Gel V Sealed Lead Acid Batteries:

[MrMessy]

Is there any reason for not useing a sealed lead acid battery in place of a gel one? If they are same voltage/amp hour rating and physically fit and stand upright it should be O/K? I thought the main reason for gel ones are safety related. (We have gel ones at work costing £1100 each and they still fail early!)

[tigersaw]

I don't have an answer for you, but I too find gel batteries pretty poor - we change tens of them each year in UPS's which fail after as little as two years, against a 'wet' ups in the basement that has never needed attention.

[MrMessy]

Hi Tigersaw,
We have had a lot of problems with YUASA Gel batteries on Exide UPS's. Apparently if the American Government had not paid for replacements and claimed under the warranty it would have taken Exide/Yuasa USA down!
Can not beat a good rotary UPS, no running about to restore mains power!

[tigersaw]

We have a mahooosive ups rated in minutes only, but its only designed to run the building long enough for the genny to kick in. Coincidentally I'm reviewing the service level agreement and safety case on that tomorrow.