Battery Backup Life

[nov0798]

All,
I have an M1 that I installed October of 08. The other day I received a message on the keypad that said low battery. So I went down and checked it, however the battery has 13.9v in it. I unplugged the system, and the system ran on battery power for over an hour before I plugged it back in. When I checked today, the battery has 13.9v again. Do you know why I may have gotten the message, or is the battery actually bad?
 
Thanks
Brian

 

[michelkenny]

A battery replacement after almost 5 years is not uncommon. Probably better to replace it now than to have it leak on you later.

 

[Del91574]

Voltage is only half the equation.
 
The battery may meter out fine, but when running on a load, drops off significantly or rapidly.
 
The standby time on a 5 year old battery is close to nil. Run a 100 W load on the battery and watch how fast it drops (or your panel with no AC)

 

[jpmargis]

It would have been good to measure the battery voltage at the end of the one hour run to better assess the battery capacity.  And, there is a slight possibility that a bad connection caused the fault indication.
 
All in all, five years on an alarm battery is very good life!

 

[tmbrown97]

I ignored the initial warnings on mine - and finally a couple months later went to replace it only to find that it's bulged/blown open on the sides and made a mess... about the same timeframe.  They're cheap - not worth the risk.  As the internal components fail it may show the same fully charged voltage but have issues when charging and with any sustained load.