A Tech covers Cable-Tec: What to do when the pink drumming bunny calls in sick

By Dan Chelchowski

DENVER - William Lim, senior technical consultant, OSS BroadNet, gave Thursday’s attendees of SCTE's 2009 Cable-Tec Expo insight on how to monitor cable UPS backup batteries in order to predict the length of stand-by time in real-time.Operators use battery factory specs, string configurations, and cable plant AC load to determine an appropriate stand-by time during power outages. However, there are a number of factors that can significantly reduce that time such as battery capacity, temperature, age and condition. While periodic on-site testing may expose bad batteries, continuous monitoring of select characteristics minimizes customer impact.There are two ways to use collected...