RBC7 UPS Replacement Battery for APC By American Battery

It's a nice battery. I gave it five stars because it was the right size to fit my uninterruptable power supply, the weight was right, it had the right connector as shown and it is pretty . . . as batteries go. It arrived quickly as promised. The difficult part was installation because my UPS is on the floor and as the years go by, it gets harder to stand up from working on the floor but that is no fault of the battery unless it doesn't last as long as it should. However, I have no reason to think this battery isn't going to last a long time.It was one of the most reasonably priced RBC7 batteries I found.

My 2nd ABC battery. Previous unit lasted 90-100% of original APC battery it replaced. Hopefully this one lasts as long. No issues. Perfect fit. Wired plugs like original. Having replaced APC UPS batteries before in my 3 1000-1500 Smart UPS's that all use the RBC7 battery format, the removal/insertion took 3-5 minutes. Steps I use: (1) place something the size of a broom handle under front of unit to lift it off floor a 1/2 inch or so. Place block slightly behind front bezel so as not to same it. (2) Pry open front bezel gently and rotate up onto from of unit. There should be a screw plate now to remove to free battery. (3) Pull battery out by the mylar tab since there are no handles to grab onto. Set battery on floor. It won't come out very far. (4) Unplug cable. Move in new battery and plug it in. (5) Reverse above to complete the job.

I last purchased this particular battery, APC RB7, at the beginning of this year, I've purchased numerous backup battery replacements from this brand as I have 2 UPS Units, one of which I've had for over 20 years the other for 18 years, and both take the same battery. I've kept a record of replacements and issues I've had over this time period, the APC RB7 has been reliable as a replacement battery for the OEM battery for much less money. I found these last about 30 to 36 months on average. I've always purchased the retail version replacement, that is that it is complete with all connectors so that it just has to be installed in the UPS by opening the access door, sliding out the old one, disconnecting it and then connecting the new one and sliding it back in. The two cells are held together by plastic tabs which seem to be glued to the larger plastic cap, the connectors are simple wire to plastic cap with metal connection. There is a plastic sheet at the bottom of the unit which aids in pulling the old battery out of the UPS. They always require some charging upon first use, this is very normal. This particular model, RBC7 has 2 cells connected with wires and connectors. (See photos) I do not tamper with the connectors, I just use it as its shipped and I unplug it from the 120V outlet when I change the battery just to be on the safe side. The battery is a sealed unit, comes in a heavily padded box using foam on all sides to protect it and a sturdy cardboard box, (see photo). The battery is heavy as one would expect, similar to a car battery.As to battery usage, I have a Server plugged in along with monitor and small peripherals such as a network switch and router. This battery just seems to hum along until it fails. The UPS is still operating but not as a backup, it powers the equipment from the 120V current I plugged it into. The other unit powers a phone system and more peripherals so the load on that one is not as high as the server. Both units seem to last about 30 to 36 months. The warranty provided is for 24 months so the manufacturer seems to have this perfectly targeted.Remember, this battery is a lead acid battery, just like your gas powered car, the battery will eventually fail as it uses up the anode/cathode. If you connect a high load and have a lot of power outages you may experience shorter battery life as it is cycling more which is the nemesis of all common batteries. I try to connect not more than a 50% load on the battery. As batteries get older their capacity to retain power reduces, (just like your cell phone battery), so equipment powered by a UPS on battery power only will be shorter and shorter as time goes on.Prior to buying a UPS you should be looking at what you want from it. I was only expecting the ability to save my current work, that of others in the small business I have, and then power down. No it won't save the current work on my PC but it will save any work on the server's cache and since we have backups from PC's time to save every 15 min. we won't lose much work. I also want the UPS to withstand very short power dropouts and outages of only a few minutes without losing data and having to re-boot equipment. These units are used in a small business located in a medium size city where the power is pretty consistent and there are extremely few outages. There are online calculators to help you determine how large a battery backup system you need.The manufacturer has been around for some time and my experience is that they have a consistently reliable battery. Would I like it to last longer, of course, but if you look at battery technology this is about average to above average. I would buy this product again, I trust APC.

As others have noted, this battery connects and fits in the UPS housing perfectly. The pulling tape on mine was also on the wrong side, but it is not a problem to edge the battery out of the housing without it. I checked that carefully, so I did not bother to reposition the tape which may or may not have stayed in reliable position over time, once removed.On the initial 24 hour charge, it ran my Dell workstation with two hard drives an i7 processor and an advanced graphics card, two monitors(22" CRT and 24" LCD respectively), modem and router for at least 10 minutes, while working continuously in Photoshop(I restored power thereafter) which is about what would be expected, given the estimated particular VA rating of this load on my UPS1400 unit.The only thing about which I obviously can't comment is on how long in the future the battery will perform to backup time specification; however, as noted previously, there is a 2 year warranty which I believe is the same as the APC battery for which you will pay about 50% more, seemingly needlessly. This is my second replacement battery since I bought the unit about 6 years ago. The first replacement was an "APC" battery, which, as mentioned in other reviews, is not made by APC, confirmed by a telephone call to their customer service department. While they, of course, strongly recommend replacement with "their" batteries, they had no rejoinder to my suggestion that the aftermarket batteries may well be just as good in quality.According to my research, American Battery seems to be a well established company with a high rating, and a very diverse inventory. I also doubt that Amazon would sell third party products that wind up being a source of complaints and demands for refunds!BTW, if having working time according to expectations from the specifications is important for your workflow, please don't rely entirely on the periodic autoload battery test which the APC units do for you, especially after the battery is >2 years old. As the battery becomes weak, and nears the end of its life, if you have a power outage when the "green light" is still on, you may only get 30 seconds or a minute of backup, instead of 10 minutes or more, which is exactly what happened to me recently. So, please profit from this experience. Interestingly, although the unit had passed all the self tests prior to that outage, giving a false sense of security, after I subsequently recharged the old battery for 24 hours and then did a MANUAL load test, the battery failed.I see no reason not to recommend this unit highly, with the sole limitation aforedescribed, as a cost effective RBC 7 battery replacement.