ozone smell from backup power supply

[astroboy]

Hello,

 

I lost power for half an hour a little while ago. I noticed a major ozone smell (or at least some sort of burning smell) coming from the back of my tank. I have a backup power supply, which is two car batteries hooked into a UPS: I removed the UPS battery and soldered wires from the car batteries to the UPS leads. The batteries are hooked up in parallel, not series. The whole set up is behind the aquarium and a real pain to get at....

 

The setup has worked in the past power outages that lasted a day or two at a time, no problems. The UPS itself felt a little warm now just, but not what I'd call hot. The trickle charger is charging the batteries right now, which is not a surprise since they had been drained for half an hour. 

 

Any opinions, does this sound like a UPS going bad, or could it be a battery problem? When I turn it on it runs for a few seconds and then starts beeping constantly. I'm not sure if this means a short, dead batteries, or what. 

 

The batteries are both five or six years old but have been (in theory, at least) fully charged except when the power goes off, so I would think they were OK...

 

If anyone has any experience or insights I'd appreciate the advice. 

 

Thanks,

 

Mark

[telegraham]

I have a similar setup. Normally, when an UPS offers the annoying beep right after startup, it means battery. You can try topping off the batteries with a Batter Tender or regular charger, as the parallel load may be too heavy for the UPS charger to handle this time around. I use a small Tender.

 

 

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[AlanM]

I've had a UPS electronics fail.  Smelled like hot electronics too.  I didn't even hear beeping noises, just the smell and a lot of discolored plastic.  I'd get back there and make sure you don't have a fire developing.