As a power supply that can work independently, batteries are widely used in various industries. Uninterruptible power supplies in data centers, communication power supplies in the power industry, on-board power supplies in rail transit, backup power supplies in subway stations, and batteries all provide important energy support for their uninterrupted operation.

Like other industrial equipment, batteries require regular maintenance. However, many engineers do not have rich experience in this field, and there are still some misunderstandings about maintenance projects and maintenance methods.

In this article (Part One) and the next (Part Two), we are sharing four main misunderstandings of the “Maintenance” to a “Maintenance-Free” battery.

Myth1: "Maintenance-free lead-acid batteries" do not require regular maintenance

The so-called "maintenance-free" means that, compared with traditional flooded/vented/open-able batteries, there is no need to regularly add electrolyte or distilled water, but its "health status" needs to be checked regularly.

If these maintenance-free batteries are not regularly inspected, they are very much liable to deterioration and become power failure. Light leakage and corrosion, internal short circuit, the worse micro short circuit which is very difficult to be detected; In severe cases, it will cause a local fire and cause a fire.

Myth 2: Maintaining the battery only needs to measure and monitor the voltage

Due to cost factors, some engineers often use a multimeter to test the float voltage of the battery, and the current online systems on the market also monitor and evaluate the health status of the backup battery or energy storage battery through the battery voltage. However, the float voltage can only reflect whether the charger is working normally, but cannot reflect the health of the battery. When the battery capacity decreases, the float voltage is likely to remain falsely high due to the control of the UPS charger. This is why in many cases the voltage of the UPS shows normal, but after a power outage the battery pack loses power quickly and cannot be discharged.

The open circuit voltage of the battery (the voltage after disconnecting the charger) can reflect the capacity state of the battery to a certain extent. However, as can be seen from the above figure, only when the battery capacity is severely reduced, the open circuit voltage will have a significant change. The internal resistance of the battery changes much faster, and the internal resistance will increase significantly in the middle and early stages of capacity decline. Therefore, internal resistance detects battery deterioration earlier than voltage.

The float voltage will not change significantly in the initial and middle stages of battery deterioration, and the problem may not be found through voltage detection until the battery is open or shorted or the deterioration is extremely severe, but it may be too late.

So what items need to be tested during maintenance? How to choose the test frequency?

The American Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' maintenance standard for valve-regulated lead-acid batteries (IEEEStd 1188™-2005) can provide a reference for engineers. It can be seen that in addition to the float voltage, the internal resistance of the battery, the temperature of the negative pole and the ripple voltage are all parameters that need attention.

Article to be continued by our next post (Part Two).

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