UPS batteries?

Sat Oct 9 17:26:50 PDT 2004

Back last Sunday, I wrote about discovering that I needed to replace
the ("sealed" lead-acid) batteries in my main UPS; discovering a
significance range of prices for nominally equivalent 12V/5Ah
batteries (from about $8.00 each - $45.00 each -- plus shipping (at
4.3 lbs per battery), handling, & taxes), I asked for vendors to
either avoid or patronize.

I received a couple of responses; one correspondent mentioned that he
had bought some batteries at the Foothil swap meet ... and they were
no good at all.  He ended up paying APC for batteries, which worked
fine.

Another correspondent related that he got batteries from Rage Batteries
(which was one of the (lower-cost) vendors on my list; that prices were
reasonable, shipping prompt, and that there had been no problems since
February (which this transpired)).

I now I had seen 12V/5Ah Yuasa batteries at HSC, but I needed 15 of them
-- and was reasonably certain HSC didn't have that many.  Besides, I
really wanted to start fresh with new batteries.

I decided to go ahead and order from Rage, which I did Monday afternoon.

The following morning, I wondered if I had done the right thing:  their
acknowledgement email had been bounced at my MTA for lack of a
Message-Id.

The batteries arrived Thursday morning; I re-assembled both the UPS and
the expansion cabinet.  After checking voltages and re-inspecting
wiring, I plugged the UPS in ... using an outside electrical supply.

It seemed to work OK, though I have yet to actually put a significant
load on it.

I did take the opportunity to tinker with the serial communications
(the mode of which can only be changed when the UPS is not supplying
power for anything.  I had tried this a couple of years earlier, but was
unable to get any response from the UPS back then; experiments in
September 2003 convinced me that the problem was the serial port of my
laptop:  at that time, I sent the laptop in for repair (about 6 days
before the warranty expired); after the 2nd round-trip, the serial port
worked).  But I had not messaed with the serial communications for the
UPS then -- I don't like to bring my machines down unnecessarily.

Anyway, I reviewed the user's manual (I have a PDF copy of it on my
laptop) and tried setting the UPS to use 2400 bps .. which worked.  :-)

Here's a cut/paste from a display:

     UPS STATUS     03:48:36

POWER:              LOAD OFF
FREQUENCY:          60.0 Hz
BATTERY:            CHARGED          
BATTERY VOLTAGE:    069.3 V
PERCENT LOAD:       000 % 
UTILITY VOLTAGE:    121 V
LOAD VOLTAGE:       122 V
STATUS:             NORMAL OPERATION          

and here's one that shows the configuration:

          Exide Electronics Prestige     
          Catalog #: D1512012252C    
          Serial #:  BR023B0053      
          Version #: 03.09
          COMM mode: VT-100  
          Baud x100: 024
          LAN mode:  Novell    
          Site Fault Detection: Enabled 
          Copyright (c) 1993-1996 Exide Electronics.  All Rights Reserved. 

          New COMM:  Computer  
          New Baud:  024
          New LAN:   Novell    

[I note that this model UPS has been discontinued for some time.  They
still work, though.]

Now, the above was from "VT-100" mode; if I switch it to "Computer"
mode, I see a string

	EyzTx9T~14444C

which a hex dump tells me is

	45 79 7a 54 78 39 54 7e 31 34 34 34 34 43

but the user's manual doesn't seem to provide a decoder ring.  :-(

Then, while goofing around after setting the UPS back to VT-100 mode, I
happened to hit ^L, and much to my surprise (since this doesn't appear
to be documented either), I saw (and see) a display like:

 LODRLY=0 ON.SW =0 BAT.OV=0 UFAILD=0 STNDBY=0 UPSCON=1 BST.OT=0 CHGFAL=0 
 INVRLY=1 OFF.SW=0 BAT.UV=0 BYP.OV=0 STATUP=0 FQCONF=1 EE.HLD=0 TST.ST=0 
 BATRLY=0 OT.SF =0 CHK.OV=0 BYPAVL=1 INVRMP=0 KILUPS=0 EE.FUL=0 TSTFIN=0 
 CHRGER=0 SITE.F=0 TSTFLD=0 BYPREQ=0 INV.OV=0 PWRDWN=0 EE.EMP=1 HOT.ST=0 
 LAN.UF=1 HSK.OT=0 BATLOW=0 BYPORD=0 INV.UV=0 60 HZ =1 EE.SAV=0 OPNBAT=0 
 LAN.BL=0 DSR   =1 BATDRN=0 EQLIZE=0 INV.ON=1 REQ.ON=0 FANSPD=0 105%  =0 
 HORNON=0 PLUG&P=0 NO BAT=0 FREQOK=1 INSYNC=1 HV.UNT=0 P&PXMT=0 110%  =0 

 UTIL_V INV_V  BATT_V TEMP   LOAD_I CREST  VA/WATTS VA/WATTS %_LOAD OVL_SEC
 00122  00122  00694  00300  00001  023    01500    00012    001    000
 00445  00445  01759  00239  00001         01050    00011    001    000

 LOD_ST SYS_ST BYP_ST INV_ST LST_HIS HIS_PTR I_AMP/PWM3 I_CAR/PWM4 INV_SP
  20     255    254    040   46  254  0E42    125/225    141/146    120

 UTLPER INVPER FRQERR PHSERR LOCERR  BAT_CL SHT_CL ACT_CL CL_CNT OC_CNT MIN_INV
 12505  12506  -00015  00004 -00001   020    001    020    000    000    65535
 00600  00600     000  00279    000   00000  00000  00000  00000  00000

 CNTRL MASK 1-6    LOLINE BATLOW DCUV   EQUAL FLOAT  EQLTMR CHGPER  PEAK_AD
 7F FF FF F7 F7 FF 00057  00570  00510  00708  00690  00000  027    00019
                          00546
 SYSTEM   ON_BAT BTR    KILL_T MIN_TP MAX_TP CUR_TP FLT_TP STACK  PART REV 
 04:54:58 00000  04000  000    017    055    038    00038  029    001  03.09

But again, I have found no decoder ring for this.  Some of it seems
fairly self-evident.

And I started poking around, looking for software that someone else
wrote to talk to the UPS.  (All of the above cut/paste was via tip.)
And I found the "Network UPS Tools" (ports/sysutils/nut in FreeBSD).
This looks promising, though my particular type of UPS doesn't seem to
already have a "driver" -- yet.  So I figure I'll plan on writing one,
if necessary to get one.

Anyway, this definitely seems like progress....

Peace,
david
-- 
David H. Wolfskill				david at catwhisker.org
I resent spammers because spam is a DoS attack on my time.

See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for public key.