Nothing like spilling some battery acid in your lap to jumpstart your morning

[csberry]

We had a quick power outage yesterday. This morning, I go to turn my PC on. Nothing. OH, the Back-UPS is still off. I click it on and a few seconds later my ears are under attack by the shrill UPS alarm. It says it is overloaded. I remove one of the plugs from the battery, turn it back on, and SHREEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Okay, I unplug everything and turn it on...SHREEEEEEEEEEEEE! I pull up the APC support pages and decide to look on the UPS for my model and serial numbers.

As the unit is sitting on my lap, I notice my leg is getting wet. I lift up the unit and there is a puddle of pinkish liquid and more dripping out of it. I immediately get up, put the UPS on some newspaper, remove my shorts, and spray down my right leg (which is slightly stinging by this point).

Needlesstosay, the UPS is dead. APC has a trade-UPS program where they'll take my old one and sell me a new UPS with a bit of a discount. I think I'm going to do that since it would cost me another $15 or so to buy the same models at Staples/Office Depot.

Comments

[chris21718.livejournal.com]

It's a good thing you caught the battery acid leak before it caused a chemical burn. Sounds like you got it before it did skin damage.

[csberry.livejournal.com]

As soon as I felt the wetness, my first thought was: "Good grief, somehow one of the boys spilled a drink in the UPS." When I turned it over and saw the corrosion on one of the leads to the battery, I jumped right up and went into action. There was one spot on my calf that I missed initially. Got a bit of a stinging sensation and did a more thorough rinse of my whole right leg.

[theverticalbar.livejournal.com]

ah geez! i've never actually heard of battery acid leaking! crazy...good thing you caught it!