Usually, when I cowl the subject of uninterruptible energy provides (UPSs), I’m speaking about gadgets containing rechargeable battery packs based mostly on both sealed lead-acid (SLA) or considered one of a number of newer lithium-based cost storage expertise options. However what if the backup-power unit’s batteries aren’t rechargeable…and are lowly alkaline D cells (aka, IEC 420s)?
Usually, I’d most likely take a cross on the editorial alternative. However, on condition that this explicit proposal got here from my long-time colleague, mentor, and former boss, Invoice Schweber —a reputation with which a lot of you might be already acquainted from his ongoing protection in EDN, EE Instances, Planet Analog, and different AspenCore properties —I couldn’t resist. Listed below are some (flippantly edited) excerpts from his unique e-mail to me, titled “Teardown product?”:
Would you love to do a teardown on a Verizon-supplied battery holder/energy pack? It holds 12 customary D cells; when AC energy fails, you manually swap it on and it powers the Fios field (you even have to recollect to change if again off after AC energy comes again on – yeah, proper, as if that’s going to occur).
It’s a reasonably easy machine; has some LEDS to point battery situation, not far more. Supposedly powers the Fios field for 24-36 hours.
The unit is mannequin DBH36D12V2, made by CyberPower Methods, is NOT listed on their web site (I assume it’s customized for Verizon), and appears like this:
however replacements can be found from Verizon as a spare half for finish customers:
https://www.verizon.com/dwelling/equipment/powerreserve/?&skuParam=sku190001Comes
It comes with a skimpy guide exhibiting the road crew how one can set up it, not a lot else.
So why do I’ve this? Verizon was right here a month in the past, changed our copper drop from the road pole with fiber however left the copper landline in the home. They put in an AC (usually)-powered fiber-copper converter field, which they introduced on their truck.
They mailed me its related battery field, which in addition they put in, a number of days earlier than they got here—besides they mailed me two. No thought why they didn’t simply deliver it on the truck, too.
I known as and emailed and wasted time attempting to return it, however there’s seemingly no method to do this. The native Verizon retailer mentioned, “go away”. I even went over to a Verizon truck that was within the space, however the guys on the truck wouldn’t take it, both.
I enthusiastically accepted Invoice’s provide. The observe he included contained in the cargo field was priceless and resonated with my very own longstanding repair-and-reuse-or-donate aspirations:
Thanks for agreeing to take this off my fingers. Whether or not or not you’ll be able to do one thing with it, no less than I gained’t really feel responsible leaving it in my basement for the following few years, or throwing it out so as to add to the digital waste mountain.
Maintain doing these nice teardowns…
Aww 
Let’s begin with these inventory images from the Verizon product web page (the machine, with battery compartment door closed, has Dipert-tape-measured approx. dimensions of 10”x6”x2”):
Now, for our particular affected person. I gained’t bore you with images of the sunshine brown (save for Verizon logos on two of the perimeters) cardboard field that it got here in, save for sharing a closeup of the product label connected to one of many different sides:
Nokia? Actually?
Onward. Flip open the highest flaps, take away a chunk of retaining cardboard inside:
adopted by a number of items of literature as regular, and as with different images on this piece, accompanied by a 0.75″ (19.1 mm) diameter U.S. penny for dimension comparability functions:
And our sufferer comes into preliminary view:
Let’s deal with the literature first. I’m additionally not going to bore you with the unique from-factory transport slip included within the field. However there was additionally a wall-mounting template in there:
together with two mounting screws:
Plus the “skimpy guide” that Invoice’s preliminary e-mail to me had talked about, and which I’ve scanned to your comfort as a PDF: Skimpy UPS Handbook
Now let’s get the machine out of the field and out of its clear plastic protecting baggie. Entrance view (orientation references that observe assume it’s wall-mounted per the template):
Right here’s a close-up of the connector on the top of the cable popping out of the battery field, which finally ends up plugged into (and powering) the fiber-copper converter field:
Again:
Plus a close-up of that bottom label:
High:
Proper facet (observe the latch, which I’ll be springing shortly):
Backside, revealing Invoice’s aforementioned energy swap, plus a battery-test button and remaining-charge indicator LEDs that appropriately illuminate when the button is pressed (or not, if the D cells are drained; see the consumer guide for specifics):
And left facet (observe the hinges; I wager you possibly can already inform which method the battery compartment door swings when opened!):
One other label closeup (once more…Nokia?):
And at last, open sesame! Have been you appropriate along with your earlier door-swing-direction forecast?
Word that the stamped directions explicitly warn towards utilizing rechargeable batteries:
And yep, a dozen will get one-time drained, to not point out irresponsibly discarded (seemingly, vs responsibly recycled) and added to the digital waste mountain, every time the machine is used:
On that observe, by the best way, Invoice was spot-on (no shock) that an online search on “CyberPower DBH36D12V2” was fruitless from a outcomes standpoint. The result from dropping the “2” on the top wasn’t a lot better….that mentioned, it did not directly lead me to the scanned PDF of a consumer guide for a conceptually comparable CyberPower product, the DTC36U12V, which dispenses with the D cells and as an alternative embeds a standard UPS-reminiscent SLA battery inside it.
Once more, onward. On the backside of the sooner back-view photograph, you may need observed two holes, one in every nook. Embedded inside every is, unsurprisingly, a screw head. Eradicating them:
permits pull-out of the panel on the backside of the machine’s entrance facet:
Beneath it, once more unsurprisingly, is the humble-function PCB, supposed essentially to regulate-then-output the electrons coming from the dozen-battery array that powers it:
All these caps you see are, I think, supposed (amongst different issues) to enhance the batteries’ innate output energy to handle the fiber-copper converter field’s startup-surge present wants:
The PCB pulls proper out of the enclosure with out a lot fuss:
As soon as eliminated, and since we’re already together with the PCB, let’s do all 4 views:
Shall I flip it over subsequent? Sure, I shall. My, little PCB, what thick traces have thee!
Yet one more PCB topside view, this time, the enclosure unencumbered. Word the three battery pack cost energy indicator LEDs and, to their proper, the take a look at swap:
Extra views of the entrance panel underside, this time with the battery spring contacts briefly indifferent:
Talking of which, right here’s a close-up of the opposite (completely mounted) spring contacts on the prime of the battery compartment:
Listed below are the sunshine pipe buildings and the mechanical button that correspond to the LEDs and swap on the PCB:
And now, in contrast to Humpty Dumpty and all of the king’s horses and males, I’ll put the DBH36D12V2 again collectively once more:
That’s all I’ve obtained for you at present! Invoice, I hope I as soon as once more met (and even, stretch aim, exceeded?) your expectations. Reader ideas are as-always welcomed within the feedback!
p.s…anybody have a necessity for a disassembled-then-reassembled however functionally unused CyberPower (or is that Verizon? Or Nokia?) DBH36D12V2?
—Brian Dipert is the Editor-in-Chief of the Edge AI and Imaginative and prescient Alliance, and a Senior Analyst at BDTI and Editor-in-Chief of InsideDSP, the corporate’s on-line e-newsletter.
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The publish The CyberPower DBH361D12V2: An UPS That Goes Previous-Faculty appeared first on EDN.
