blazer_ser(8)

1BLAZER_SER(8)                     NUT Manual                     BLAZER_SER(8)
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NAME

6       blazer_ser - Driver for Megatec/Q1 protocol serial based UPS equipment
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NOTE

9       This man page only documents the hardware-specific features of the
10       blazer driver. For information about the core driver, see nutupsdrv(8).
11

SUPPORTED HARDWARE

13       The blazer driver is known to work with various UPSes from Blazer,
14       Energy Sistem, Fenton Technologies, General Electric, Mustek and many
15       others. The NUT compatibility table lists all the known supported
16       models. Keep in mind, however, that other models not listed there may
17       also be supported, but haven’t been tested.
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19       All devices with a serial interface (use the blazer_ser driver) and
20       many with a USB interface (use the blazer_usb driver) are supported.
21

EXTRA ARGUMENTS

23       You may need to override or provide defaults for some values, depending
24       on the make and model of your UPS. The following are the ones that most
25       likely will need changing (see ups.conf(5)):
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27       default.battery.voltage.high = value
28           Maximum battery voltage that is reached after about 12 to 24 hours
29           charging. If you want the driver to report a guesstimated
30           battery.charge, you need to specify this (see BATTERY CHARGE).
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32       default.battery.voltage.low = value
33           Minimum battery voltage just before the UPS automatically shuts
34           down. If you want the driver to report a guesstimated
35           battery.charge, you need to specify this (see BATTERY CHARGE).
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37       default.battery.voltage.nominal = value,
38       override.battery.voltage.nominal = value
39           Some devices show a wrong nominal battery voltage (or none at all),
40           so you may need to override or set a default value.
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42       override.battery.packs = value
43           Some devices report a part of the total battery voltage. For
44           instance, if battery.voltage.nominal is 24 V, but it reports a
45           battery.voltage of around 2 V, the number of battery.packs to
46           correct this reading would be 12. The driver will attempt to detect
47           this automatically, but if this fails somehow, you may want to
48           override this value.
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50       ondelay = value
51           Time to wait before switching on the UPS (minutes). Note that a
52           value below 3 minutes, may cause earlier firmware versions to not
53           switch on automatically, so it defaults to 3 minutes. The
54           acceptable range is 0..9999 minutes.
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56       offdelay = value
57           Time to wait before shutting down the UPS (seconds). This value is
58           truncated to units of 6 seconds (less than 60 seconds) or 60
59           seconds (more than 60 seconds). Defaults to 30 seconds. The
60           acceptable range is 12..600 seconds.
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62       norating
63           Some UPSes will lock up if you attempt to read rating information
64           from them. Setting this flag will make the driver skip this step.
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66       novendor
67           Some UPSes will lock up if you attempt to read vendor information
68           from them. Setting this flag will make the driver skip this step.
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70       protocol = string
71           Skip autodetection of the protocol to use and only use the one
72           specified. Supported values megatec, megatec/old, mustek and zinto.
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74       runtimecal = value,value,value,value
75           Parameter used in the (optional) runtime estimation. This takes two
76           runtimes at different loads. Typically, this uses the runtime at
77           full load and the runtime at half load. For instance, if your UPS
78           has a rated runtime of 240 seconds at full load and 720 seconds at
79           half load, you would enter
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81               runtimecal = 240,100,720,50
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83           The first load should always be higher than the second. If you have
84           values available for loads other than 100 and 50 % respectively,
85           you can use those too, but keep them spaced apart as far as
86           reasonably possible. Just don’t get too close to no load
87           (prediction of runtime depends more on idle load for the battery
88           then).
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90       chargetime = value
91           The time needed to fully recharge the battery after being fully
92           discharged. If not specified, the driver defaults to 43200 seconds
93           (12 hours). Only used if runtimecal is also specified.
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95       idleload = value
96           Minimum battery load used by the driver to estimate the runtime. If
97           not specified, the driver defaults to 10%. Only used if runtimecal
98           is also specified.
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100   SERIAL INTERFACE ONLY
101       cablepower = string
102           By default the driver will set DTR and clear RTS (normal). If you
103           find that your UPS isn’t detected or the communication with the UPS
104           is unreliable, you may try if clear DTR and set RTS (reverse), set
105           DTR and RTS (both) or clear DTR and RTS (none) improves this
106           situation.
107

UPS COMMANDS

109       This driver supports some instant commands (see upscmd(8)):
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111       beeper.toggle
112           Toggle the UPS beeper. (Not available on some hardware.)
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114       load.on
115           Turn on the load immediately.
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117       load.off
118           Turn off the load immediately (see KNOWN PROBLEMS).
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120       shutdown.return
121           Turn off the load and return when power is back. Uses the timers
122           defined by ondelay and offdelay.
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124       shutdown.stayoff
125           Turn off the load and remain off (see KNOWN PROBLEMS). Uses the
126           timer defined by offdelay.
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128       shutdown.stop
129           Stop a shutdown in progress.
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131       test.battery.start.deep
132           Perform a long battery test (Not available on some hardware.)
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134       test.battery.start.quick
135           Perform a (10 second) battery test.
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137       test.battery.start value
138           Perform a battery test for the duration of value minutes.
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140       test.battery.stop
141           Stop a running battery test (not available on some hardware.)
142

BATTERY CHARGE

144       Due to popular demand, this driver will report a guesstimated
145       battery.charge and optionally battery.runtime, provided you specified a
146       couple of the EXTRA ARGUMENTS listed above.
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148       If you specify both battery.voltage.high and battery.voltage.low in
149       ups.conf(5), but don’t enter runtimecal, it will guesstimate the state
150       of charge by looking at the battery voltage alone. This is not reliable
151       under load, as this only gives reasonably accurate readings if you
152       disconnect the load, let the battery rest for a couple of minutes and
153       then measure the open cell voltage. This just isn’t practical if the
154       power went out and the UPS is providing power for your systems.
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156                                battery.voltage - battery.voltage.low
157           battery.charge =  ------------------------------------------ x 100 %
158                             battery.voltage.high - battery.voltage.low
159
160       There is a way to get better readings without disconnecting the load
161       but this requires one to keep track on how much (and how fast) current
162       is going in- and out of the battery. If you specified the runtimecal,
163       the driver will attempt to do this. Note however, that this heavily
164       relies on the values you enter and that the UPS must be able to report
165       the load as well. There are quite a couple of devices that report 0 %
166       (or any other fixed value) at all times, in which case this obviously
167       doesn’t work.
168
169       The driver also has no way of determining the degradation of the
170       battery capacity over time, so you’ll have to deal with this yourself
171       (by adjusting the values in runtimecal). Also note that the driver
172       guesses the initial state of charge based on the battery voltage, so
173       this may be less than 100 %, even when you are certain that they are
174       full. There is just no way to reliably measure this between 0 and 100 %
175       full charge.
176
177       This is better than nothing (but not by much). If any of the above
178       calculations is giving you incorrect readings, you are the one that put
179       in the values in ups.conf(5), so don’t complain with the author. If you
180       need something better, buy a UPS that reports battery.charge and
181       battery.runtime all by itself without the help of a NUT driver.
182

NOTES FOR THE PREVIOUS USER OF MEGATEC DRIVERS

184       The blazer drivers having replaced the megatec ones, some configuration
185       changes may be required by users switching to blazer.
186
187       Part of this, the following megatec options, in ups.conf, have to be
188       changed:
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190       battvolts
191           You need to use default.battery.voltage.high and
192           default.battery.voltage.low
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194       dtr and rts
195           You need to use cablepower
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197       ignoreoff
198           This parameter can simply be discarded, since it was a wrong
199           understanding of the specification.
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KNOWN PROBLEMS

202       Some UPS commands aren’t supported by all models. In most cases, the
203       driver will send a message to the system log when the user tries to
204       execute an unsupported command. Unfortunately, some models don’t even
205       provide a way for the driver to check for this, so the unsupported
206       commands will silently fail.
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208       Both the load.off and shutdown.stayoff instant commands are meant to
209       turn the load off indefinitely. However, some UPS models don’t allow
210       this.
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212       Some models report a bogus value for the beeper status (will always be
213       enabled or disabled). So, the beeper.toggle command may appear to have
214       no effect in the status reported by the driver when, in fact, it is
215       working fine.
216
217       The temperature and load value is known to be bogus in some models.
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AUTHORS

220       Arjen de Korte <adkorte-guest at alioth.debian.org>, Alexander Gordeev
221       <lasaine at lvk.cs.msu.su>
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