Learned a Simple Repair for My Desktop Uninterruptible Power Supply
Battery backup after getting a fresh battery.
This should not be a surprise but it wasn't obvious to me at first. I replaced the battery on two battery backup power supplies I had shelved to take to the recycling center. What is interesting to me is that it didn't occur to me at first that I could fix them.
I think my old habits of being a bit scared of electronics repair, what's inside, wondering if I may break it or need to solder something gives me pause. Sure I'm learning to do small electronic projects and repairs but it's a developing habit, not yet my reflex.
Over a year ago both of the battery backups I use, one for my desk workstation, the other for my network equipment both provided less and less time before they shut off. Once a battery backup lasts less than a minute to power a couple external drives and a computer that's a big hint to replace it. That's what I thought in the past. So I added a task to my list to buy another battery backup. Soon it became two backups which made it twice the annoying task.
Shopping around for UPS's to get that task checked off my list, it just didn't seem right to spend around 200 USD to solve the problem. There must be a way to do this as a repair. I'm trying to get better at maintaining equipment instead of replacing it as my first plan. After inspecting both UPS's, each a different model and manufacturer from the other, both had removable panels and removable batteries.
Ah-ha an access panel in the battery backup device.
Each battery had labels and markings with its given Volts, Watts, Amps Hours so that's what I used to order replacements, each cost around 20 USD.
The old batteries and some earbud headphones for size reference.
Turns out the repair was simple. I need to keep working on that habit, investigating the stuff that needs repair to see if it's possible to fix within my range of skills. The Psyduck project was toward the edge of where I feel ready to repair stuff and it turned out well.