my belkin ups battery is shot. I had to pry the case apart to get the swollen battery out. When I looked up a replacement I found it was a 7.5 amp hour 12 volt lead-acid. For the $30 they list it at I could get a cheap car battery and stuff it in a wooden box and get a lot more amp hours and running time. since I was never able to figure out how to get the serial cable conection to work shutting it down automaticly, extra running time would make sense to me. Has anyone else had any similar thoughts? Thanks, John. (and no I do not run windows and won't live long enough to ever consider that) (suse 9.1)

This is not an area to rig something up, and or be unsafe. Buy the UPS or battery, it's safer, and it generally will insure your equipment in the event of failure, something I can almost guarantee you that autozone won't.

Agreed - UPS systems are not DIY projects. It may cost a little extra money, but go with and official replacement product rather than an improvised, home grown "solution". -- J.W.

LOL, words of wisdom.... I had the same idea a few years ago. So my UPS used two colors for wires, red and white. The car battery used red and black. Wanna guess what happened?

The smell of burning wire I wager.

Smell of burning wire came after the loud popping noise and flash of light. :| Voltage regulator didn't survive the experiment. I guess they're picky about polarity. I wanted a new UPS anyway.

Knowing something about cars and computers can be a dangerous thing.

Man, I just *hate* it when that happens!! I mean, "+", "-", what's the big deal?!? -- J.W.

Burned fingers and acid burns to the face.