Conexant Battery exploded

[Mad_Professor]

Just had a power outage from thunderstorm rolling through a few minutes ago and my network went dead. I go to the closet open and noticed the D-link switch and WiFi AP was dead. I check the battery backup and it was HOT! I went and got a power strip to check the switch and AP and it was ok.

I removed the battery backup when I noticed a very hot feeling seeping through my clothes. I look down and see clear fluid leaking out of the battery backup. I took it outside and immediately change my clothes and got soap and water on the area where the liquid came in contact and scrubbed good.

I open the battery cover and the photos below is what I saw. The battery failed catastrophically. I don't know if it's from overcharging or being discharged.

I think I'm going to go get a new UPS.

[ratdude747]

Re: Conexant Battery exploded



You're lucky there was no fire... new UPS time.

[Mad_Professor]

Re: Conexant Battery exploded

I have a matching one in my bedroom for my gaming machine, it's working properly, it does a self-test every 5-7 days. What I don't understand is the one in closet, if it did a self-test it should have failed and beep at me, must have been broken for awhile.

[999999999]

Re: Conexant Battery exploded

How old is the UPS battery? Over time, heat makes some plastics brittle then if you get gas buildup on one from overcharging then a larger change in temperature from discharge heat and the UPS circuits, the battery may crack.

Although it may do a self-test every few days, it should indicate that sort of failure in real time so I doubt it was cracked for long. Further, the liquid would have already completely leaked out and dried up.

[Mad_Professor]

Re: Conexant Battery exploded

I had the battery replaced about 2 years ago.

It possible it failed sometime over the weekend or yesterday and the unit was trying to charge the battery which was bad/shorted and causing the unit to overheat.

[Mad_Professor]

Re: Conexant Battery exploded

Well I took it over to Batteries Plus, they extracted the batteries. Took about 45 minutes to get the batteries out, using acouple of flat head screwdrivers and two people. The batteries were really STUCK! Cables were damaged/ broke from tugging the second battery out, Then, they had to go BAM-BAM on it to get the second one out. At least the cable was replaceable, they had cables on hand. Also they had corroded to rust, need to be replaced anyways.

The first one was the worst, cracked in half, blew out on the sides. Top one had a crack on the bottom corner.

Got new batteries in, unit works.

Looks like it's a design flaw in the battery backup. The batteries are a tight fit but there's no room for expansion so the batteries keep expanding until it can't expand any more then the batteries crack and vents.

[ratdude747]

Re: Conexant Battery exploded

Looks like it's a design flaw in the battery backup. The batteries are a tight fit but there's no room for expansion so the batteries keep expanding until it can't expand any more then the batteries crack and vents.

Any way to mod it so that error is fixed?

[Mad_Professor]

Re: Conexant Battery exploded

Any way to mod it so that error is fixed?

No, it's thin plastic walls so if I remove one I weaken the outer.

[joshnz]

Re: Conexant Battery exploded

I have my battery outside of my ups.
damn thing cooks the battery's via means of hot transformer beside the battery.

[ben7]

Re: Conexant Battery exploded

Awesome failure! :P

[kc8adu]

Re: Conexant Battery exploded

not unusual to see bulging,cracked,washboarded ups batts.
at least there is very little free fluid in an agm.what brand were the old ones?
lots of junky batteries plus brands on my scrap battery pallet here at an early age.
xtreem plus and werker.
the only ones worth taking home are the usa made ones with the bolt head caps.
those are east penn/deka.btw your connext is a rebadged apc.got one of the 750's here in a metal case i just modded for external battery,lighter sockets,and powerpoles.

[Mad_Professor]

Re: Conexant Battery exploded

They were werker batteries.

[kc8adu]

Re: Conexant Battery exploded

measure the float voltage and report back.
not what powerchute reports measure at the batts.

[bassbindevil]

Re: Conexant Battery exploded

I suspect the batteries had been bad for a long time. I've only seen swollen batteries like that when they'd failed months before and the clueless IT manager ignored the battery failure alarms. That was an APC SmartUPS: it took a big screwdriver to pry the battery tray out.

[kc8adu]

Re: Conexant Battery exploded

usually one cell shorts and the fixed float is now high for the remaining good cells.they hit thermal runaway.in all cases where i found melty batts one cell was always unmelted.the one that shorted.
the o.p's case it was probably crap batts and maybe high float.those plastic apc units are junk anyway.

I suspect the batteries had been bad for a long time. I've only seen swollen batteries like that when they'd failed months before and the clueless IT manager ignored the battery failure alarms. That was an APC SmartUPS: it took a big screwdriver to pry the battery tray out.