ISO 9001 : 2015
Secure, dust free, dry with an ambient temperature maintained between 20-25C and adequate airflow to meet the manufacturer requirements is the ideal environment for an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) and it associated battery set. The environmental requirements are usually carefully considered and the UPS will be ideally located when installing a UPS as part of a new build project or renovation works in order to increase reliability and maximize the operating life.
Sometimes, the ideal environment often isn’t physically available, if the UPS is retrofitted to an existing electrical infrastructure. Designers locate the UPS alongside other electrical equipment with poor planning such as basements or even outdoor containers, switchgear located in plant rooms. Then the UPS have to contend with the elements of a harsh environment. How can the effects of a poor environment are mitigated if this is the case?
Separate Battery Location:
The majority of UPS models operational ambient temperature is specified as 0C to 40C (assuming no condensation). In this window as long as consumable components such as capacitors are preventatively checked and replaced when require, the UPS will perform without a serious effect on its overall life. However the batteries are a completely different story. Depending on temperature operational window, the service life and performance drastically alter although the specification sheets will state a similar.
Most battery manufacturer specification sheets state the service life and performance characteristics at 20C. The performance will increase If the temperature is higher but the lifetime will decrease. The lifetime will increase but performance will decrease if the temperature is lower. It’s a very substantial drop off. The specification of a Yuasa five year design life shows that the battery would only be useable for 33% of its design life, with an ambient temperature of 30C. That is just over 1.5 years!
Dust Filters:
The UPS is always running and so a constant flow of air enters and exits the system in normal operation. The inside of the UPS if the environment is prone to dust or other airborne particles can become clogged, Coating the internal components with debris as well as causing cooling problems potentially causing failures. Selecting a UPS which have the option for retrofitting and regular replacement or features dust filters as standard will prevent harmful internal build up of dust compromising the reliability of the system. Conformal Coating” may also be recommended in extremely poor environments.
Conformal Coating:
As already mentioned, the ambient air (and associated airborne particles) throughout its service life are blown through a UPS constantly. Some manufacturers offer the option to apply a “conformal coating” (sometimes called tropicalisation) to the internal circuit boards where a chemical contaminant or high humidity content or the air may have moisture present. Before shipping by the manufacturer the Conformal Coating is a protective chemical coating applied.
Thus protecting the electronic assemblies from air-borne contaminants such as salt spray, it maintains long-term surface insulation resistance by being electrically insulating which will assist in preventing corrosion. Now manufacturers such as Huawei and AEC use this technology as standard on their three phase UPS range but initially this procedure was used for industrial UPS.
Summary:
Cooling fans degrade over time and under good environmental conditions have a service life of around five to seven years, if single fan may fail before this time so it should be replaced as soon as possible.
Arranging for a preventative replacement of all the cooling fans by saving on labour expenses and arranging maintenance windows at a fixed interval is the most cost effective method. , reducing the chances of losing the connected load and costly downtime, it is also the best way to increase the reliability of performance of the UPS. Eprompt Enterprise is leading Online UPS manufacturers, UPS Supplier & UPS Dealer in Bharuch which are providing a quality product.