Just to bring you up to date on my privte saga ...
I called World of Computers in Cambridge this morning. Having identified an APC battery (Part No RBC17 = "Replacement Battery Cartridge", official APC part and not an "equivalent") apparently equivalent to the battery for my Belkin UPS, and knowing that WOC sell APC UPSs, I asked them if they sold replacement batteries.
"We might do".
I then gave them the Part No. They looked it up on their database. They located the item, and then:
"I'm sorry, none of our suppliers supply that item."
So, what with Belkin not licenced to sell separate batteries in Europe, and WOC unable to get one from their suppliers, I bit the bullet and set about wiring up the little motorcycle battery (YT4L-BS -- you can find it on the web, and it's apparently meant for the old 125cc Hondas; weighs about 4 lb, so is nice and portable as a mobile laptop PS).
Cut off a yard of lighting-circuit-grade cable, soldered spade connectors to the leads at one and, and ring-terminals to the other. Fixed the latter to the battery terminals (nice solid screws on the battery), and plugged the spades into their female counterparts on the UPS.
Switched on. All apparently OK. Started up one machine and TFT monitor. Still apparently OK. Switched off mains power for a few minutes -- UPS went into "beep" mode,l but the computer didn't miss a breath. So still all normal. Switched on the second machine. Still apparently all OK.
And now, half an hour later, all is still running normally. Cable leads cool to the touch at all times (including the temorary "power failure").
Yet to do: Full test of auto shutdown on "power failure" ( = pull the plug in this case).
But my tentative, and fairly confident, coonclusion is that an itsy bitsy m/c battery will do nicely, at least in emergency.
Now to see if possibly I can buy a real battery from somewhere! mdsbattery.co.uk have the CSB HR 1234 WF2, claimed to be equivalent to the one I'd really like to get, on sale for £13.95, which was about what the m/c battery cost me.
Ah well, I will pull the plug after sending this mail. If you don't hear from me within 24 hours, you'll know that something went badly wrong!
Bye for now ...
Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 17-Nov-05 Time: 20:12:51 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------