Help need urgent electrical advice on UPS battery backup

Ok so I currently reside in a shit location where power cuts happen every hour, so one hour it comes, next hour it goes etc, 12 hours power cuts a day........yeh i know must be the worst place on earth right?

Anyway I don't let this stop me as have a 1.4kv ups system linked to a 200amp battery (massive fucker).

It's been doing fine however last night it is not charging the battery up enough in the one hour electricity comes, before it use to handle this fine.

Am I right in assuming I need a new battery? or is my UPS system broken? the batt is a year old and is pretty much used on this cycle 24/7 since.

Although my setup has worked for over a year fine, i know nothing about it technically so when issues like this happen then i panic and my girls get stressed out without being on their normal lighting schedule. This pains me a lot, I couldn't sleep last night when my babies were disturbed during lights on, worst thing was I couldn't do anything about it as I have no technical expertise on whats going on.

Can anyone be kind enough to explain to me how I work out how much time of backup my setup will give based on a 1.4kv UPS run by one 200amp acid battery. Lets say running 350w of cfl bulbs and a fan. Whats the formula used to work this out?

Also how does one work out time needed to charge the battery and in turn find out how much charge is a specific duration of time going to power x amount of watts? Is there some formula for that too?


Would be very grateful if anybody could help me out.

Ups systems aren't usually made for any type of long term sustaining. More so you can sort shit out before u cut the power yourself. u might be in the market for a generator.

I agree you might wanna look into getting a generator but also buy the AGM 2.8kwh @ 240 amp hour batteries because they can be used inside. Not only that but its nice to be able to charge the battery bank at the same time if you are over producing power.

If you don't want to spend alot of money on a generator setup you can do either of these things.


If its sunny enough every day solar might be a good way to go. You could go with micro hydro if you live by a river or creek since they can produce the same amount of power most of the time and if you don't live by one of those look into see if wind is an option if the laws there allow you.

You need a voltmeter to decide if its a bad battery or a bad ups. Lead Acid batteries take a long time to charge, and it's possible that your battery and UPS are both good, but not charging the battery fully due to lack of time.