How Troubleshooting Industrial Batteries Has Changed Over Time: A Tradesman’s Perspective
He began his career in the electrical trade by engaging in construction activities at a potash mine located west of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Since then, he has accumulated experience in various facets of the electrical trade, including construction, commissioning, and maintenance.
How Troubleshooting Industrial Batteries Has Changed Over Time: A Tradesman’s Perspective
When I first got into this line of work, troubleshooting batteries for uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) was as much about instinct as it was about knowledge. You’d walk into a room, give a glance at the equipment, maybe sniff the air for that telltale whiff of rotten eggs, and get to work. Fast-forward a couple of decades, and things have changed—big time. Thanks to advances in technology and training, like what’s covered in the Fundamentals of UPS and Battery Systems course, the way we approach battery maintenance and troubleshooting is almost unrecognizable from the old days.
Back Then: “Listen, Look, and Guess”
Back in the day, maintaining industrial batteries was a mix of routine and reaction. Check the levels ,test the pilot cells , check the leads for corrosion. Switch the charger to Equalize for an hour then hopefully remember to turn the charger back to Float. Flooded Lead-acid batteries were the norm. They’d sit in a dedicated battery room with big fans to vent hydrogen gas and a safety wash station nearby for rinsing off acid spills (which, let me tell you,it happened more often than you’d like).
If there was an issue, you started with the basics. Is the electrolyte level low? Top it off with distilled water. Are the battery terminals corroded? Scrub them down with a baking soda solution. You’d rely on your senses—was the battery warm to the touch? Was there an unusual smell? If it looked good and passed a basic hydrometer test, you figured it was fine and moved on.
But here’s the thing: that kind of guesswork only worked until it didn’t. I’ve seen systems fail because no one noticed sulfation on the plates or caught a slow internal short in time. Back then, we didn’t have tools to monitor capacity trends or advanced diagnostics to identify issues before they turned into failures. You learned the hard way—by experience or by mistakes.
The Shift: Smarter Batteries and Smarter Tools
These days, the game has changed. Batteries aren’t just dumb bricks of lead and acid anymore. Lithium-ion batteries, for instance, have built-in monitoring systems that check every cell for performance changes. Even traditional VRLA (valve-regulated lead-acid) batteries are better understood, and we’ve got more tools to keep them running smoothly.
Take thermal runaway, for example. Back then, you’d maybe notice the outer casing of a battery getting hot—or you wouldn’t, and it’d fail spectacularly. Now, we know the conditions that cause it: tight packing of batteries, inadequate cooling, and high ambient temperatures. With today’s knowledge and tools, I use temperature-compensated chargers and thermally controlled cabinets to mitigate the risk entirely.
Another example? Measuring battery capacity. Before, you’d rely on a voltage reading and hope for the best. Now, load testing or impedance testing and advanced battery monitors can track trends in real time. If a 10-year battery starts to lose capacity by year six, I can see it coming and replace it before it fails under load. That’s the kind of proactive maintenance we couldn’t do 20 years ago.
A Day in the Life of Troubleshooting Today
Let me give you a real-world example of how this plays out. A couple of months ago, I got a call from a plant dealing with intermittent UPS alarms. Back in the old days, I’d have started by inspecting every battery in the string manually, looking for corrosion, leaks, or swelling. It could take hours, and you still might miss the issue.
This time, I walked in and went through the alarm history on the UPS. It told me where to look. With a handheld battery impedance tester, it only took minutes. I pinpointed a single VRLA battery connection that had developed a high resistance. The tool showed me the drop in voltage, which you’d never catch just by looking at it. Swapping out that one faulty battery jumper saved the factory from a complete shutdown, and the process took maybe half an hour.
The way we troubleshoot now is thanks to a combination of better equipment and better training. Courses like Fundamentals of UPS and Battery Systems go beyond the basics of what batteries are and how they work. They teach you how to interpret failure modes—like sulfation, grid corrosion, or loss of compression in AGM batteries—and how to prevent them before they cause problems.
For instance, one of the lessons that stuck with me was about avoiding low cutoff voltage discharges, which can cause lead to dissolve into the electrolyte. The course broke down how these dissolved particles re-form as dendrites during recharge, eventually creating internal shorts. Knowing this, I now set up systems with stricter discharge limits and emphasize immediate recharging after any outage.
Looking Ahead: Lessons from Experience
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that the cost of neglect is always higher than the cost of maintenance. The tools and knowledge we have today are incredible, but they’re only useful if we apply them. That’s why I’m a big believer in staying sharp and keeping up with the latest practices.
For anyone just getting started—or even old hands like me—it’s worth taking a step back and rethinking how you approach battery troubleshooting. The way we worked in the past was good enough for the time, but the stakes are higher now, and the tools are better. The job’s still about keeping the power on, but how we do it? That’s where the evolution really shows.
In safety,
Norm
