UPS Thread

elytronic

There are some threads discussing UPSs but I never found something that can solve all our problems in our projects. So here it goes:

I always specify a UPS in our AMX proposals. Now I am looking to take this a step further and try to control the UPS.

I have thought of some things that we should be doing using the UPS in these projects:

1) Ethernet for monitoring the UPS

2) Ethernet control for reabooting INDIVIDUAL outlets. So that you can reboot the processor - very important, a router, an AP or a sattelite receiver.

3) The UPS should have a protocol and communicate with the processor so that to do clever stuff. If the battery is towards the end, to start shutting down equipment. To do this it must be able to send a command to the processor telling this.When the power comes back, the processor knows about this and starts rebooting the devices on the UPS, one by one.

The choice is of course APC and Tripplite. But do they have protocols (IP or RS232) and are they able to do what I mentioned above?

Any other clever things that can be done with UPSs?

Spire_Jeff

I use a combination of products to accomplish this. For the UPS, I am using Tripplite. They do offer RS-232 control, but you have to sign a non-disclosure agreement to get the protocol. They also use a different protocol for different units. This is not ideal in my world, but I already wrote the modules and my company is able to get them easily. They do report voltage, battery, and status information, as well as temperature which can be used to warn about rack overheating. They do have a command to turn off the switched outlets, but I believe it is an all or nothing proposition.

For power switching, I used to use a relay based switched outlet, but this was less than ideal. I am now trying a new APC piece that allows control over individual outlets. I will be dealing with the protocol in a few days and I can let you know how it goes. I can also get you the model numbers of everything

Jeff

elytronic

Please Jeff this would help us a lot as we are currently trying to decide what we will be using in our projects.

For remote power rebooting there are various devices on the martet. Here are some links:
PS Audio Powerplay (and UPS)

http://www.digital-loggers.com/lpc.html

http://www.digital-loggers.com/EPCR2.html

http://www.dataprobe.com/index.html

But why should we use these when the UPS should be doing this job?

vining

The digital loggers have front panel switches that allow you to easily cylce power manually for each individual device without getting behind the rack. You can control it through AMX if you want to reboot a cable box or something else that locks ups and needs a reboot. If your master lock ups or is in a loop after a remote program upload you can connect to the digital logger's web server and reboot the master and transfer a new program before bad program has a chance to run the section with the infinite loop. You can also configure these devices to automatically ping devices and if they don't respond cylce their power and reboot them. UPS's don't give you these capabilities so to me they are like apples and oranges. Both are good but both are very different!

elytronic

Dan I agree with what you are saying and this device is very useful. BUT if the UPS has a protocol that you can restart individual outlets then it can do everything this piece does except the ping.

What about a UPS that you can monitor the battery and program the processor to shut down and reboot devices according to battery levels?

vining

elytronic wrote:

BUT if the UPS has a protocol that you can restart individual outlets then it can do everything this piece does except the ping.

There's the built in web server that has saved my a$$ from a 2 hour drive many a times but its possible you can find a UPS with one of those now a days too. Of course that would likely be on the much more expensive smart ups. I know the rack ups that I use the APC 1500 or the Panamax 1500 doesn't and they cost about a $1K.

ericmedley

We do Tripplite and PowerPlay. The Power Play is actually a lot better for zoned switching. When we first go into Tripplite they had a nice protocal and setup. They usually had 2-3 zones of switched power and one 'always-on' for just AMX stuff.

However, within the year of having them, they started shippig models that changed up the number of switched zones down to 1 and different protocol.

At that time they didn't give out the protocol at all and the AMX module was pretty lame in that it only allowed for monitoring but no control. I port sniffed the Tripplite software and got all the switching codes myself. However, I made the mistake one time while on tech support for Tripplite of telling them I had reverese engineered the protocol. They reacted quite badly.

Howver, the product is great and clean. So, we still happily use it and just use the PowerPlay for zoned switching. It's a pretty cool box and the engineers seem really interested in feedback on the product. I've had several phone conversations and email exhanges with them with good results.