Archive-name: UPS-faq
Version: 1.6
Uninteruptable Power Source (UPS) FAQ.
VERSION 1.5, July 8, 1994.
Sections:
01: What is this document all about?
01: What is this document?
02: How is this document made available?
03: Who maintains this?
04: Where did this information come from?
05: How can I contribute?
06: How may this document be distributed?
07: Got anything else you'd like to add?
08: Glossary.
02: What is a UPS and how does is work?
01: What is a UPS?
02: How do you pronounce "UPS"?
03: Vendor X says that (description) is a UPS, is it?
04: Describe the types of UPS's?
05: How can a UPS help me?
06: What sort of stuff does a UPS do?
07: How long can equipment on a UPS keep running?
08: What is a "good" UPS?
09: Support contracts on UPS's.
10: Self maintenance tips.
11: Is a UPS a glorified power strip?
03: UPS monitoring/shutdown software.
01: Can a UPS shut the computer down when power is low?
02: Can I write my own shutdown routines?
03: What freely distributable solutions are there?
04: No UPS software works on my machines, what to do?
04: How big a UPS do I need?
01: How are UPS sizes determined?
02: What VA rating do I need?
03: How do I determine this?
04: What else should I consider?
05: Can I use an UPS with a laser printer?
06: What UPS sizes do you use on what equipment?
05: Specific manufacturer's info.
01: What vendors are there?
06: Acknowledgments
-----------------------------
01:
TOPIC: What is this document all about?
01.01
Q: What is this document?
A: This is a FAQ document on Uninteruptable Power Sources. It is
intended to provide a starting point for those people that want
to find out what they are, what they do, and what's available.
01.02
Q: How is this document made available?
A: Currently, its "home" is comp.misc. It is also crossposted to
comp.unix.admin, comp.sys.sun.hardware, comp.sys.hp.hardware,
comp.sys.sgi.hardware, comp.sys.next.hardware,
comp.sys.ibm.hardware, comp.sys.dec, comp.answers and
news.answers. This posting is automated and will occur on or
near the 10th of each month. If there are other groups to
which this document should be posted, please let me know, but
if I post it to every group where UPS questions get asked, that
would be a lot of groups. I'm open to suggestions.
This document is also available via anonymous FTP. The master
sits on navigator.jpl.nasa.gov (128.149.23.82) in pub/doc/faq
as the file UPS.faq. It is also available via anonymous FTP
from rtfm.mit.edu in:
pub/usenet-by-group/comp.misc/Uninteruptable_Power_Source_FAQ
01.03
Q: Who maintains this?
A: Right now, this document is maintained by Nick Christenson. My
preferred email address is npc@minotaur.jpl.nasa.gov, and I
would like it very much if questions regarding this document
could have the word "UPS or UPS FAQ" or some such in the Subject
line. Note: I am maintaining this on my own time, so please
don't be upset if it takes a while for me to respond to your
queries. Also none of the information in here represents the
views or has the blessing of any organization whatsoever. The
maintainer of the FAQ is to be held solely responsible for its
contents.
01.04
Q: Where did this information come from?
A: Thankfully, many people have rallied to my cry to fill in
the many gaps in my original draft. This is now a group work,
although I claim full responsibility for misstatements and
inaccuracies.
01.05
Q: How can I contribute?
A: You should mail new information, corrections, suggestions, etc.
to the current maintainer of this FAQ. If you provide a suggestion,
make sure you reference where the information is located in the
document. I guarantee that suggestions of the form "Change the
word 'always' to 'almost always' in the part about surge suppression."
will be ignored.
01.06
Q: Are there any restrictions on distribution of this document?
A: This document is copyright by the author. You are encouraged
to distribute this document for any non-commercial purpose
as long as the contents remain unchanged. And a pointer to
an up-to-date version is included.
01.07
Q: Got anything else you'd like to add?
A: Yes, now that you mention it. The people who contribute to this
document can speak only about equipment they have experience with.
This may reflect a bias toward or against certain brands, features,
functions, etc.. Please keep in mind that the suggestions, brand
names and functions here are by no means exhaustive, or even
necessarily applicable to your situation. Also, if you have
information that is not in this document, please submit it to
the maintainer listed above. If you submit information, please
say whether you'd like it to be attributed to you or not. I am
more than glad to give credit to the fine people who helped with
this document, but I want to respect the anonymity of those
people who would prefer it.
01.08
Q: Glossary
A: This was contributed almost entirely by some kind soul. I just
cleaned it up a bit.
Blackout: Complete loss of power. Some literature considers a voltage
drop below about 80V to be a blackout as well since most
equipment will not operate below these levels.
Sag or Brownout: Decrease in voltage levels which can last for
periods ranging from fractions of a second to hours. Can be
caused by heavy equipment coming on line such as shop tools,
elevators, compressors etc. Also occurs when utility companies
deliberately do this to cope with peak load times.
Spike: An instantaneous and tremendous increase in voltage often
caused by a direct lightning strike on a power line or when
power returns after a blackout.
Surge: An substantial increase in voltage lasting a small fraction
of a second, often caused when high powered appliances such as
air conditioners are switched off.
EMI/RFI Noise: ElectroMagnetic Interference and Radio Frequency
Interference. Caused by, inter alia, lightning, generators,
radio transmitters, industrial equipment.
MOV: Metal Oxide Varistors used to control spikes. These are
common in Power Strips. If you see more than two, you likely
have a fairly decent Power Strip. They look like largish disk
capacitors.
Inverter: Circuitry that converts DC battery power to AC power
required by most computer equipment.
Surge Protector: Circuitry consisting of MOVs, capacitors, rod-core
inductors etc. for suppressing surges and spikes usually embedded
in a power strip.
Line Conditioner: A transformer that attempts to smooth out
fluctuations in input voltage to provide near uniform output
voltage or voltage waveform.
02.01
Q: What is a UPS?
A: An Uninteruptable Power Source is a device that sits between
a power supply (e.g. a wall outlet) and a device (e.g. a computer)
to prevent power outages from the supply from adversely affecting
the performance of the device.
02.02
Q: How do you pronounce "UPS"?
A: I pronounce it "ups", but most of the literature seems to favor
"you pee ess", since they use "a UPS" instead of "an UPS". This
document will try to follow the literature.
02.03
Q: Vendor X says that (fill in description) is a UPS, but it's
different that what you describe above. Who's right?
A: There really is no standard definition of what a UPS is.
Anything ranging from a 9 volt battery backup in a clock radio
to a building/compound wide backup generator has been called
a UPS by someone. The majority of this document refers to
objects larger than a beer can and smaller than a desk that
help devices remain temporarily operational when changes to the
power they receive would otherwise interrupt their function.
Maintaining power to a minicomputer (like a VAX 11) is beyond
the scope of this document. This FAQ deals with UPS equipment
that can be installed by a computer owner/administrator If you
have requirements that large, you need to talk to a qualified
electrician.
02.04
Q: Can you give me some more information on this?
A: (Kindly provided by Don Deal, Don.Deal@oit.gatech.edu, my additions
are in [square brackets] )
The UPS industry is made up of many manufacturers, and there is
a lack of standard terms within the industry. I think this
sometimes borders on deliberate misdirection. (It's a jungle out
there!)
There are basically three different types of devices, all of
which are occasionally passed off as UPSs.
1. Standby power supply (SPS). In this type of supply, power is
usually derived from directly from the power line, until power
fails. After power failure, a battery powered inverter turns on
to continue supplying power. Batteries are charged, as necessary,
when line power is available. This type of supply is sometimes
called an "offline" UPS.
The quality and effectiveness of this class of devices varies
considerably; however, they are generally quite a bit cheaper than
"true" UPSs. The time required for the inverter to come online,
typically called the switchover time, varies by unit. While some
computers may be able to tolerate long switchover times, your
mileage may vary. [Some articles in the trade press have claimed
that their testing shows that modern PCs can withstand transfer
times of 100ms or more. Most UPS units claim a transfer time to
battery of about 4ms.]
Other features to look for in this class of supplies is line
filtering and/or other line conditioners. Since appliances
connected to the supply are basically connected directly from
the power line, SPSs provide relatively poor protection from
line noise, frequency variations, line spikes, and brownouts.
[Some SPS's claim to have surge/spike suppression circuitry as
well as transformers to "boost" voltage without switching to
the battery if a modest voltage drop occurs. An example is the
"APC Smart UPS" which claims it will switch to this boosting mode
if voltage drops below 103V (from the normal expected 120V) and
switches to battery only at 90V and below. This, it is claimed,
allows operation of the equipment indefinitely under brownout
conditions as long as voltage does not drop below 90V. I have
not tested this, and would be interested in independent data.
There are other vendors products that make similar claims.]
2. Hybrid UPS systems. I only know one vendor who sells them -
Best Power, Inc. The theory behind these devices is fairly simple.
When normal operating line power is present, the supply conditions
power using a ferroresonant transformer. This transformer maintains
a constant output voltage even with a varying input voltage and
provides good protection against line noise. The transformer also
maintains output on its secondary briefly when a total outage occurs.
Best claims that their inverter then goes online so quickly that
it is operating without any interruption in power. Other UPS
vendors maintain that the transition is less than seamless, but
then again it's not in their best interest to promote Best's products.
Best has a sizable part of the UPS market.
[ Note: According to some sources, ferroresonant transformers in an
UPS system can interact with ferroresonant transformers in your
equipment and produce unexpected results. The Moral: Again, test
before you buy. -npc ]
3. What I call "true" UPS systems, those supplies that continuously
operate from an inverter. Obviously, there is no switchover time,
and these supplies generally provide the best isolation from power
line problems. The disadvantages to these devices are increased
cost, increased power consumption, and increased heat generation.
Despite the fact that the inverter in a "true" UPS is always on,
the reliability of such units does not seem to be affected. In
fact, we have seen more failures in cheaper SPS units.
02.05
Q: How can it help me?
A: An UPS has internal batteries to guarantee that continuous power
is provided to the equipment even if the power supply stops
providing power. Of course the UPS can provide power for a while,
typically a few minutes, but that is often enough to ride out
power company glitches or short outages.
Advantages:
1) Computer jobs don't stop because the power fails.
2) Users not inconvenienced by computer shutting down.
3) Equipment does not incur the stress of another (hard)
power cycle.
4) Data isn't lost because a machine shut down without
doing a "sync" or equivalent to flush cached or
real time data.
02.06
Q: What sort of stuff does a UPS do?
A: An UPS traditionally can perform the following functions:
1) Absorb relatively small power surges.
2) Smooth out noisy power sources.
3) Continue to provide power to equipment during line sags.
4) Provide power for some time after a blackout has occurred.
In addition, some UPS or UPS/software combinations provide the
following functions:
1) Automatic shutdown of equipment during long power
outages.
2) Monitoring and logging of the status of the power supply.
3) Display the Voltage/Current draw of the equipment.
4) Restart equipment after a long power outage.
5) Display the voltage currently on the Line.
6) Provide alarms on certain error conditions.
7) Provide short circuit protection.
02.07
Q: How long can equipment on a UPS keep running after the power
goes?
A: How big a UPS do you have and what kind of equipment does it
protect? For most typical computer workstations, one might
have a UPS that was rated to keep the machine alive through
a 15 minute power loss. If you need a machine to survive
hours without power should probably look at a more robust
power backup solution. Even if a UPS has a very small load,
it must still operate it's DC (battery) to AC converter,
which costs power. A rough extrapolation from APC's
documentation, leads me to guess that a 2000 VA UPS can
operate it's own converter (with no extra load) for just
over 8 hours. A 1250 VA UPS could run its converter for
about 5. These are *very* rough guesses based on information
provided by one vendor for one vendor.
2.08
Q: Given the same vendor claims, how can I tell a "good" quality
UPS from a "poor" quality UPS?
A: Testing, testing, testing. I can't emphasize this enough. There
are many good and bad units out there that call themselves UPS's.
Caveat Emptor.
Some properties you might look for are:
1) Sinusoidal power output. In general, the closer the AC output
of the UPS is to a sine wave, the better it is for your equipment.
Many UPS units, especially the cheaper ones, deviate a great
deal from a sinusoidal output. Some of them generate square
waves. Don't buy these, period, they can cause serious damage
to your equipment.
2) Does the UPS have a manual bypass switch? If the UPS is
broken or is being serviced, can you pass power through it to
your equipment? The last thing you want is for a broken UPS to
be the cause of extra downtime.
3) The more information about a UPS's operation you can get from
watching the unit itself, the better. How much power (or
percentage load) the equipment is drawing, how much battery
life is left and indications of the input power quality are
all very useful.
4) Some newer UPS's can communicate with their monitoring software
via network connection and SNMP! This is wonderful *if* your
network is on a UPS! Also, beware, I have heard of dealers
advertising "Network UPS" monitoring where the network is
the normal serial connection (no SLIP or PPP).
5) Does the UPS vendor offer support/maintenance contracts. If
they don't even offer them, I would suspect the quality of the
equipment.
If you do have a UPS that does not output a sinusoidal waveform,
some manufacturers *strongly* urge you to not put a surge protector
between the UPS and the computer. The surge protector might mistake
the non-sine waveform as a power surge and try to send it to ground.
This could be bad for your UPS. I don't know if this has happened
or not, but I wouldn't chance it.
02.09
Q: Should I make sure I have a support/maintenance contract for my
UPS systems?
A: Some people strongly recommend this, but to be honest, I don't
know how important it is. I haven't had any UPS's long enough
to have enough of them fail to know what the failure modes are
likely to be. Some people, with more experience than I in these
matters, insist that a UPS support/maintenance contract is as
important as your computer support/maintenance contract. I can't
argue with them. In any case, it's almost certainly worth
pricing at any rate.
02.10
Q: What sort of maintenance can I perform myself?
A: One good thing you might want to do is periodically test the
UPS's and their failure modes. A good time to do this might be
right after after a periodic level 0 backup. Nobody is logged
in and you've got full backups of the machines. Pull the plug
on the UPS to simulate and outage and see how the transition
goes. Those UPS units that use lead-acid batteries (that's
most of them, I'm told) do not have a battery memory and should
be run dry as few times as possible. It's probably not a bad
investment to do this once on one UPS to learn how much UPS
time you can expect in a real power outage. Note: depending on
the manufacturer, UPS batters can be expected to last between
about 1 and 5 years before they need to be replaced.
It might be useful to install a GFI (Ground Fault Interruptor)
socket to facilitate this testing without having to pull the plug.
These are the sockets found in most modern kitchens and
bathrooms with a red and a black button. You push the latter to
cut power and the former to restore power.
02.11
Q: Isn't a UPS just a glorified power strip/surge protector with
some batteries and a little power conditioning thrown in?
A: Basically. It's also got a power inverter and some other circuitry.
It may also have a timer, thermometer or other gadgets.
03:
TOPIC: UPS monitoring/shutdown software.
03.01
Q: If the power is out for a long time, I would like to have my
computer automatically shut itself down gracefully before the
UPS batteries die. Can I do this?
A: Yes. Most UPS manufacturers support software that will do this
for some UPS's on at least some platforms. Ask your UPS vendor
for details.
03.02
Q: How does it work, I'm a starving (fill in the blank) and I really
don't want to pay for software unless I absolutely have to.
A: Usually, there is a serial connection running from a UPS into
your computer. The UPS sends information along the serial line
as it goes. If you can decode which pins contain which information,
how the information is formatted and figure out what it wants to
hear from the computer side, you're all set. Make sure you have
the right serial cable and know how the pins map between DB9 and
DB25 as both your computer and your UPS may take either.
Since UPS units with network based monitoring capabilities are
appearing on the market, we can hopefully get something that will
communicate with those units.
Here is a skeleton script provided by Joe Moss, joe@morton.rain.com.
Definitely check this out as a starting point, but don't expect
it to do anything meaningful without some work.
---------start upsd.sh-------------
#! /bin/sh
# Shut down system in case of extended power failure
# This should be the serial port to which the UPS is connected
# This port must be set to block on open until the DCD line
# is asserted - many UNIX systems have this determined by
# the minor device number, if not, see if there is some way
# to enable this behavior on your system
PORT=/dev/ttya
# Ok, this should block until there is a power failure
: > $PORT
# If we reach this point, we've lost power
wall << EOF
The sky is falling!! The sky is falling!!
EOF
# call shutdown (or init or whatever)
exec shutdown
-----------end--------------------
03.03
Q: Hmmm... that sounds kinda complicated. Has someone already done
this?
A: Any solution would almost certainly be vendor specific. However,
some brave souls have provided partial functionality for certain
vendors' UPS's. I don't know the original source, but I have a
copy available for anonymous FTP at navigator.jpl.nasa.gov in
the pub/src/upsd directory. I haven't tried it and I don't
honestly know if it even works.
Note: Different UPS's produce different sorts of signals. Just
installing this already built package may require a great deal of
work. The cabling can be complicated, etc.. I would be
interested in hearing where this software does/doesn't work.
03.04
Q: I can't find monitoring software that will work on my configuration.
What should I do?
A: Well, it seems you have a few choices:
1) Build your own. See item 03.02.
2) Use something freely distributable. See item 03.03.
3) Lean on your UPS vendor to port to your platform.
4) Try a different vendor that supports your platform.
See item 05.01.
04:
TOPIC: How big a UPS do I need?
04.01
Q: How are the "sizes" of UPS's determined?
A: Typically, a UPS has a VA rating. The VA rating is the maximum
number of Volts * Amps it can deliver. The VA rating is not the
same as the power drain (in Watts) of the equipment. Computers
are notoriously non-resistive. A typical PF (power factor:
Watts/VA) for workstations may be as low as 0.6, which means that
if you record a drain of 100 Watts, you need a UPS with a VA
rating of 167. Some literature suggests that 0.7 may be a
good conversion factor, but this will depend heavily on the
machine. WARNING: Don't take my word for it! Note: Some UPS's
can continue to deliver power if the VA rating is exceeded, they
merely can't provide above their VA rating if the power goes.
Some can't provide power above their VA rating at all. Some may
do something really nasty if you try. In any case, I *strongly*
recommend not doing this under *any* circumstances.
04.02
Q: How can I tell what VA rating I need for my equipment?
A: First, when possible, get VA rather than wattage ratings. See
Q04.01 above.
There are a couple of ways:
1) Direct measurement. You can get equipment to measure
the current draw of your equipment directly. You may
or may not have access to this. If you are part of an
organization that has it's own facilities/electrical
type people, they're likely to be able to do this. They
might help you out if you ask nice.
2) Compare notes. If you know someone with the same setup
you're using, ask them what they use and how close they
are to the maximum VA rating.
3) Use a chart. Most vendors can help you out for common
equipment. If you have an unusual setup, or a mix
vendors a lot, you're probably out of luck here.
4) Use the equipment rating. Most pieces of computer
equipment have a power rating on some back panel. This
number is usually high, as it is necessary for the
manufacturer to play it safe or they'll get sued.
Note: Method 1 is by far the best, method 2 and 3 are secondary,
method 4 is usually overkill, but pretty safe. There are some
examples in section 4.6, but the information is probably worth
what you paid for it :-)
04.03
Q: Hmmm... seems like a tough thing to determine.
A: Yeah, it can be. It's also very important. If you get a UPS
that's too big, then your equipment can survive a longer outage.
If you get a UPS that's too small, then you could be in deep
trouble. Therefore, I recommend that you be conservative in
buying these things, unfortunately, this costs money.
04.04
Q: What else should I consider?
A: It would be nice to know how long your site's typical power
outages are. In some places, with nice weather and a flakey
power grid, the power is almost never out for more than 5 minutes,
but this could happen quite frequently. In this case, you may
as well use a UPS with a VA rating close to your equipment
rating with no extra batteries. If your area has longer outages,
in the half hour or hour range, as is often the case in
thunderstorm country, you can either buy UPS's with multiples
of the VA rating of the equipment, since oversizing a VA rating
for a UPS has the effect of lengthening the amount of time your
equipment can stay up in case of a power outage, or you can buy
additional battery units for a smaller UPS. You can probably
get away with doing simple math to determine how much longer a
larger UPS will keep your equipment running, but I recommend
running a few tests before committing to a large purchase
order. Also, your UPS vendor will almost certainly be glad
to help you size the equipment you need. If all else fails
and you guess wrong, or move equipment to a location with
different power status, you may be really, really glad if you
bought a UPS that can have additional battery packs added.
04.05
Q: How about I use one of these UPS thingies for a laser printer?
A: Don't *ever* do this. If you ever measured the current draw
of a laser printer during startup (and during printing) you'd
be stunned at what it pulls. All UPS manufacturers I know of
tell you not to do this.
04.06
Q: So, what sorts of UPS sizes do you use on your equipment?
A: BIG DISCLAIMER. I disclaim everything about these figures.
At best, they are very, very rough. Heck, I may be lying.
Don't trust them. Here they are anyway.
400 VA:
Sparc 2 with 3 600 MB disks, 1 200 MB disk, 1 exabyte 8200
tape drive, 19" color monitor.
600 VA:
HP 750 with 4 1.3 GB disks, internal 4mm tape drive and internal
CD-ROM drive, external disk cabinet and 19" color monitor.
500 VA:
SPARC 2GX clone. 1 1.2 GB disk, 4 2.0 GB disks, 2 tape drives,
1 CD-ROM drive, "big" monitor.
300 VA:
Sparc 2 clone with 100W power supply, internal 424 disk, 16"
color monitor, external 1 GB disk drive.
05:
TOPIC: Specific manufacturer's information.
05.01
Q: What vendors are there and what do they produce?
A: Here is a very incomplete list, based only on what I know.
Please give me information to expand it. I make no claims
as to the accuracy of this information. It is mostly based
on personal recommendations and vendor propoganda.
Company: APC, American Power Conversion
US Address: 132 Fairgrounds Road
P.O. Box 278
West Kingston, RI 02892
FR Address: 4, rue Ste Claire Deville
Zac du Mandinet-Batiment Espace
LOGNES
77447 MARNE LA VALLEE Cedex 2
FRANCE
US & CAN Phone: 1-800-800-4272
Europe Phone: (+33) 1.64.62.59.00
World Wide Phone: (401) 789-5735
Email: none known
UPS Products:
Smart UPS in sizes up to 2000 VA. The Smart UPS's do
monitoring and can shutdown multiple machines using the
PowerChute software. I recommend putting these on
computers. SNMP adaptor can be installed.
Back UPS same as Smart UPS except that you cannot
communicate interactively with the UPS and it will not
support SNMP. I recommend putting these on dumb equipment
like network equipment, X Terminals and Macintoshes (sorry,
I couldn't resist.)
Matrix UPS a modular "fault-tolerant" system. Any
module, except the insulation unit, can be "hot-swapped"
at any time. Also additional battery modules can be added,
again, while the system is running. SNMP adaptor can be
installed.
Software:
PowerChute, PowerChute PLUS. They produce it themselves.
Supported on: SunOS, HP-UX, SCO, AIX, AT&T UNIX,
Interactive UNIX, XENIX, and probably others by now.
Contributed by:
APC information contributed by Nick Christenson,
npc@minotaur.jpl.nasa.gov without consultation with
APC. Additional information provided by Joe Moss,
joe@morton.rain.com. I have no affiliation with APC
except as a satisfied customer.
------------------------
Company: Best Power Technology, Inc.
P.O. Box 280
Necedah, WI 54646-9899
US Phone: 1-800-356-5794
Email: None known
UPS Products:
FERRUPS: Ferroresonant-Based, Line-Interactive UPS, sizes
from 500 VA - 18 KVA.
Features: Standard power features, serial line
communications, runtime monitoring, logging,
automatic shutdown with optional software, user
configurable.
FORTRESS: Advanced, line-Interactive UPS, sizes from 360
VA - 2 KVA.
PATRIOT: Low-Cost Standby Power Systems, 250 VA - 850 VA.
Contributed by: Scott Pinkerton, spinkert@t4rta-gw.den.mmc.com
------------------------
Company: Emerson Electric Co., Computer Power Div.
US Address: 9650 Jeronimo Road
Irvine, CA 92718, USA
UK Address: Elgin Drive, Swindon
Wiltshire SN2-6DX, England
FR Address: 8, Rue de l'Esterel
Silic 502
94623 Rungis Cedex
France
IT Address: SICE S.p.A. [Note national Name!]
Via Rossini 6
20098 San Giuliano Milanese
Italy
US Phone: 1-800-BACKUPS
UK Phone: +44 458 841898
FR Phone: +33 146 862336
EMail: n/a
Products:
Accupower GOLD Series:
UPSes for 750, 1000, 1500, 2100 VA, the latter with
external Batt Pack. Connector for {Power,Accu}Mon S/W.
5 yr Batt Life. Good Display (3 Status LEDs, Load
and Batt Charge LED Bargraphs). Switches positioned
wrong (Main Power Switch on Front, Batt Check/Alarm
off on Back - I'ld prefer them the other Way 'round).
other UPSes?
PowerMon Software:
Triggers for Outage, long Outage, Batt low. Uses one
serial Connector. Logging and Warnings to Users.
Requires special Cable (included in PowerMon Kit).
NOTE: The "Batt low" Trigger does not work "on SunOS
4.1.1 and above due to OS Limitations". >:-C I don't
know whether this includes Solaris 2.x.
AccuMon Software:
Reported to support all Kinds of fancy Communication
Items (gathering Power Line and internal UPS Data,
test Batt Cap periodically and announce Batt Aging,
switch off UPS on Computer Command, Logging Facili-
ties for all these Functions)
Other Software?
Contributed by: Jochen Bern, bern@kleopatra.Uni-Trier.DE
who has no relation to Emerson.
------------------------
Company: Easy Options IBM Corporation
Address: IBM Corporations
Easy Options
Dept. WC3J
P.O. Box 2150
Atlanta, Ga 30301-9948
US Phone: Unknown.
UPS Products:
UPS ranging from 250 VA to 600 VA with surge and noise suppression.
Sine wave output, Test/Alarm, etc..
These UPS's come with an insurance policy. If your UPS damages
your systems, they'll pay you up to $25,000.
Software:
Works with APC's PowerChute software.
I doubt that IBM is making their own UPS's rather than repackaging
someone elses, but I'll be glad to post a correction if they are.
Contributed by: Dave Gruhn, dgruhn@fuzzy.eskimo.com
who has no relation to IBM, or Easy Options except as
a satisfied customer.
------------------------
Company: Clary Corporation
Address: Clary Corporations
320 W Clary Ave
San Gabriel, CA 91776
US Phone: 818 287-6111
UPS Products:
I'm not sure of the entire line, but their PC series includes
UPS ranging from 400 VA to 1500 VA with surge and noise
suppression. Voltage regulation to 3%, frequency to 1 Hz,
RS232 signal output, LED load and charge indicators.
Sine wave output, Alarm, etc..
Contributed by: Ron Tansky, ron.t@bix.com who has no relation
to Clary Corporation except as a user.
------------------------
Company: Advanced Electronic Systems, Inc.
2005 Lincoln Way East
Chambersburg, PA 17201
US Phone: 1-800-345-1280
Email: None known
UPS Products:
Stediwatt UPS: Designed specifically for use with NeXTSTEP.
Contributed by: Robert D. Freeman, rdf@thermo.chem.okstate.edu
Also on the NeXTSTEP front, there is a company called BenaTong (?)
which sells a software package called PowerGuardian for NeXTSTEP
only. It will work with APC, TrippLite and UNISON UPS's. If,
for example, you call APC and ask for PowerChute for NeXT, they
will refer you to Power Guardian.
Contributed by: Chuck Bennett, (chuck@benatong.com) who works
for this company.
Also for NeXTstep, Max Hailperin wrote a package for monitoring
Best Fortress UPS units called GACUPS. It consists of a daemon
and a GUI. The daemon will shut the NeXT machine down gracefully
and do logging. It also answers queeries from the GUI. The GUI
displays status information. It should be availalbe on the usual
NeXTstep anonymous FTP sites. One place you might want to check
is in : ftp://nova.cc.purdue.edu/pub/next/submissions/. Any
reports on how it works?
Contributed by Max Hailperin (max@kolmogorov.gac.edu).
------------------------
Company: DELTEC
2727 Kurtz St.
San Diego, CA 92110-9980
US Phone: 1-800-854-2658
Email: None known
UPS Products:
"Most technologically advanced *true* on-line UPS."
Contributed by: Robert D. Freeman, rdf@thermo.chem.okstate.edu
------------------------
Company: Exide
8521 Six Forks Road
Raleigh, NC 27615
US & Canada Phone: 1-800-554-3448
1-919-872-3020
------------------------
Company: Acme Electric Corp.
43 Argow Place
Nanuet, NY 10954
US Phone: 1-800-833-1373
Contributed by: Robert D. Freeman, rdf@thermo.chem.okstate.edu
------------------------
Company: Tripp Lite
500 N. Orleans
Chicago, IL 60610-4188
US Phone: 1-312-329-1601
Email: None known
UPS Products:
On-line UPSs with pure Sine Wave output.
Contributed by: Robert D. Freeman, rdf@thermo.chem.okstate.edu
------------------------
Company: Data General
UPS Products:
Data General repackages another vendor's UPS's (from
Exide?) with some sort of special cable. They deserve
some mention since they provide UPS monitoring software
built in to the AViiON (their UN*X boxen) line. It can
be managed through sysadm(1M).
Contributed by: Morris Galloway Jr., mmgall@presby.edu
------------------------
Other companies: Sola Electric
ITT Power System Corp
Digital Equipment Corporation. (They probably
repackage someone else's stuff, but
they're likely to support it and you
can order it from their catalog.)
I'd appreciate any information I can get on these.
06:
TOPIC: Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Charles Rhoades (cwr@zeus.jpl.nasa.gov) for
his sage remarks on my draft of this document.
I would like to thank Kevin R. Ray (kevin@kray.com) for sending me
the freely distributable upsd software.
Thanks also to Don Deal (Don.Deal@oit.gatech.edu) for a great
many valuable suggestions and that great section on the types
of UPS units.
The following people made valuable suggestions to this document:
Scott Pinkerton, spinkert@t4rta-gw.den.mmc.com
Morris Galloway Jr., mmgall@presby.edu
David E A Wilson, david@cs.uow.edu.au
Edward Hartnett, ejh@larry.gsfc.nasa.gov
Joe Moss, joe@morton.rain.com
Kurt Hillig, khillig@chem.lsa.umich.edu
Robert D. Freeman, rdf@thermo.chem.okstate.edu
Jochen Bern, bern@kleopatra.Uni-Trier.DE
Dave Gruhn, dgruhn@fuzzy.eskimo.com
Steve Welch, smw@columbine.cgd.ucar.edu
Ron Tansky, ron.t@bix.com
Andrew J. Templin, nosilla@ohionet.org
Chuck Bennett, chuck@benatong.com
M.V.S. Ramanath, ram@sclara.qms.com
Max Hailperin, max@kolmogorov.gac.edu
Please note that I take full blame for any errors or omissions.