How do you clean up spilled battery acid?

BrettS

Active Member
I have a reasonably large UPS connected to my homeseer computer (among a few other things) and recently that computer started rebooting once or twice a day. It was driving me nuts and I couldn't figure out what was going on until I needed to turn off the circuit that powers the UPS. As soon as the circuit went off the UPS went off and along with it, the computer. Apparently the battery in the UPS was so dead that even if the power fluctuated a bit and the UPS tried to kick on the battery wouldn't hold out and the computer lost power for long enough to cause it to reset.

I pulled another smaller UPS that I had on the shelf and replaced the bad one and my HS computer stopped spontaneously rebooting, which made me very happy.

Last night, I decided that I liked having the higher capacity UPS on the HS computer, so I figured it was worth replacing the batteries. I opened it up to try to determine what kind of batteries it used and discovered that the SLA batteries seem to have become unsealed and both batteries were leaking from the negative terminals. Luckily the UPS itself doesn't appear to have been damaged, but there are a few piles of dried battery acid crud around the bottom of the battery compartment as well as some liquid acid along the sides of the compartment and on the battery connector.

What can I use to neutralize the acid and clean up the mess in the compartment and prevent the battery connector from corroding so I can salvage this UPS?

Also, along a slightly different note, the batteries were connected on one side with a little 36V 100A fuse that screwed into the terminals on each battery. That fuse seems to be in pretty bad shape... the terminal where it connected to the leaking negative terminal on the battery is pretty badly corroded and it's plastic housing appears to have melted. Any idea where I could get a replacement fuse?

Thanks,
Brett
 
Generally, I find it cheaper to wait for a UPS sale and buy a new one than to rebuild one, especially one that is damaged.

You can scrape the crud out and just wash out the rest without dunking the electronics. Sounds like the battery may have overcharged and vented?
 
I am not sure about this but dont you want to neutralize the battery acid with something like baking soda before cleaning it up?
 
Generally, I find it cheaper to wait for a UPS sale and buy a new one than to rebuild one, especially one that is damaged.

You can scrape the crud out and just wash out the rest without dunking the electronics. Sounds like the battery may have overcharged and vented?

I'm not sure what happened to cause the batteries to fail. When I moved I put HS computer and the UPS in a closet in my garage and given that I'm in central Florida it can get a bit warm in there. According to my 1wire temperature sensor it looks like it can get into the high 80's or occasionally low 90's during the days. I wouldn't think that would be outside of the operating parameters for the batteries, though... if you think of a SLA battery in a car I'm sure it gets way above 90 under the hood.

In any case, I really think that the leak was pretty far away from the UPS electronics, so I think it's just a matter of cleaning it out. Maybe I'll open it up though, just to verify that all is well. The only concern I have is that if the leak was caused by overcharging then it's possible that the charging circuit failed or something and the UPS will only destroy any new batteries that I put in it. I'm looking at around $70 for new batteries, so maybe I should price some new ones to see how they would compare.

Thanks,
Brett
 
Can you measure the charging current and compare it to the mfg specs of the new batteries you wish to replace them with? If possible run the current batteries down a little first.
 
I think what DavidL was saying was that the battery probably overcharged for a reason. The electronics which monitor the charge may be fried for a reason other than battery acid. The electronics may have gone bad first and the result was an overcharged battery. So you could put new batteries in only to find that they get overcharged and have the same problem.

I say buy a new one. It's probably not much more expensive then buying new batteries for the old one.
 
I say battery boiled out 'cause the battery was excessively DEAD.

I'd replace the battery and see what happens. I find it hard to believe that the charging current changed magically... :eek:

I use batterymart.com
 
I use batterymart.com

Actually, these batteries were from batterymart.com and I'm not sure if I want to buy from them again or not, but I'm thinking so... I've probably purchased close to 100 batteries from them over the past few years and these are the only ones I've had a problem with.

Brett
 
baking soda is the best and most readily available way to neutralize an acid... use as much as you want - you won't really over-do it... I do agree though with replacing it if feasible. I'm in the IT biz (as I bet many here are), and have seen too many UPS's go up in smoke, so I do always like to replace them every 2-3 years. Generally speaking, the battery is actually 2/3rds the cost of a lot of them.

80-90 degrees is nothing to a UPS... unfortunately, my entire server room is at 87 degrees right now due to overloading power and A/C- it's noisy with the fans working extra hard, but no failures yet - and there's 35 servers, 400+ drives, and a lot of switching gear in there... My worst IDF isn't climate controlled at all, and I've had UPS's and HP ProCurve switches in there for 5 years with dust, dirt and 135+ temperatures - not a hiccup yet.

Last concern is circuitry - batteries are far more prone to leaking after overcharging... if any of that circuitry isn't working, or the aftermarket batteries aren't reporting the same thresholds, that could cause them to keep pumping juice 'till the batter can't take no more. I only use OEM replacements for any of my UPS's. I'm no expert, but I think of it like toner recharging - where they use the cheapest components possible to make it function, without caring if it functions at its best.
 
I agree with some of the other opinions here. A general rule of thumb is that if the UPS is over 5 years old, it is probably time to replace it. Batteries only last a couple years, typically, and in hotter climates like Florida may not last as long. 2 years is about all I ever got out of sealed batteries down there before they could not hold up for the period of time I needed.

If the UPS doesn't automatically test the batteries periodically, you might want to get one that does and use some sort of supervisor software that will alert you when they fail or are marginal.

I have used third-party batteries with similar specs as the originals without problems. Are you near Ft Lauderdale, FL? There is a company called BatteryWeb.com with a store in Sunrise that I have used in the past and found to be good, honest people with a broad line of batteries and related gear. Pick them up locally and avoid the shipping charges.

Use baking soda and water to clean the acid spill. Scrub it with a stiff brush and leave it on for at least 10 minutes.

And finally, APC has a UPS trade-ups program. You can trade in any UPS system and get some bucks off a new APC unit.
 
And finally, APC has a UPS trade-ups program. You can trade in any UPS system and get some bucks off a new APC unit.


Sweet, thanks for that bit of info huggy. I've got a few dead APC UPS around here that aren't working, and was to stubborn to throw away.
 
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