9630's running 6.4 and SMT's (various) all at latest firmware - display and schedule questions

[Anonymous user]

Long time since I have been on the forum....so I hope I picked the correct section for my questions.

We have 15 SMT devices ranging in size from 750 to 3000 and in age from 4 years old to new. Each has a 9630 NMC 2 installed. I spent yesterday updating all the NMC's to 6.4 and then all the SMT's to their latest firmware (where needed/available). Wow, has the process improved! I do not run any network software and rely on email reporting from the NMC's for managing each device.

I am wanting to set all the SMT displays to turn off, rather than dim. Do I really need to go to each unit again and manually make the change on the front panel? Why isn't that an option (adjust panel display) on the NMC2? Did I miss that somewhere? Seems like this setting would be a natural for the NMC2.

Second question. Is it possible to synchronize my weekly test schedule among devices? In other words, I want all 15 devices to run their weekly battery load test every Tuesday. Can be anytime on Tuesday. I don't see an easy way to accomplish this without operating all devices on battery until they "die" and then powering everything back up on the same day..... My thinking is that I want to ID any battery issues as early in the week as possible and all at the same time (so I can task the repairs to folks I know can get it done).

Angela and folks, your advice is always appreciated!

Charlie

[BillP]

Hi,

On 1/28/2016 4:20 AM, Charlie said:

I am wanting to set all the SMT displays to turn off, rather than dim. Do I really need to go to each unit again and manually make the change on the front panel? Why isn't that an option (adjust panel display) on the NMC2? Did I miss that somewhere? Seems like this setting would be a natural for the NMC2.

This has been added as an enhancement request for a future release. 

On 1/28/2016 4:20 AM, Charlie said:

Second question. Is it possible to synchronize my weekly test schedule among devices? In other words, I want all 15 devices to run their weekly battery load test every Tuesday.

The NMC does not offer this as a setting however, you can do this via command line. I suggest changing the seft-test setting to only run at start up. Then write a script that will run remotely each Tuesday telling the NMC to run the self-test. For help with the command line see Command Line Interface Guide. Another option is write a command script that triggers the self-test using SNMP. 

[Anonymous user]

Bill,

I am familiar with the command line interface. Used it too many times back in the day with our first gen NMC's. Using it makes me nostalgic for my CP/M days 🙂

I really don't want to write a script that runs from our network. Seems like an unnecessary complication that I don't want to deal with and manage. If we can't do this from our cards, then I will pass and add it to my wish list for APC. I really do think it makes sense as a load test option ...... where there are multiple devices on a network.

Charlie

[mitsmith_apc]

Hi Charlie,

A back way that seems to work for your self test schedule issue is to manually run a self test at the time you want it to occur in the future. The NMC will run its automatic self test 7 or 14 days (depending on your setting) from when the last self test was run. It is not a permanent solution though as if the unit ever turns off or you run other manual self tests it will throw off the automatic self test schedule. 

Hopefully this helps!

-Mike

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

Correct. There are numerous reasons why the current NMC2 setting don't work for us .... in a relatively short period of time, the day/time when the test runs, changes ..... for any number of reasons.