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Comment by atesti | Hacker News Reader

What was this odorless substance and where did it come from? (just curious what to watch out for)

It came from a leak in the battery during charging. Exactly what the gas was is still unknown but it knocked me for six a couple of days after I received the unit. I thought about getting it tested and even suing but it took out my whole apartment and I just had to get rid of it and cut my losses. I was in the ER unable to stand and in quite a state, lost balance and coordination and was incoherent for a while. CAT scan w/contrast, it was a whole production on Thanksgiving at 3am. They monitored me for a couple days and sent me back to the apartment where all the symptoms immediately returned, and then I put it together and looked closer at the UPS. Underneath it was a couple of drops of black liquid that had come from the battery compartment and after returning to the ER again to go throw up some more I went back and took it straight to the garbage. I think it was one of those types of gas that can effect you in the PPM range. Totally odorless. This was the enterprise APC UPS, the model was SUA1500

The SUA1500 is a pretty reliable unit and I highly doubt that's the issue. If there was a problem with the battery, those were poor quality batteries, but nothing to do with the UPS and not a reason to avoid them if you have a good use. I've also never heard of such a gas being produced that was odorless, do you know this is what happened for sure or are you just speculating?

I agree the SUA1500 is probably the best UPS APC made certainly my favorite but this happened. Surprised at all the doubt. I know because I smelled this liquid, it was odorless and about 5 minutes later I was pretty violently ill. Could it have all been a series of coincidence? I would bet a million dollars against it but technically sure. So it went in the trash and I was fine. This was a while ago and the unit came with batteries so that really isn't here nor there. In hindsight I should've made a big deal about it. I wrote a few angry emails and such but I was mostly relieved that I didn't die at that point and could care less about well quite a few hundred dollars at the time if I recall. This was a while back now somewhere around I want to say 2010ish. I had health insurance and no damages to show, lawyers are expensive. When you're actually in this kind of a situation very few people care to listen. There's nobody to call and very little to be gained from a fight anyway. I wasn't going to hand over the evidence to the company that made the product in exchange for another gd UPS. I had better things to do

If it was the UPS then that may have been a rare allergy to something.

Lead-acid batteries contain H2SO4 and can emit H2S when being charged vigorously; the latter is definitely not odorless, and the former won't have a smell but instead produce a burning sensation if you did inhale any vapors (which is difficult, since it has a very low vapor pressure at room temperature.)

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