[rescue] Urk. UPS battery failure.

[Phil Stracchino]

The known-to-be-dying batteries in my SU1000 gave up the ghost about 20
minutes ago.  Fortunately, I just this afternoon placed an order for a
modified RBC7 battery pack from Lone Star.  I'm doing the RBC6-to-RBC7
conversion on my SU1000, which, while it won't gain me any capacity,
should give me a 70% increase in runtime (17Ah battery pack vs. 10Ah
stock).  I'd speculated about this trick myself, but Bryan Herrin at
Lone Star confirmed for me that not only is it possible, it's a fairly
simple modification.

In an SU1000, the battery pack (two 12v 10Ah cells in series) occupies
slightly over half the vertical space in the case, and is held in place
by two brackets.  In older SU1000s, these brackets are plastic, and snap
in; in newer ones, they're steel, and are screwed in place, from the
outside of the chassis (which requires taking the cover off to unscrew
them).  The replacement battery pack for the SU1000 is an RBC6 pack;
according to my SU1000's battery cover plate, the original batteries are
10Ah, but RBC6 replacement battery packs seem to mostly be 12Ah.  If you
remove those two brackets, an RBC7 battery pack (17Ah cells) will fit
in, occupying the full neight of the case, and the cells will now be
retained by the top of the case.

The important caveat is that RBC7 battery packs normally ship with an
Anderson-type connector.  I'm told by Bryan at Lone Star that to use an
RBC7 pack in an SU1000, it must be ordered with F2 connectors instead.

This mod obviously does not give any increase in capacity (which we, to
be honest, desperately need), but it should give an increase in runtime
of around 70% over stock 10Ah batteries, or approximately 40% over a
typical 12Ah replacement battery pack.  At the very least, it ought to
tide us over until I can get my hands on a bigger UPS.

The SU1000, naturally, will require recalibration after installing the
uprated battery pack.


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