No the squarish connector is a telephone connector, either a RJ-12 or RJ-45. The RJ-45 is what people commonly call a "Ethernet" connector. A DB-9 is a much larger molded plug similar to the DB-15 VGA connector you mention.

Have you followed the instructions in the apcupsd documents. You need to modify the apucupsd.conf file as necessary and also the apcupsd file in /etc/default. I have a hunch you have not done the last part. You need to enable the interface in that file. It is set to no by default when you install apcupsd. You need to change it to YES. Then reboot.

ISCONFIGURED=yes

Hi Keith,

I followed the instructions on that page you linked to including making backup copies of both files. Yes, I set the ISCONFIGURED to yes.

Mine is not a phone type connector. Did you look at the page I linked to showing the type of cable and connectors I have? That is definitely not a phone jack connector, at least not any phone connector I have always seen. My new monitor has a USB port and the cable to activate the port from the PC is exactly the same as what I have for my UPS. I doubt that they use phone connections on monitors. ;) I may just get a new UPS after all.

[edit]
well, I did leave out one minor step. I forgot to reboot. Here's what I get now:

apcaccess
APC      : 001,034,0829
DATE     : 2019-11-11 16:38:59 -0600  
HOSTNAME : Minty-Winders
VERSION  : 3.14.14 (31 May 2016) debian
UPSNAME  : APC BN4001
CABLE    : USB Cable
DRIVER   : USB UPS Driver
UPSMODE  : Stand Alone
STARTTIME: 2019-11-11 13:37:32 -0600  
MODEL    : Back-UPS ES 650G1 
STATUS   : ONLINE 
LINEV    : 121.0 Volts
LOADPCT  : 12.0 Percent
BCHARGE  : 100.0 Percent
TIMELEFT : 61.1 Minutes
MBATTCHG : 5 Percent
MINTIMEL : 3 Minutes
MAXTIME  : 0 Seconds
SENSE    : High
LOTRANS  : 92.0 Volts
HITRANS  : 139.0 Volts
ALARMDEL : 30 Seconds
BATTV    : 13.6 Volts
LASTXFER : Low line voltage
NUMXFERS : 0
TONBATT  : 0 Seconds
CUMONBATT: 0 Seconds
XOFFBATT : N/A
STATFLAG : 0x05000008
SERIALNO : 4B1650P31604  
BATTDATE : 2019-11-08
NOMINV   : 120 Volts
NOMBATTV : 12.0 Volts
FIRMWARE : 906.W1 .D USB FW:W1
END APC  : 2019-11-11 16:39:17 -0600

Next, I'll see what apctest tells me...

[edit2]
This is what apctest is telling me... still:

Select function number: 10


I don't know how to run a battery calibration on your UPS
or your UPS does not support battery calibration

My UPS may not have the ability to be calibrated. Need to do more searching... :)
[/edit2]

Have a great day! :)

Siran

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

No I missed the link for your cable. Standard USB A-B cable. The apcaccess command now shows the UPS online. So progress. The inability to run calibration likely is caused by older firmware in the UPS that does not understand or recognize the calibrate command from apctest. Nothing you can do about it unless you can update the firmware for your device from the downloads at APC. They do offer updated firmware on the higher quality business and professional products. You can update the firmware with the apctest menu. Think you are out of luck there. I remember the old PowerChute software offered a calibrate function within the menus on the Windows software versions.

[Edit] At least you have apctest working now for the other available functions.

---

Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

No I missed the link for your cable. Standard USB A-B cable. The apcaccess command now shows the UPS online. So progress. The inability to run calibration likely is caused by older firmware in the UPS that does not understand or recognize the calibrate command from apctest. Nothing you can do about it unless you can update the firmware for your device from the downloads at APC. They do offer updated firmware on the higher quality business and professional products. You can update the firmware with the apctest menu. Think you are out of luck there. I remember the old PowerChute software offered a calibrate function within the menus on the Windows software versions.

[Edit] At least you have apctest working now for the other available functions.

Hi Keith,

Yep, no firmware upgrades. The box my UPS came in states the model number as APC BN4001 while apctest states 650G1. I looked at both models on the APC website and they are virtually identical. The BN4001 does not show any downloads for PowerChute and firmware. The 650G1 shows PowerChute but no firmware. Yep, outta luck with both model numbers. Oh well, I guess I better get a better UPS then. ;)

Have a great day! :)

Siran

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

I have a full working set of ups-utils for networked attached UPSs and have been using it to monitor my setup with 3 UPSs. I have some initial observations of the monitor data I have collected. Here is a sample of log data:

ups_type	____UPS____	V in	V out	Load	I out	P out	I(P)	CurFact
apc-ap9630	RicksLab_UPS4	116	120	25	6	685	5.71	0.95
eaton-pw	RicksLab_UPS3	122	110.1	55	3.8	888	8.07	2.12
eaton-pw	RicksLab_UPS2	118.4	110	27	2.7	669	6.08	2.25
apc-ap9630	RicksLab_UPS4	117	120	25	6	681	5.68	0.95
eaton-pw	RicksLab_UPS3	117	110	46	3.2	714	6.49	2.03
eaton-pw	RicksLab_UPS2	119.5	109.9	26	2.7	705	6.41	2.38
apc-ap9630	RicksLab_UPS4	117	120	25	6	683	5.69	0.95
eaton-pw	RicksLab_UPS3	117.8	109.8	55	3.7	886	8.07	2.18
eaton-pw	RicksLab_UPS2	115.7	109.8	27	2.8	642	5.85	2.09
apc-ap9630	RicksLab_UPS4	116	120	25	6	687	5.73	0.95
eaton-pw	RicksLab_UPS3	121.2	110.1	55	3.9	896	8.14	2.09
eaton-pw	RicksLab_UPS2	115.7	110	28	3.1	705	6.41	2.07
apc-ap9630	RicksLab_UPS4	116	120	29	7	763	6.36	0.91
eaton-pw	RicksLab_UPS3	120.6	110.2	56	3.7	912	8.28	2.24
eaton-pw	RicksLab_UPS2	122.4	110.2	29	2.8	687	6.23	2.23

My first concern is that the output voltage of Eaton is 10V lower than APC. Input voltages are measured by both to be 120V. I have measured the output voltage of Eaton with a meter and confirmed it to be 110V. This is probably not ideal considering the power levels I run at.

Next concern is the inconsistency of the current measurements. I have confirmed with a MIB browser, that the utility is reporting back the correct data for the appropriate MIB command. If I compare to out current calculated from output power (assuming resistive load), the APC current is consistent with measured, but Eaton is half of what is expected. I was considering to use a 2.2 correction factor on the Eaton current measurement, but it would be good to know what the issue is before I implement it.

Hi Rick, I have been trying to figure out how to get BOINC to drop the compute load when the PC goes off wall power and onto the UPS backup power. Have it drop the compute load like BOINC does when it is running on a laptop. The setting is already in the client, the "Suspend when on battery " setting in the configuration.

But none of the detect methods in the client apply to wall powered PC's. All the interfaces that are present on a laptop and work are apparently not present in any of my PC's or on modern Linux. The code is here:
/client/hostinfo_unix.cpp#L195

The upower interface can show the state of the UPS but I have no clue how to program a new detect method for watching when the state changes from "charging" or "fully-charged" to "discharging" when the wall power goes out and the UPS comes online to generate power for the PC to keep running.

Right now I can support my compute load for about 8 minutes on battery and I have the apcupsd daemon configured to start shutting down the PC after 3 minutes of no power and the UPS on battery. But if you could dump the compute load like you can on a laptop, the UPS runtime would stretch out to an hour probably. That would allow you to continue using your computer for other things than crunching.

---

Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

I have looked at your utility and am not sure what function it provides that the already available apcupsd software doesn't provide. I have run that software for a decade and it shuts down the pc's when the power goes out just fine.

What I want to is to prevent the apcupsd daemon from shutting the pc down when it detects insufficient battery life or operating time left by extending the runtime on battery by shedding the compute load via the BOINC Manager setting. If you could stop crunching, the UPS could run the basically idle computer for an hour likely instead of shutting it down after 3 minutes of no power.

Does you utility hook into the BOINC Manager's configuration for "Suspend computing when on battery" that is provided for laptops?
Can it dump the computer load?

---

Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Right now I can support my compute load for about 8 minutes on battery and I have the apcupsd daemon configured to start shutting down the PC after 3 minutes of no power and the UPS on battery. But if you could dump the compute load like you can on a laptop, the UPS runtime would stretch out to an hour probably. That would allow you to continue using your computer for other things than crunching.

I developed the ups-daemon script for this purpose. If the time on battery time exceeds a specified threshold, then the suspend script will be called. The suspend script in the package will call boinccmd to suspend compute. The resume script will be called when it is detected that the target UPS is no longer on battery. I am still tweaking all of the triggers, so any input would be appreciated. The only limitation is that the utilities only work with snmp to a network attached UPS, so USB attached are not detected.

OK, thanks for the clarification. I had a hunch that was what you had developed, but was unclear whether it actually suspended just Seti.

Unfortunately, all my APC UPS are USB connected and no network card in them. Can't add a network card to my SMT-2200C either. But it also had the greatest capacity to support my BOINC load. I can run the load for about 25 minutes on that UPS. The SMT-1500C UPS's don't have that kind of capacity, they are basically at their limits all the time. They are off limits with the network card also.

If you ever figure out how to add the USB interface to your utility, give me a shout.

[Edit] Just thought of something, does it have to be a network card? The SMT-2200C does have the ability to connect over the network without any added network card. Just plug it into your network with an ethernet cable. So would I just have to add the SMNP interface to the computer to use your utility?

---

Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

My first concern is that the output voltage of Eaton is 10V lower than APC. Input voltages are measured by both to be 120V. I have measured the output voltage of Eaton with a meter and confirmed it to be 110V. This is probably not ideal considering the power levels I run at.

Rick - given your are in the USA then 110V is the "correct" voltage for you, while 120 is close to the upper limits, so I'd be more concerned about that.... But are you certain the output wave-forms from the two are the same (and pure sine wave), if they aren't then the output "RMS" voltages could be just what the instruments approximate the different chopped wave-forms to sine waves. This would also be affecting the way the power measurements are not directly comparable.

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

My first concern is that the output voltage of Eaton is 10V lower than APC. Input voltages are measured by both to be 120V. I have measured the output voltage of Eaton with a meter and confirmed it to be 110V. This is probably not ideal considering the power levels I run at.

Rick - given your are in the USA then 110V is the "correct" voltage for you, while 120 is close to the upper limits, so I'd be more concerned about that.... But are you certain the output wave-forms from the two are the same (and pure sine wave), if they aren't then the output "RMS" voltages could be just what the instruments approximate the different chopped wave-forms to sine waves. This would also be affecting the way the power measurements are not directly comparable.

I am actually in Taiwan. Standard voltage here should be same as USA at 110V, but what I measure at a socket in my home is close to 120V, which matches the input/output of APC. Eaton input is 120V and output is 110V. Looks like Eaton is purposely matching the standard while APC is matching the input. I don't have a scope to look at the waveforms, but the magnitude of the powers seems consistent with the loads I have on each UPS, so I still suspect reported current is off.

There are two basic types of UPS.
In one when mains is present that is fed directly to the output (probably with a bit of filtering). In the other mains goes to a rectifier which feeds a voltage controlled inverter and then to the output.

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Rick - given your are in the USA then 110V is the "correct" voltage for you, ...

Rob, back in the 50's this was true. These days the US norm is 117-125v. Mine is an almost rock solid 122v +/- 2v.
Bit of a problem, actually, as older equipment from then tends to have problems. In example, I'd love to fire up my old Collins ham transmitter, but I'd fear to unless I could get my hands on a Variac to bring it up gently and let the capacitors "reseal". Common wisdom would suggest that applying the current ~245v to the power supply looking for 220-230v would probably result in popping every cap in the power supply. Not a good thing

---

[Edit] Just thought of something, does it have to be a network card? The SMT-2200C does have the ability to connect over the network without any added network card. Just plug it into your network with an ethernet cable. So would I just have to add the SMNP interface to the computer to use your utility?

If it is capable, then you should get results with the snmpwalk command:

snmpwalk -v2c -c word ip_address

but you would need to know the word set in the setup of the snmp device. Perhaps when connected to the network, the ups would have a web interface to setup snmp.

OK, looks like I need to dig into the APC forums for that device and see if installing snmp is all that is required. They have a feature matrix on each product and it has a NO checkmark on "Network Card" and just the normal YES checkmark on "Smart Connect"
https://www.apc.com/shop/us/en/products/APC-Smart-UPS-2200VA-LCD-120V-with-SmartConnect/P-SMT2200C

The RJ-45 ethernet connector may just be another way to connect with the Smart Connect feature rather than the normal USB connector on the lesser models.

[Edit] Found this:
3. SMT series now supports Modbus over TCP
Does Modbus have anything to do with snmp?

OK, further reading gives me the impression the ethernet port is just to connect to the cloud for remote monitoring. No indication that remote management is part of that. Think I am out of luck there.

---

Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Greetings,

This should NOT happen! :/

[edit]
Ok, I am now on my laptop, my new one. It happened again while I was checking out apctest. I have a controlled power strip, but the control function quit working. So, it's off to Best Buy to see about another UPS or power strip or both. I tell you what, it sure is a lot quieter in my room now without the PCs running. I will keep you posted.
[/edit]

I'm not sure if we had a brown out or not. I did not see the lights flicker as has happen before.

My UPS dropped power to my 2 PCs and monitor and the alarm was a solid beep (will search that in a minute). There was no backup at all. I got this PC back up and ran apcaccess and it reads this:

apcaccess
APC      : 001,034,0835
DATE     : 2019-11-17 08:09:47 -0600  
HOSTNAME : Minty-Winders
VERSION  : 3.14.14 (31 May 2016) debian
UPSNAME  : APC BN4001
CABLE    : USB Cable
DRIVER   : USB UPS Driver
UPSMODE  : Stand Alone
STARTTIME: 2019-11-17 08:07:43 -0600  
MODEL    : Back-UPS ES 650G1 
STATUS   : ONLINE 
LINEV    : 122.0 Volts
LOADPCT  : 36.0 Percent
BCHARGE  : 99.0 Percent
TIMELEFT : 18.1 Minutes
MBATTCHG : 5 Percent
MINTIMEL : 3 Minutes
MAXTIME  : 0 Seconds
SENSE    : High
LOTRANS  : 92.0 Volts
HITRANS  : 139.0 Volts
ALARMDEL : No alarm
BATTV    : 13.6 Volts
LASTXFER : No transfers since turnon
NUMXFERS : 0
TONBATT  : 0 Seconds
CUMONBATT: 0 Seconds
XOFFBATT : N/A
STATFLAG : 0x05000008
SERIALNO : 4B1650P31604  
BATTDATE : 2019-11-08
NOMINV   : 120 Volts
NOMBATTV : 12.0 Volts
FIRMWARE : 906.W1 .D USB FW:W1
END APC  : 2019-11-17 08:10:40 -0600

Does anyone see anything amiss in this list? It says I have 18.1 minutes of time left. So why did everything shut off? Could there be an intermittent problem with the UPS? This is really bugging the heck out of me. The purpose of the UPS is to keep power to the device(s) to do a graceful shutdown during a power outage. That's not what seems to be happening here. Is there something else I need to do with apctest (I'll look at that in a few too)?

Have a great day! :)

Siran

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

on ups.. when the battery starts go . you will notice it hard with seti or even sweet jesus more prime grid with double precision work units.

---

Greetings,

I now have a new UPS. It's an APC Back-UPS NS 1100 M2. I was able to run the apctest calibration... finally! :) Here is what apcaccess tells me:

rick@Minty-Winders:~$ sudo apcaccess
APC      : 001,036,0877
DATE     : 2019-11-17 13:21:10 -0600  
HOSTNAME : Minty-Winders
VERSION  : 3.14.14 (31 May 2016) debian
UPSNAME  : APC Back-UPS
CABLE    : USB Cable
DRIVER   : USB UPS Driver
UPSMODE  : Stand Alone
STARTTIME: 2019-11-17 13:21:08 -0600  
MODEL    : Back-UPS NS 1100M2 
STATUS   : ONLINE 
LINEV    : 121.0 Volts
LOADPCT  : 79.0 Percent
BCHARGE  : 100.0 Percent
TIMELEFT : 6.2 Minutes
MBATTCHG : 5 Percent
MINTIMEL : 3 Minutes
MAXTIME  : 0 Seconds
SENSE    : Medium
LOTRANS  : 88.0 Volts
HITRANS  : 139.0 Volts
ALARMDEL : 30 Seconds
BATTV    : 27.3 Volts
LASTXFER : No transfers since turnon
NUMXFERS : 0
TONBATT  : 0 Seconds
CUMONBATT: 0 Seconds
XOFFBATT : N/A
SELFTEST : NO
STATFLAG : 0x05000008
SERIALNO : 3B1917X20485  
BATTDATE : 2019-04-22
NOMINV   : 120 Volts
NOMBATTV : 24.0 Volts
NOMPOWER : 600 Watts
FIRMWARE : 953.e3 .D USB FW:e3
END APC  : 2019-11-17 13:21:14 -0600

For some reason apctest will not do a test. It tries. Is there something I have to do prior to the test for the test to be able to run?

This UPS is rated at 122 max minutes. I assume that is if only a PC and monitor is plugged into it. I have 2 PCs, a monitor and my switch power brick plugged in. The outlets aren't even maxed out I have empty ones. And yet the calibration tells me 6.2 minutes. Of course, both PCs are running BOINC too. ;)

Have a great day! :)

Siran

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Yes, stop the apcupsd daemon service first and then run apctest. Then restart the daemon.

sudo systemctl stop apcupsd

apctest

sudo systemctl start apcupsd

Also I find it hard to believe a UPS just bought at a store and has been in the box on the shelf or whoever knows how long would have batteries fully charged.

You can only run calibration when the batteries are fully charged at 100%.

I don't believe the apcaccess fully charged 100% reading is accurate. Probably just reading the surface charge on the batteries and they are not yet capable of delivering full current yet. Unless you let the UPS charge off the wall with no load on it for a couple of hours before putting it into service.

---

Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Yes, stop the apcupsd daemon service first and then run apctest. Then restart the daemon.

sudo systemctl stop apcupsd

apctest

sudo systemctl start apcupsd

Hi Keith,

Yeah, I did that, and even re-booted after editing apcupsd.conf again and made sure that ISCONFIGURED=yes. It just won't finish the test and won't give a reason why. I'll try again...

[edit]
This is what I get:

Select function number: 2


This test instructs the UPS to perform a self-test
operation and reports the result when the test completes.

Clearing previous self test result...CLEARED
Initiating self test...INITIATED
Waiting for test to complete...TEST DID NOT COMPLETE

[/edit]

Have a great day! :)

Siran

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

This UPS is rated at 122 max minutes. I assume that is if only a PC and monitor is plugged into it. I have 2 PCs, a monitor and my switch power brick plugged in. The outlets aren't even maxed out I have empty ones. And yet the calibration tells me 6.2 minutes. Of course, both PCs are running BOINC too. ;)

APC publish run/load curves for most of their high-end UPS, so you should be able to find the exact model you have. I think you will find the one you have is rated at 1100VA, and probably about 600W, so I would be very careful running more than one GPU loaded PC on it.

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?