1BLAZER_USB(8) NUT Manual BLAZER_USB(8)
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6 blazer_usb - Driver for Megatec/Q1 protocol USB based UPS equipment
7
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
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 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
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 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
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.
75 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 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 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 runtimecal = 240,100,720,50
92 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 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 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 USB INTERFACE ONLY
111 vendorid = regex, productid = regex, vendor = regex, product = regex,
112 serial = regex
113 Select a specific UPS, in case there is more than one connected via
114 USB. Each option specifies an extended regular expression (see
115 regex(7)) that must match the UPS’s entire vendor/product/serial
116 string (minus any surrounding whitespace), or the whole 4-digit
117 hexadecimal code for vendorid and productid. Try -DD for finding
118 out the strings to match.
119 Examples:
121 • -x vendor="Foo.Corporation.*"
123 • -x vendorid=051d* (APC)
125 • -x product=".*(Smart|Back)-?UPS.*"
127 bus = regex
129 Select a UPS on a specific USB bus or group of buses. The argument
130 is a regular expression that must match the bus name where the UPS
131 is connected (e.g. bus="002", bus="00[2-3]").
132 device = regex
134 Select a UPS on a specific USB device or group of devices. The
135 argument is a regular expression that must match the device name
136 where the UPS is connected (e.g. device="001", device="00[1-2]").
137 Note that device numbers are not guaranteed by the OS to be stable
138 across re-boots or device re-plugging.
139 subdriver = string
141 Select a serial-over-USB subdriver to use. You have a choice
142 between phoenix, ippon, cypress, and krauler. When using this
143 option, it is mandatory to also specify the vendorid and productid.
144 langid_fix = value
146 Apply the language ID workaround to the krauler subdriver. This is
147 mandatory for some devices to work (LDLC, Dynamix and others). You
148 must to provide value (0x409 or 0x4095), according to your device
149 entry in NUT hardware compatibility list (HCL).
150
152 This driver supports some instant commands (see upscmd(8)):
153 beeper.toggle
155 Toggle the UPS beeper. (Not available on some hardware.)
156 load.on
158 Turn on the load immediately.
159 load.off
161 Turn off the load immediately (see KNOWN PROBLEMS).
162 shutdown.return
164 Turn off the load and return when power is back. Uses the timers
165 defined by ondelay and offdelay.
166 shutdown.stayoff
168 Turn off the load and remain off (see KNOWN PROBLEMS). Uses the
169 timer defined by offdelay.
170 shutdown.stop
172 Stop a shutdown in progress.
173 test.battery.start.deep
175 Perform a long battery test (Not available on some hardware.)
176 test.battery.start.quick
178 Perform a (10 second) battery test.
179 test.battery.start value
181 Perform a battery test for the duration of value minutes.
182 test.battery.stop
184 Stop a running battery test (not available on some hardware.)
185
187 Due to popular demand, this driver will report a guesstimated
188 battery.charge and optionally battery.runtime, provided you specified a
189 couple of the EXTRA ARGUMENTS listed above.
190 If you specify both battery.voltage.high and battery.voltage.low in
192 ups.conf(5), but don’t enter runtimecal, it will guesstimate the state
193 of charge by looking at the battery voltage alone. This is not reliable
194 under load, as this only gives reasonably accurate readings if you
195 disconnect the load, let the battery rest for a couple of minutes and
196 then measure the open cell voltage. This just isn’t practical if the
197 power went out and the UPS is providing power for your systems.
198 battery.voltage - battery.voltage.low
200 battery.charge = ------------------------------------------ x 100 %
201 battery.voltage.high - battery.voltage.low
202 There is a way to get better readings without disconnecting the load
204 but this requires one to keep track on how much (and how fast) current
205 is going in- and out of the battery. If you specified the runtimecal,
206 the driver will attempt to do this. Note however, that this heavily
207 relies on the values you enter and that the UPS must be able to report
208 the load as well. There are quite a couple of devices that report 0 %
209 (or any other fixed value) at all times, in which case this obviously
210 doesn’t work.
211 The driver also has no way of determining the degradation of the
213 battery capacity over time, so you’ll have to deal with this yourself
214 (by adjusting the values in runtimecal). Also note that the driver
215 guesses the initial state of charge based on the battery voltage, so
216 this may be less than 100 %, even when you are certain that they are
217 full. There is just no way to reliably measure this between 0 and 100 %
218 full charge.
219 This is better than nothing (but not by much). If any of the above
221 calculations is giving you incorrect readings, you are the one that put
222 in the values in ups.conf(5), so don’t complain with the author. If you
223 need something better, buy a UPS that reports battery.charge and
224 battery.runtime all by itself without the help of a NUT driver.
225
227 The blazer drivers having replaced the megatec ones, some configuration
228 changes may be required by users switching to blazer.
229 Part of this, the following megatec options, in ups.conf, have to be
231 changed:
232 battvolts
234 You need to use default.battery.voltage.high and
235 default.battery.voltage.low
236 dtr and rts
238 You need to use cablepower
239 ignoreoff
241 This parameter can simply be discarded, since it was a wrong
242 understanding of the specification.
243
245 Some UPS commands aren’t supported by all models. In most cases, the
246 driver will send a message to the system log when the user tries to
247 execute an unsupported command. Unfortunately, some models don’t even
248 provide a way for the driver to check for this, so the unsupported
249 commands will silently fail.
250 Both the load.off and shutdown.stayoff instant commands are meant to
252 turn the load off indefinitely. However, some UPS models don’t allow
253 this.
254 Some models report a bogus value for the beeper status (will always be
256 enabled or disabled). So, the beeper.toggle command may appear to have
257 no effect in the status reported by the driver when, in fact, it is
258 working fine.
259 The temperature and load value is known to be bogus in some models.
261
263 • Arjen de Korte <adkorte-guest at alioth.debian.org>
264 • Alexander Gordeev <lasaine at lvk.cs.msu.su>
266
268 blazer_ser(8), nutupsdrv(8), upsc(8), upscmd(8), upsrw(8)
269 Internet Resources:
271 • The NUT (Network UPS Tools) home page:
272 http://www.networkupstools.org/
273 • The NUT HCL: http://www.networkupstools.org/stable-hcl.html
275Network UPS Tools 2.8.0 04/26/2022 BLAZER_USB(8)