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.

Hi Rob,

Yeah, it is 1100VA and 600W. The model is BN1100M2. My old PC is running a GTX 1050Ti and 1 WU. This PC has 2 GTX 1660Tis but only 1 is running 1 WU. The other is used to run the monitor. I do not use the iGPUs on either machine. The readout shows the load at about 79%.

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

LOTRANS  : 88.0 Volts
HITRANS  : 139.0 Volts

This is scary, if accurate.

---

Been doing some reading and researching and I feel that the apctest will not function correctly on newer devices. Seems that APC has been playing fast and loose with what usb commands they allow. They have left commands in the menus that don't have any hooks into the actual usb hardware. Since they refuse to publish any technical details about their products, third party software can only make guesses about what is going on under the hood.

So bearing the fact that apctest does not work from the command line, it is suggested that any self-tests or calibrations are done from the devices front panel menus. Those hook into the firmware in the device and theoretically are supported or they shouldn't be in the front panel menus to begin with. But always start with a fully charged battery at 100% and you must have at least 10% of the officially supported load on the device to get the calibration run down routine to generate an accurate load constant.

---

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

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

LOTRANS  : 88.0 Volts
HITRANS  : 139.0 Volts

This is scary, if accurate.

Hi Jim,

Why do you say that? I haven't a clue about the internals of a UPS. I have no idea what LOTRANS and HITRANS are. I'm assuming it has something to do with transfer ( voltage source, I don't know either).

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

Hi Keith,

So bearing the fact that apctest does not work from the command line, it is suggested that any self-tests or calibrations are done from the devices front panel menus.

When I logged into Winders this morning I ran PowerChute and did the self test there. Test passed. It tells me I have about 16 minutes of backup power.

I haven't got the UPS front panel display figured out yet. I can read the different values such as the voltage in and stuff. I have to figure out what you mentioned above that can be done. The UPS is sitting on the floor since I have no shelf space for the thing. At my age it's hard to get down on and back up off of the floor. ;) I don't remember anything in the owners manual about running tests or calibrating from the front panel. I'll have to check it again.

About the old UPS. I think I know what caused it to do what it did. I believe it may have been an overload on the outlets. I'm going to experiment and put the new battery back in it and plug my old PC into it to run it and see what happens. I'm kinda expecting that that plan is going to work, which will take some load off the new UPS. I'll have to plug the old UPS into where I have my window AC unit plugged into right now. Being that it's no longer summer and the AC is not running, sounds like a plan. Next summer though... Perhaps I'll run the cache empty on the old PC and shut it down for the summer. I gotta have AC, with my aversion to heat. Wish me luck! :)

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

LOTRANS  : 88.0 Volts
HITRANS  : 139.0 Volts

This is scary, if accurate.

Hi Jim,

Ok, figured it out. This is what I found:

LOTRANS : Input line voltage below which UPS will switch to battery
HITRANS : Input line voltage above which UPS will switch to battery

In my searching for this answer I saw an apcaccess readout from a UPS that is better than mine, well, the model was something like "xs 1500 something", at 1500VA I would say it is better than mine. The LOTRANS and HITRANS was exactly the same as mine. So I would say that that is normal for this UPS.

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

Hi Keith,

So bearing the fact that apctest does not work from the command line, it is suggested that any self-tests or calibrations are done from the devices front panel menus.

I checked my UPS manual and I'm reluctant to do as it said to do the self-test. It says to use the 3 buttons and the display. 1 is the display button, 1 is the power button and the 3rd is the mute button. I don't see the logic there. The manual does not go into any detail on HOW to do the things it says I can do.

I replaced the old UPS battery with the new one again. I now have it running the old PC and the new UPS running the new PC, monitor and switch power brick. The load has dropped to about 52% and the load wattage is about 315W. Here's a new apcaccess readout after a re-calibration:

rick@Minty-Winders:~$ apcaccess
APC      : 001,036,0882
DATE     : 2019-11-18 07:17:26 -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: 2019-11-18 07:17:24 -0600  
MODEL    : Back-UPS NS 1100M2 
STATUS   : ONLINE 
LINEV    : 120.0 Volts
LOADPCT  : 53.0 Percent
BCHARGE  : 100.0 Percent
TIMELEFT : 11.3 Minutes
MBATTCHG : 5 Percent
MINTIMEL : 3 Minutes
MAXTIME  : 0 Seconds
SENSE    : Medium
LOTRANS  : 88.0 Volts
HITRANS  : 139.0 Volts
ALARMDEL : No alarm
BATTV    : 27.3 Volts
LASTXFER : Automatic or explicit self test
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  : 2019-11-18 07:17:32 -0600

The old UPS has been feeding the old PC for almost an hour now and still going. Last time I don't think it lasted 5 minutes with everything plugged into it, before it shut down. I believe my statement to be true in that the outlets were overloaded and the UPS shut down to protect stuff. Thing is, the old UPS was running everything since about February with no problems except the occasional brownout or outage we would get.

Hmmm... I just had a thought. I have 3 more backup outlets on the old UPS. I could plug my 3 Pis into it and get them off the power strip. I believe I will give that a try. I doubt they would add much more load than the UPS can handle. What do you think? ;)

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

LOTRANS  : 88.0 Volts
HITRANS  : 139.0 Volts

This is scary, if accurate.

Hi Jim,

Why do you say that? I haven't a clue about the internals of a UPS. I have no idea what LOTRANS and HITRANS are. I'm assuming it has something to do with transfer ( voltage source, I don't know either).

Have a great day! :)

Siran

Yes that is exactly the definition. The low-transfer and high-transfer input voltage switching points. Configurable in the menus and and the apcusd.conf files. Allowed to modify to lower/higher values on some devices.

---

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

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Hmmm... I just had a thought. I have 3 more backup outlets on the old UPS. I could plug my 3 Pis into it and get them off the power strip. I believe I will give that a try. I doubt they would add much more load than the UPS can handle. What do you think? ;)

Go ahead and plug the Pi's in. They won't add more than 30W max to the load. Sound like the self-test and re-calibration on the new unit via the front panel went well. Curious whether running the self-test and calibration on the old UPS with the new battery would complete successfully at the reduced load.

The APC UPS perform a automatic self-test every time they are powered on and every two weeks. Some units you can change the automatic test interval and some units you can't.

---

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

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

LOTRANS  : 88.0 Volts
HITRANS  : 139.0 Volts

This is scary, if accurate.

Hi Jim,

Why do you say that? I haven't a clue about the internals of a UPS. I have no idea what LOTRANS and HITRANS are. I'm assuming it has something to do with transfer ( voltage source, I don't know either).

Have a great day! :)

Siran

If input line voltage indeed dropped to 88v the PC power supply wouldn't do well. This would probably negatively impact the PC. Probable data loss on a drive, possible hardware damage including smoking the power supply. Higher voltage might not be as big a deal, especially if the power supply can run up to 250v without the use of an input voltage selector switch, which many modern supplies can.
My switchovers are set for 105v low, 130v high.

---

LOTRANS  : 88.0 Volts
HITRANS  : 139.0 Volts

This is scary, if accurate.

Hi Jim,

Why do you say that? I haven't a clue about the internals of a UPS. I have no idea what LOTRANS and HITRANS are. I'm assuming it has something to do with transfer ( voltage source, I don't know either).

Have a great day! :)

Siran

If input line voltage indeed dropped to 88v the PC power supply wouldn't do well. This would probably negatively impact the PC. Probable data loss on a drive, possible hardware damage including smoking the power supply. Higher voltage might not be as big a deal, especially if the power supply can run up to 250v without the use of an input voltage selector switch, which many modern supplies can.
My switchovers are set for 105v low, 130v high.

Hi Jim,

Well, I'm outta luck! :( This is what I can get, only HITRANS was changed and that was as low as it would go:

LOTRANS  : 88.0 Volts
HITRANS  : 136.0 Volts

I guess my UPS isn't smart enough to allow changes. lol :D At least I was able to figure out how to make changes, just not those changes. ;)

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

Hi Keith,

Go ahead and plug the Pi's in. They won't add more than 30W max to the load.

Because of the layout of the outlets I have 2 on the old UPS and 1 on the new one. As resilient as those Pis are, this should allow them to live a little longer. ;)

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

Hi Jim,

Well, I'm outta luck! :( This is what I can get, only HITRANS was changed and that was as low as it would go:

LOTRANS  : 88.0 Volts
HITRANS  : 136.0 Volts

I guess my UPS isn't smart enough to allow changes. lol :D At least I was able to figure out how to make changes, just not those changes. ;)

Have a great day! :)

Siran

Hi there,
Really strange that the LOTRANS is set that low and not changeable. As others have noted, APC is not what they used to be.
Fortunately, you're probably not at much risk from either parameter, as brown-outs are pretty rare, over-volts almost unheard of. Normally, it's there or it isn't, and in that regard you should be well-protected.
Reminds me I should check and see what the OPTIs look like in that regard. Sadly, they don't have network access so I have to grab a laptop and plug up the USB each time I want to look at either, and on any given day it's a coin toss as to whether my laptop will boot or not. Puters .... sigh

---

Not necessarily. May be better than it was back in the 90's. I was present for my apartment complex main distribution panel blowing up one early evening. My apartment was right above the panel. The arc flash and explosion from a 1000A panel going to ground is impressive. Lit up the sky brighter than noon day sun. During restoration of power, the power company let the voltage slowly creep back up starting from 27VAC. I went around the apartment complex knocking on doors advising people to unplug their refrigerators and appliances. Only incandescent lighting advisable. Took 6 hours before the voltage was back to 115VAC.

A low transfer point on a UPS would have been the correct thing to do in that case.

---

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

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

I can imagine the arc flash. One day at at old job had to reset a rather large breaker. Three phase 480V, 1600A. That had some spring to it.

Also been about 100 feet from a rather large discharge, maybe 30,000 amp class. Very impressive. Molten metal.

Ha ha ha LOL......You know what I am talking about obviously. The biggest electrical scram I have been present for was a 2600V/1000A dump of the mains feeding an arc furnace in a Johns-Manville fiberglass production plant. Once you hear the growl of an AC circuit shorting out, you never forget it.

---

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

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

BOOOOM.....

---

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

BOOOOM.....

more like crack of a whip and then a growl like a Jacobs ladder
After all the initial breakdown of the insulation is supersonic, so it cracks. Once broken down the plasma will then conduct the AC at every peak until it cools enough to cease being a plasma.

Just a FYI that Vitalii (our Linux developer) has created a new detect structure for the "on-battery" detection scheme in the hostinfo_unix.cpp module using the upower function as I suggested. The new code is in pull #3425

This should allow us to set "suspend when computer is on battery" in the Manager and have our UPS backed hosts drop our compute loads to preserve the battery run_time for extended outages.

---

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

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Just a FYI that Vitalii (our Linux developer) has created a new detect structure for the "on-battery" detection scheme in the hostinfo_unix.cpp module using the upower function as I suggested. The new code is in pull #3425

This should allow us to set "suspend when computer is on battery" in the Manager and have our UPS backed hosts drop our compute loads to preserve the battery run_time for extended outages.

Excellent!

Good kudos that man!!

Happy cool crunchin',
Martin

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