Some notes on apcupsd, a SUA3000XLI and a SUA48XLBP battery pack
Posted by jpluimers on 2016/08/22
I’ve had a SUA3000XLI for years using the USB cable and default Windows support as PowerChute Personal Edition would fail to recognise it and abort installation (so I could not use APC drivers as described on youtube).
A while ago, Liander – the energy distribution company – wanted to replace both the gas and electricity meters to become “smart” during day time. The server configuration load was heavy enough for Windows to indicate the UPS would last about 30 minutes. At night that’s not much of a problem but during 1 hour replacement day-time it would be a problem.
So I bought a SUA48XLBP battery pack (and a SUA039 cable as the cable wasn’t long enough to keep an inch or so air space between UPS and battery pack) so the battery would last about 3 times as long.
Windows would still show it would last about 30 minutes. Strange. So I started looking around and it appeared the SUA3000XLI needed calibration which requires PowerChute. Since PowerChute won’t work, I was almost back at square 1. Almost, as I know knew it required calibration.
In the past I had come across apcupcd but that was a long time ago when it supported a limited set of operating systems and a limited set of features so I never installed it.
But when searching how to calibrate the without using PowerChute, it quickly appeared that the apctest part of apcupsd can do just that: soft calibrate the UPS/battery combo. There are some steps and prerequisites (the most important ones are to turn off the apcupsd and provide enough load and 100% battery charge at start).
Spoiler: the combined UPS/battery-pack now lasts for almost 2 hours which is long enough.
Installing apcupsd
I’m describing this from a Windows perspective and it’s dead easy:
- download the latest release
- run the installer
- allow the driver to be installed
- indicate it’s OK to install an unsigned driver
- now Windows won’t recognise the UPS any more, but in a few steps the apcupsd and helper program will
- update the configuration file (no changes needed when it’s a USB connected one)
- wait for the service to start
- wait for the apctray helper program to start
- look in the “system tray” for apctray helper program icon
- optionally configure your system to auto-start apctray after logon
The USB connection to the UPS delivers slightly less options than using a serial cable
Using a serial cable instead of a USB one
Few PCs have COM ports any more, so most people will use USB to serial conversion cable instead. Virtually all of these have either of these chipsets (lists are not exhaustive but give an OK indication):
- Prolific PL-2303HXA and PL-2303X, PL2303SA, PL2303TA, PL2303TB, PL2303HXD, PL2303EA, PL2303RA and PL2305
- FTDI FT232BM, FT245BM, FT2232C, FT2232D, FT245R, FT232H, FT231X and FT230X
- Silabs CP2101, CP2102, CP2103, CP2104, CP2105, CP2108, CP2109, CP2110, CP2112, CP2114, CP2130 and CP2614
Some of these have versions not supported on newer (Windows 8 and higher) versions any more, or can be counterfeit chips some documented for instance:
- PL2303 Windows Driver Download (WayBack machine doesn’t always show the archived page): NOTE:Windows 8/8.1/10 are NOT supported in PL-2303HXA and PL-2303X EOL chip versions
- GUC232A Windows 8/8.1 Compatibility (Prolific 2303 based; they hate the WayBack machine, but they say “If the 8th/9th digit of the serial number (ex. Z3DA-099BP-4304) is between A1~A9, AA~AZ, B1~B9 or BA~BK it is not supported in Windows 8/8.1. Please use a “BL” or newer version of the GUC232A.”)
-
Counterfeit…
There are Counterfeit Prolific 2303 adapters that will show a OPEN COM PORT FAILED when checking the chip version (see image on the right) and show a yellow mark in the device manager. Older versions of the Prolific drivers (3.3.2.105 or earlier) might work on those: I just threw the cable away. Others create their own adapters to ensure original chips.
A Sewell USB To Serial Adapter P1102 detects fine but is an older chip:
This Sewell adapter uses an older chip
- FTDI went even further in their drivers: they just kill fake chips or inject fake data, see
Then there are KeySpan adapters which are too different to even start using: Hacking the Keyspan USB Serial Adaptor
If you really want to go the USB-to-Serial cable way, use these 5 Steps for Selecting the Right USB to Serial adapter or experiences from Does anyone know of a USB > RS232 adapter that DOESN’T suck under Win7/64? – Ars Technica OpenForum
Since my stock of USB-to-serial cables all are Prolific 2301 based, so for now I just gave up and used an old Windows 2003/XP/7 era VM to do the configuration.
In the future, I might want to use an open source driver like libFTDI » FTDI USB driver with bitbang mode (which works on Windows, Linux, BSD and OS X)
The serial cables I had
Table below partially based on Cables/part numbers….. | Smart-UPS & Symmetra LX / RM
940-0017A– DB9 M to DB25 F Universal Serial Adapter940-0020B– UPS Communications Cable Simple Signalling940-0024C– UPS Communications Cable Smart Signalling940-1524D– UPS Communications Cable Smart Signalling (I think it’s the same as the 940-0024C but longer)940-0144A– APC PDU Serial Cable 940-0144/A DB9 to RJ12. They belong to my AP7920 and AP7921 Switched Rack PDUs (with inputs IEC-320 C14 and C20 and outputs IEC-320 C13), but can also be used with for instance these Metered Smart Power Distribution Unit SKUs: SPD5K, SPD5KCB, SPD5KCBL, SPD10K, SPD10KCB, SPD10KCBL, SPD20K, SPD20KCB, SPD20KCBL.
None of the cables that fitted would work. Probably because I used the USB cable first (I disconnected it before testing the serial cables). To be continued…
Uninstalling the native Windows UPS support
This is the same as Microsoft Windows XP – Remove an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) device:
- Open Power Options in Control Panel.
- On the UPS tab, click Select.
- In the UPS Selection dialog box, under Select manufacturer, click None.
- Shut down the computer and remove the UPS device.
Using apcupsd
APC Smart UPS settings over a USB cable
The apctray helper program shows you all the settings (see the graph on the right).
With apcccess, you can get the same settings in text format:
APC : 001,043,1008 DATE : 2016-06-19 09:03:16 +0100 HOSTNAME : msmxp VERSION : 3.14.14 (31 May 2016) mingw UPSNAME : msmxp CABLE : USB Cable DRIVER : USB UPS Driver UPSMODE : Stand Alone STARTTIME: 2016-06-18 16:29:27 +0100 MODEL : Smart-UPS 3000 XL STATUS : ONLINE LINEV : 226.0 Volts LOADPCT : 25.3 Percent BCHARGE : 100.0 Percent TIMELEFT : 113.0 Minutes MBATTCHG : 5 Percent MINTIMEL : 3 Minutes MAXTIME : 0 Seconds OUTPUTV : 226.0 Volts SENSE : High DWAKE : -1 Seconds DSHUTD : 180 Seconds LOTRANS : 208.0 Volts HITRANS : 253.0 Volts RETPCT : 15.0 Percent ITEMP : 23.4 C ALARMDEL : 30 Seconds BATTV : 54.5 Volts LINEFREQ : 50.0 Hz LASTXFER : No transfers since turnon NUMXFERS : 0 TONBATT : 0 Seconds CUMONBATT: 0 Seconds XOFFBATT : N/A SELFTEST : NO STESTI : 14 days STATFLAG : 0x05000008 MANDATE : 2007-08-03 SERIALNO : JS0731016248 BATTDATE : 2007-08-03 NOMOUTV : 230 Volts NOMBATTV : 48.0 Volts FIRMWARE : 691.17.I USB FW:7.3 END APC : 2016-06-19 09:03:36 +0100
There are still a few things I need to find out
The manual initiation of both a test and calibration from apctest seem to have issues:
- “Perform self-test” results in “TEST DID NOT COMPLETE”
- “Perform battery calibration” does not complete
- There is no
EXTBATTSlisted in the above setting but I think the SUA48XLBP should be identified as such
A few links that should help me to get going:
- Users – Cant calibrate or test a APC smartups 1500
- APC Back-UPS XS 1500 (model: BX1500G) newbie questions… | Back-UPS & Surge Protectors
- Re: [Apcupsd-users] Cant calibrate or test a APC smartups 1500
- Re: [Apcupsd-users] EXTBATTS eeprom value problem
- SUA3000XLI + SUA48XLBP + Share-UPS | Smart-UPS & Symmetra LX / RM
- Users – Configuring external battery packs: The setting is available via a terminal program or apctest’s termnal mode, at least if you have a serially connected UPS.
- AN!Cluster Tutorial 2 – AN!Wiki: Configuring Apcupsd For Two UPSes
- [Apcupsd-users] How to run servers with redundant PSUs on 2 UPS’ with apcupsd?
- Manually Resetting an APC Smart-UPS Battery Constant After New Battery Replacement | CoNetrix
I also need to checkout how to do network configuration. In the past this was called master/slave configuration, but now it’s called NIS Server/Client. But that doesn’t support ESXi.
- NIS Server/Client Configuration Using the Net Driver
- No Joke IT: Shut down ESXi 5.1 guest VMs and the host (free edition) via SSH – the easy way!
- 2011-09-13 – Graceful shutdown of an ESXi 5.0 server with a USB-connected APC UPS | Biggsy’s Blog
- 2011-10-15 – Graceful shutdown of an ESXi 5.0 server with a USB-connected APC UPS – Part 2 | Biggsy’s Blog
- 2012-12-19 – Graceful shutdown of an ESXi 5.0 server with a USB-connected APC UPS – Revisited | Biggsy’s Blog
- Setting up an APC UPS in ESXi
- NUT based (Network UPS Tools – Welcome, which supports more UPS types and apcupsd):
- electrical power – VMware ESXi shutdown triggered by APC UPS connected via USB – Server Fault: NUT (Network UPS Tools) master running in the VM, and native ESXi NUT slave running on the ESXi host.
- [Bash] ESXi NUT shutdown scripts – Pastebin.com
These are all things the standard Windows APC UPS support cannot do so I’m already glad I installed apcupsd: at least the TIMELEFT value is now correct and I have pointers solving/setting up other things.
–jeroen
Notes to self:
- Repeat this for a model SUA1500I which has a regular USB-B socket so you can use a normal USB B-to-A cable, not the proprietary APC USB RJ45 cable.
- Note the serial cables still *are* proprietary which means a Smart-UPS will often switch off when you use a regular serial cable.
- apcusbd has documentation on the layout of these cables.
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