Have a question about UPS/Battery Backups.
If I have a 3000VA UPS, it has the option I can add up to 2-3 external add-on battery modules. Do I need to have a larger wall circuit? I believe its only a 30amp now.
No, you are only adding more capacity. Meaning you should have longer uptime before batteries die. Input will stay the same.
Each UPS has 2 main metrics: maximum power it can provide (the 3000VA in your example) and how long it can sustain it before it runs out of juice.
Adding battery modules increases the “how long” part but doesn’t touch how much power it can produce.
Another way to think of it is like a pool filled with water, with a pipe coming out. How fast water can come out is determined by the pipe diameter. If you connect another pool to the first one, the water will still come out of the pipe at the same speed. It’ll just run for longer.
All of my APC devices have an extra battery pack, just make sure to get the correct pack that matches the main UPS, and make sure to “program” the main device so it knows there is a second or third pack.
“Program” in quotes because you used to have to go into a serial terminal and make a change, now you may only need to plug in the new pack and the main UPS will ask if you added a pack, and how many packs you added.