batteries, actually individual cells
connected in series. 48 volts nominally, so 24 cells. I don\'t think they
were gel types, they needed adding water now and then.

The were most likely KS-20472 BELLCELL lead-acid battery cells,
originally made by Western Electric, or European equivalent. These
are 2.2 volts per cell.

..<https://library.industrialsolutions.abb.com/publibrary/checkout/107852477?TNR=Installation%20and%20Instruction%7C107852477%7CPDF>

Joe

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2025-05-09 18:22, Joe Gwinn wrote:

On Fri, 9 May 2025 14:18:53 +0200, \"Carlos E.R.\"
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2025-05-08 23:57, Don Y wrote:
That is a feature of UPS design that specsmanship to get the longest
run time for the sales datasheet means that they cook their
batteries. I have seen them swell to the point of bursting inside a
UPS. Thick rubber gloves needed to remove the remains. Support
metalwork was a real corroded rusty mess but electronics above it
remained OK.

That level of \"not working\" has not happened to me. Maybe because some
power failure makes me find out that the battery is dead.

I\'ve rescued a fair number of UPSs over the years.  In probably 80% of
them, the batteries have swollen to the point where removing the battery
or battery PACK is difficult.  This is especially true of the \"better\"
UPSs (sine output, 48V battery, metal fabrication) where there is
little \"give\" in the mechanical design.  Often one has to disassemble
the UPS to see where one can gain leverage on the battery pack
to force it from the case.

They really think I\'m going to buy their vastly overpriced replacements?

I don\'t.

But last battery I replaced was not even two years old, rather 5
months short. I replaced it just in time to serve during the Gran Apagón.

That\'s the problem; you don\'t KNOW how long a particular battery will last,
even in an environment where it is never called on for backup!

Instead, you are forced into a \"reactive\" mode -- waiting for something
to tell you you\'re screwed and need a replacement, now!

My largest UPS uses 50 pound batteries (8 of them).

Are they 12 volts each, or just one cell?

On phone exchanges I saw huge batteries, actually individual cells
connected in series. 48 volts nominally, so 24 cells. I don\'t think they
were gel types, they needed adding water now and then.

The were most likely KS-20472 BELLCELL lead-acid battery cells,
originally made by Western Electric, or European equivalent. These
are 2.2 volts per cell.

.<https://library.industrialsolutions.abb.com/publibrary/checkout/107852477?TNR=Installation%20and%20Instruction%7C107852477%7CPDF

Those I saw were prismatic, not cylindrical.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Don Y]

On 5/9/2025 5:07 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

There are places where copper products (wire, plumbing) are stolen
for their \"recycle value\".  The solution, so far, has been to
require recyclers to get and record identification of people
bringing in such items.

Not enough, apparently.

The hut they vandalized has a notice board that says all the cables are aluminum.

I wonder if the would-be thieves even bother to READ...

I think there have been cases of people trying to steal the wiring in
outside lighting systems -- and not taking adequate provisions to
protect against electrocution!

Yeah, here too. They even tried to rip the railway catenary at some place. Some
of those died on the spot.

How much \"protection\" do you think a SIGN would provide? \"Hey, Bob,
don\'t these got electricity in them?\"

I would like to make some backlit copper lighted displays for the house
(AZ is The Copper State) but am afraid its oxidized color would attract
some thief eager to make a few dollars off it.

Sigh.

Some places have copper roofs.

Yes. We had looked into it (because it is far more durable than
virtually any other roofing material in common use, here (including
tile). But, you need a minimum pitch to ensure the water doesn\'t
pool on the roof.

25€. A 9Ah item, high discharge rate.

Different grades exist, here.  If you buy from an electronics supplier
(e.g., Digikey), you will likely get a \"fairer\" price (value for money)
than a local battery store (which may be 50% higher).  UPS manufacturers
typically charge about double what a reasonable price might be (though
the usually assemble the batteries into the requisite \"packs\"...
a trivial exercise for even 48V units).

Let me check. The computer place here offers:

Phasak PHB 1209 Batería SAI/UPS 9Ah 12V        29,17€

Salicru UBT 12/9 Batería para SAI/UPS 9aH 12v    18,98€ (was 20,63€)

So the brand name battery replacement for my UPS is actually cheaper than what
I paid. Surprise!

The nominal 12V 7.2AHr batteries (also available at 9AHr in the same
case size) that many of my UPSs use are ~20-30, here, neglecting
shipping and tax. Putting two (for smaller UPSs) or 4 in each UPS
gets pricey -- if you have to do it every 3 years (and have a dozen
UPSs)!

I\'ve tried a new configuration where I am hanging many of the
UPSs off a couple of larger units. The thinking being that I
only have to maintain the larger units\' batteries (and still
get the benefits of a UPS per workstation).

Digikey used to have a policy of free shipping for prepaid (cash)
orders.  I would buy batteries in lots of 10 and send prepayment.
Shipping charges can be a significant fraction of a battery\'s
cost.  They now exclude batteries from this policy (when I last
checked).

Right, they are very heavy. Yep, the place above charges 5.25€ for shipping.

As I said, I try to rescue them (often I come across NiB UPSs
that some moron in IT ordered but opted not to install.
As the recycle value of batteries is just weight (regardless of
ability to hold a charge), I swap my dead batteries for such
new batteries and everyone is happy!

 

[Don Y]

On 5/9/2025 5:18 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

Instead, you are forced into a \"reactive\" mode -- waiting for something
to tell you you\'re screwed and need a replacement, now!

My largest UPS uses 50 pound batteries (8 of them).

Are they 12 volts each, or just one cell?

No, real batteries. They are just considerably larger than
the sorts of SLAs you find in most UPSs (the battery
compartments are about the size of a dishwasher in total
volume; the UPS electronics are in a separate box)

On phone exchanges I saw huge batteries, actually individual cells connected in
series. 48 volts nominally, so 24 cells. I don\'t think they were gel types,
they needed adding water now and then.

Yes. You can adjust the specific gravity of the electrolyte to
increase battery service life.

The \"exchange\" is actually POWERED by the batteries and the
mains acts to charge them. The CO that my uncle managed
had a small jet engine in an out-building that powered the
backup generator. It is INCREDIBLY loud (housed in its
own building, likely to confine the sound) when operating.
The \"billing computer\" was left without a backup power
supply (no doubt because it would represent a larger load
and its requirements could be expected to change, over time,
more than the phone network itself (in the 60\'s, it was hard
to imagine how computers would evolve)

It\'s
REALLY inconvenient to have to replace them *now* cuz they
are costly and physically inconvenient to man-handle.  I
would much appreciate some advance notice that they are likely
to need replacement in, say, 30 days (given the current usage
pattern).

Maybe folks will start putting more smarts into their product
designs instead of simple \"threshold\" events.

Some UPS say they can test the battery. Mine do not, or the software I have
doesn\'t.

Yes, but the problem with this is that they use YOUR load to test
the battery! So, if the battery is shit, then the daily/weekly
test is guaranteed to drop power to your load!

The first thing that I do is disable this test. It\'s just one more
opportunity for the system to crash (if the battery IS bad, I
will find out when the next RARE outage strikes; why sooner?)

When looking at specs for a replacement UPS, possibly an Eaton, I saw they
mentioned emitting a beep when battery is bad.

They likely don\'t load test, then. Perhaps just watch the open
circuit voltage on the \"charged\" battery.

It is distressing how little the technology associated with
battery monitoring and charging has advanced in these sorts
of applications. Again, likely because there is little
incentive to maximize battery life!