Health concern about UPS

[_batman]

My PoS Apollo ups started showing signs of trouble 3-4 days ago, the battery charging led would intermittently light up, sometimes it's brightness would flicker - never saw any led connected to a circuit to act like this. Since 2 Days ago it was lit up constantly and yesterday it failed as soon as an outage occurred.

So I bought a new ups today, and me and one of my friends decided to open it up for educational purposes

What we found wasn't pretty.

Both of the batteries have leaked, the wires were soaked with liquid substance running down from the terminals and dripped down to the casing floor. We opened the ups after around 6 hours it was disconnected from mains, and the cells were still considerably hot. And I noticed, that the smell of these leaked batteries were the same as the smell my room often had.

My room has poor ventilation, and I never found out what caused this smell until now. The ups is always connected to the mains, 24/7, 365 days a year because of the socket's position and because my router and modem is connected to it. I would sometimes have unexplained headaches that I thought was because of sinusitis, but now I'm thinking it might be because of something else. My health also deteriorated quite a bit in these past two years but I always thought it was because of stress.

I searched online about health concerns associated with leaking lead acid batteries, but I only found the ones that deal with short term exposure, not long term. So my concern is what health issues can arise from a long term exposure and are they permanent.

[kaziishan]

In 2008, I opened my bad UPS and tasted the leaked acid out of curiosity. It was not much acidic as my mouth seemed to be okay(?).

[_batman]

In 2008, I opened my bad UPS and tasted the leaked acid out of curiosity. It was not much acidic as my mouth seemed to be okay(?).

Surely you haven't been tasting it for whole two years, right? :O :O

Or am I witnessing the birth of a new fetish?

[kaziishan]

Surely you haven't been tasting it for whole two years, right? :O :O

Or am I witnessing the birth of a new fetish?

Nah! I knew it was already bad for a year but I kept using it as a stabilizer (too poor). I know the smell you're referring to. It comes from prolong use of leaked batteries. It is bad but I don't know if it had affected me anyway. Get some fresher air. But, if you have problems breathing or any symptoms of blurred vision, chronic headache in recent years, go see a doctor.

[_batman]

Nah! I knew it was already bad for a year but I kept using it as a stabilizer (too poor). I know the smell you're referring to. It comes from prolong use of leaked batteries. It is bad but I don't know if it had affected me anyway. Get some fresher air. But, if you have problems breathing or any symptoms of blurred vision, chronic headache in recent years, go see a doctor.

No breathing problems, but I've had chronic headache. Not to sure about blurred vision, my eyesight historically had been poor, and there's also the fact that I like to stare at lcd screens for a long period of time

It's quite ironic when your father is a doctor and dismisses everything as normal.

[Swapnil]

You should go check your blood for traces of lead poisoning asap. Acid isn't much harmful, at least not without direct contact. But is some lead or lead sulphate escaped and entered your bloodstream that could be seriously harmful in the long run. But again, it's not as harmful as mercury and Dhaka's air already had high amount of lead in the pre-CNG era.

[_batman]

You should go check your blood for traces of lead poisoning asap. Acid isn't much harmful, at least not without direct contact. But is some lead or lead sulphate escaped and entered your bloodstream that could be seriously harmful in the long run. But again, it's not as harmful as mercury and Dhaka's air already had high amount of lead in the pre-CNG era.

Thanks for the headsup.

I came to Dhaka after pre-cng era, so I'm quite healthy

Or was.

[Foxtrol]

OT

which ups did you buy?

[Sybaris Caesar]

Wow. Ask in AskReddit or similar subreddit maybe?

[_batman]

OT

which ups did you buy?

Power Guard, primarily because it's buzzer can be turned off.

Wow. Ask in AskReddit or similar subreddit maybe?

Found this later:
http://www.battery2000.com/msds.html

As Swapnil said, lead poisoning is what I should be worried about.

[Sami 1999]

Lead poisoning can get you handicapped/killed. I ain't a doctor though. So don't take it that seriously.