blazer_ser(8)

1BLAZER_SER(8)                     NUT Manual                     BLAZER_SER(8)
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3
4

NAME

6       blazer_ser - Driver for Megatec/Q1 protocol serial based UPS equipment
7

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

NOTE

13       Please note that this driver is deprecated and will not receive new
14       development. If it works for managing your devices — fine, but if you
15       are running it to try setting up a new device, please consider the
16       newer nutdrv_qx(8) instead, which should handle all Q* protocol
17       variants for NUT.
18
19       Please do also report if your device works with this driver, but
20       nutdrv_qx(8) would not actually support it with any subdriver!
21

SUPPORTED HARDWARE

23       The blazer driver is known to work with various UPSes from Blazer,
24       Energy Sistem, Fenton Technologies, General Electric, Mustek and many
25       others. The NUT compatibility table lists all the known supported
26       models. Keep in mind, however, that other models not listed there may
27       also be supported, but haven’t been tested.
28
29       All devices with a serial interface (use the blazer_ser driver) and
30       many with a USB interface (use the blazer_usb driver) are supported.
31

EXTRA ARGUMENTS

33       You may need to override or provide defaults for some values, depending
34       on the make and model of your UPS. The following are the ones that most
35       likely will need changing (see ups.conf(5)):
36
37       default.battery.voltage.high = value
38           Maximum battery voltage that is reached after about 12 to 24 hours
39           charging. If you want the driver to report a guesstimated
40           battery.charge, you need to specify this (see BATTERY CHARGE).
41
42       default.battery.voltage.low = value
43           Minimum battery voltage just before the UPS automatically shuts
44           down. If you want the driver to report a guesstimated
45           battery.charge, you need to specify this (see BATTERY CHARGE).
46
47       default.battery.voltage.nominal = value,
48       override.battery.voltage.nominal = value
49           Some devices show a wrong nominal battery voltage (or none at all),
50           so you may need to override or set a default value.
51
52       override.battery.packs = value
53           Some devices report a part of the total battery voltage. For
54           instance, if battery.voltage.nominal is 24 V, but it reports a
55           battery.voltage of around 2 V, the number of battery.packs to
56           correct this reading would be 12. The driver will attempt to detect
57           this automatically, but if this fails somehow, you may want to
58           override this value.
59
60       ondelay = value
61           Time to wait before switching on the UPS (minutes). Note that a
62           value below 3 minutes, may cause earlier firmware versions to not
63           switch on automatically, so it defaults to 3 minutes. The
64           acceptable range is 0..9999 minutes.
65
66       offdelay = value
67           Time to wait before shutting down the UPS (seconds). This value is
68           truncated to units of 6 seconds (less than 60 seconds) or 60
69           seconds (more than 60 seconds). Defaults to 30 seconds. The
70           acceptable range is 12..600 seconds.
71
72       norating
73           Some UPSes will lock up if you attempt to read rating information
74           from them. Setting this flag will make the driver skip this step.
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76       novendor
77           Some UPSes will lock up if you attempt to read vendor information
78           from them. Setting this flag will make the driver skip this step.
79
80       protocol = string
81           Skip autodetection of the protocol to use and only use the one
82           specified. Supported values megatec, megatec/old, mustek and zinto.
83
84       runtimecal = value,value,value,value
85           Parameter used in the (optional) runtime estimation. This takes two
86           runtimes at different loads. Typically, this uses the runtime at
87           full load and the runtime at half load. For instance, if your UPS
88           has a rated runtime of 240 seconds at full load and 720 seconds at
89           half load, you would enter
90
91               runtimecal = 240,100,720,50
92
93           The first load should always be higher than the second. If you have
94           values available for loads other than 100 and 50 % respectively,
95           you can use those too, but keep them spaced apart as far as
96           reasonably possible. Just don’t get too close to no load
97           (prediction of runtime depends more on idle load for the battery
98           then).
99
100       chargetime = value
101           The time needed to fully recharge the battery after being fully
102           discharged. If not specified, the driver defaults to 43200 seconds
103           (12 hours). Only used if runtimecal is also specified.
104
105       idleload = value
106           Minimum battery load used by the driver to estimate the runtime. If
107           not specified, the driver defaults to 10%. Only used if runtimecal
108           is also specified.
109
110   SERIAL INTERFACE ONLY
111       cablepower = string
112           By default the driver will set DTR and clear RTS (normal). If you
113           find that your UPS isn’t detected or the communication with the UPS
114           is unreliable, you may try if clear DTR and set RTS (reverse), set
115           DTR and RTS (both) or clear DTR and RTS (none) improves this
116           situation.
117

UPS COMMANDS

119       This driver supports some instant commands (see upscmd(8)):
120
121       beeper.toggle
122           Toggle the UPS beeper. (Not available on some hardware.)
123
124       load.on
125           Turn on the load immediately.
126
127       load.off
128           Turn off the load immediately (see KNOWN PROBLEMS).
129
130       shutdown.return
131           Turn off the load and return when power is back. Uses the timers
132           defined by ondelay and offdelay.
133
134       shutdown.stayoff
135           Turn off the load and remain off (see KNOWN PROBLEMS). Uses the
136           timer defined by offdelay.
137
138       shutdown.stop
139           Stop a shutdown in progress.
140
141       test.battery.start.deep
142           Perform a long battery test (Not available on some hardware.)
143
144       test.battery.start.quick
145           Perform a (10 second) battery test.
146
147       test.battery.start value
148           Perform a battery test for the duration of value minutes.
149
150       test.battery.stop
151           Stop a running battery test (not available on some hardware.)
152

BATTERY CHARGE

154       Due to popular demand, this driver will report a guesstimated
155       battery.charge and optionally battery.runtime, provided you specified a
156       couple of the EXTRA ARGUMENTS listed above.
157
158       If you specify both battery.voltage.high and battery.voltage.low in
159       ups.conf(5), but don’t enter runtimecal, it will guesstimate the state
160       of charge by looking at the battery voltage alone. This is not reliable
161       under load, as this only gives reasonably accurate readings if you
162       disconnect the load, let the battery rest for a couple of minutes and
163       then measure the open cell voltage. This just isn’t practical if the
164       power went out and the UPS is providing power for your systems.
165
166                                battery.voltage - battery.voltage.low
167           battery.charge =  ------------------------------------------ x 100 %
168                             battery.voltage.high - battery.voltage.low
169
170       There is a way to get better readings without disconnecting the load
171       but this requires one to keep track on how much (and how fast) current
172       is going in- and out of the battery. If you specified the runtimecal,
173       the driver will attempt to do this. Note however, that this heavily
174       relies on the values you enter and that the UPS must be able to report
175       the load as well. There are quite a couple of devices that report 0 %
176       (or any other fixed value) at all times, in which case this obviously
177       doesn’t work.
178
179       The driver also has no way of determining the degradation of the
180       battery capacity over time, so you’ll have to deal with this yourself
181       (by adjusting the values in runtimecal). Also note that the driver
182       guesses the initial state of charge based on the battery voltage, so
183       this may be less than 100 %, even when you are certain that they are
184       full. There is just no way to reliably measure this between 0 and 100 %
185       full charge.
186
187       This is better than nothing (but not by much). If any of the above
188       calculations is giving you incorrect readings, you are the one that put
189       in the values in ups.conf(5), so don’t complain with the author. If you
190       need something better, buy a UPS that reports battery.charge and
191       battery.runtime all by itself without the help of a NUT driver.
192

NOTES FOR THE PREVIOUS USER OF MEGATEC DRIVERS

194       The blazer drivers having replaced the megatec ones, some configuration
195       changes may be required by users switching to blazer.
196
197       Part of this, the following megatec options, in ups.conf, have to be
198       changed:
199
200       battvolts
201           You need to use default.battery.voltage.high and
202           default.battery.voltage.low
203
204       dtr and rts
205           You need to use cablepower
206
207       ignoreoff
208           This parameter can simply be discarded, since it was a wrong
209           understanding of the specification.
210

KNOWN PROBLEMS

212       Some UPS commands aren’t supported by all models. In most cases, the
213       driver will send a message to the system log when the user tries to
214       execute an unsupported command. Unfortunately, some models don’t even
215       provide a way for the driver to check for this, so the unsupported
216       commands will silently fail.
217
218       Both the load.off and shutdown.stayoff instant commands are meant to
219       turn the load off indefinitely. However, some UPS models don’t allow
220       this.
221
222       Some models report a bogus value for the beeper status (will always be
223       enabled or disabled). So, the beeper.toggle command may appear to have
224       no effect in the status reported by the driver when, in fact, it is
225       working fine.
226
227       The temperature and load value is known to be bogus in some models.
228

AUTHORS

230       •   Arjen de Korte <adkorte-guest at alioth.debian.org>
231
232       •   Alexander Gordeev <lasaine at lvk.cs.msu.su>
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