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Replacing battery

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StumblingForward

Technical User
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Jan 7, 2005
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This last Friday there was a power outage in the hospital I work at and the phone system went down it is a Definity G3siV9, The system is on the emergency power system of the hospital but I think that the UPS battery has died on me, I have been told the only way to really see if it has died is to unplug the switch and see if the battery picks it up, this has happened one other time on a power outage but at the time I also lost one of my CSU units and it killed about half of my system for a day till I got a replacement so at the time I just thought that that was the problem but after this last power outage I think that it is the UPS. My question is this, can I remove the UPS that is in the bottom of my cabinet safely WITHOUT powering down the system, I say that because there is a 3 pole disconnect switch on the front of it that I have to use to restart the system whenever there is a power outage, I am asking so that I can get some clarity, my thought is that you could not remove it without powering it down but that is just my thought. As far as a part number for the UPS there are no numbers that can be seen on it at all. Any help would be appreciated
 
I was under the impression the G3si cabinets ran on battery alone, and the battery was only designed to last for an outcall to Denver (or your maint. provider) in the event of an emergency - 2-5 minutes. I didn't think the cabinet itself came with a UPS per se'.

I installed a Matrix 5000 off a G3si (which was then connected to a John Deere Diesel Generator). So when the generator kicked on, which could take 30-60 seconds, there was no interruption in service.

Hope this helps,
CJH

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. ARISTOTLE 384-322 B.C.
 
If the phone system is on the hospitals emergency power ,shouldn't it have stayed up? That sounds like the real proble to me.

DonBott
 
Hospitals have different levels of UPS requirements. You GSI should have a exterior cabinet for your batteries. It should have a test switch on it. These last 5 years and should be replaced at 4. Given that you are in a hospital, you should visit and get a estimate of what you need. Then shop around to the different vendors.

In the future everything will work...
 
Just to clarify what I have there are 3 batteries that have a 45v rating each, they where all installed on the same day 4 years ago.
I have found out how to remove them without powering down the system and will test them early in the morning to see if they are still good

 
If it is the batteries that I am thinking about they keep your processors up for about for 5 seconds (I believe it is). These are just a small backup power source for your PPN in case you’re UPS has a lag before actually kicking in. Your system should have its own UPS for it behind your emergency power source. In fact, a automatic or Manuel throw switch should be installed with emergency power on one side and normal power on the other side in case of a scheduled or nonscheduled power outage. Then you just switch your power and your system is still up and running.

Here is the procedures for replacing them.

6-21-05
The replacement batteries have came in and have been replaced. The procedure would be to turn off the battery charger (397c power unit) and then unplug the set of 3 batteries. Next you would remove all 3 and replace all new batteries and replace the plugs. Turn the charger back on. It may take 30 hours for these to recharge.

This was taken from our maintenance documents that I keep on our system. It wasn’t that long that I had to do this. One more thing. According to the maintenance docs for G3R, you do not have to use the batteries if this is behind a UPS. Me, I replaced mine....


Mike Jones
Louisiana State University Health Sciences center
 
I do not have a separate UPS unit, the way it was set up is the unit is plugged into normal power and that is feed from a panel that when the normal city power fails switch’s to emergency power from the hospital generator, because of life safety codes for hospitals the time between power lose and emergency power pick up is almost nothing less than 2 seconds the way I have understood the way the battery back up works it is like what you said mikeydidit it keeps the system from crashing completely and keeps it operational till the emergency power can kick in, but what mine is doing is, power will fail and the generator will kick in, and instead of the battery’s keeping it up the system crash’s and I have to restart, I do have several lines in the hospital that are set up to go to lines outside the switch so there is still some phones in the vital areas. I am planing on testing the batterys this morning and will post what happens.
thanks for all the responses
 
Did you get this resolved??

Mike Jones
Louisiana State University Health Sciences center
 
Sorry for no update it’s been kind of crazy around here,
On Thursday 28 first thing in the morning at about 6:45 we the house electrician and myself tested to see if the batteries would keep the system up and running, What I did was to unplug the system from main power, when I did this it ran normally and stayed up and running so the batteries are apparently not the problem because when I plugged it back into main power it crashed, all my status lights went to red and I lost the system. At this point I did what I do whenever this happens and flipped the main breaker in the cabinet and rebooted the system, after a few minutes it was back up and running.
So my batteries are ok but something else is keeping the system from switching from its batteries BACK to normal power.
I have absolutely no idea what is going on there but it is something I am going to have to address, having the system crash like this at the slightest hik-up of power lose is not acceptable.
Any thoughts on what might be causeing this.
When I resolve this I will post the fix.
 

page 83

The above link will give you the estimated runtime of the batteries for your cabinets.

I would highly recommend that you put some sort of a UPS in place to avoid this from happening. I have APC UPS for my main equipment room and run the 5 KVA units for my EPN's. This will keep your system up and running.

Above in a sizing selector for you from APC They are very helpful in calculating the size and load of a unit for you.

The generator power is not very clean power. Like you, we run generator test once a month as part of our hospital compliance. (JCAH) The UPS will accept this trashy power and convert it back to clean power for your switch. I would also look at getting a smartcard installed in this to get email notification of problems with your UPS.

As for the problems that you are having I would do a test on the environment "test envir lo" or test environment long and see if the switch finds any problems with the batteries or charger. If it does not, then I would have your electrician look back towards the power source for you.


Mike Jones
Louisiana State University Health Sciences center
 
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