Battery Monitoring
What is Battery
Monitoring all about?
Battery degradation is not always detected by a simple voltage
test. The best test is a periodic discharge test.
But what happens between quarterly tests? Can battery cells fail
that quickly? Yes they can and yes they
do.
A VRLA cell, on a large kVA UPS can become faulty within
days following a routine discharge test. This is caused by chemical
changes taking place in the cell from the UPS charge and discharge
cycles themselves. Cycles that take place even though the UPS never
comes on line. In addition, corrosion can occur in all of the
connecting hardware of the battery string, internal to the cell or
external.
Consequently, a method has been found that enhances the voltage
only test. NDSL Cellwatch battery
monitoring provides the ultimate in preventing data loss. The source
resistance or impedance of the cell is isolated as a good indicator
of cell condition, indicating both chemical degradation as well as
physical damage.
