APC 1000SC -need original UPS adapter/cable

[Anonymous user]

have an old APC 1000SC that I want to use as a demo UPS to illustrate the use of Powerchute.  It has a DB9 connector and some Ethernet jacks. I do not have the original cable nor the original adapter that came with it.  I have tried various non-APC combinations but no luck getting the unit recognized by Powerchute.  Anybody know a third-party combo that would do the trick as I can't seem to find APC original parts.  Of course if someone can point me to original parts that would be even better.  Or if there was some way I could use the Ethernet jacks.  Also it seems there may be DB9 to USB connectors. Again idea is to use this as a lab tool to demo setting up Powerchute and power monitoring/shutdown.

Thanks in advance for any assistance with this.

[BillP]

I have an APC Smart UPS SC1000.  The Ethernet connections are only for surge protection, not communications.  The DB9 to DB9 cable for smart communications part number is: 940-0024C and is available on Amazon.com (search on the part number). 

I'm also using a Sabrent FTDI USB cable (USB to DB9) that I bought from NewEgg.com.  This allows me to add a com port (com3 in my case).  I had no db9 connectors on my PC.

Hope this helps.

[Anonymous user]

Thanks for the quick reply.  

1) "The DB9 to DB9 cable for smart communications part number is: 940-0024C and is available on Amazon.com (search on the part number). "

Doesn't this assume you have a specific type of serial adapter?  I know that in the past that unless I used the original APC adapter nothing seemed to work. Would you know the specs of the serial adapter that is equivalent to APC's adapter card?

" This allows me to add a com port (com3 in my case). "  How do you do that?

"The Ethernet connections are only for surge protection, not communications."

Can you elaborate.

Thanks in advance for your continued attention to this.

[BillP]

1) "The DB9 to DB9 cable for smart communications part number is: 940-0024C and is available on Amazon.com (search on the part number). "

The cable listed above is the original part number and is made by Schneider/APC and is DB9(SC1000) to DB9(PC) for Smart Signal communication.  It is a different cable for non-smart communications.  I do not know that part number.

" This allows me to add a com port (com3 in my case). "  How do you do that?

My PC did not have a DB9 port so I needed to add one using a Sabrent FTDI USB cable (USB to DB9).  It is also available from Amazon, search for: sabreant CB-FTDI (it's the first listed in the result).

Once the driver is installed on your PC, you would need to define the com port settings in Device Manager.

once you choose an available com port (mine was com3), (the system may choose it for you,) the settings should be:

Bits per second:  2400

Data bits:  8

Parity:  None

Stop bits: 1

Flow control: None

and under advanced settings:

Receive (bytes): 4096

Transmit (bytes): 4096

Latency Timer (msec): 16

Minimum Read Timeout:  0

Minimum Write Timeout:  0

Under miscellaneous options ONLY Serial Enumerator should be checked.

This is what is working for me under Windows 10. (Also worked on Win 7, 8, and 8.1)

The physical connections that work for me are:

SC1000 (DB9)-->(DB9 in)940-0024C cable (DB9 out)-->(DB9 in) Sabrent FTDI cable (USB out)-->(USB in) PC 

"The Ethernet connections are only for surge protection, not communications."

Can you elaborate.

On my SC1000, I only have surge protection for Ethernet, not the optional UPS Network Management card. So in my case, the is no ability for communication using Ethernet.  If you have that card, unfortunately I would not be able to help with that.  I'm just a common user.

Hope this helps you.

[Anonymous user]

Thanks for the additional info. Any idea about the right serial adapter ?  APC used to have one along with the specil cable. Is it or a knock off still around?  I know that I used to have both original items to make it work - special cable would only work with special card - and vice versa.

[voidstar_apc]

Just about any USB-Serial adapter should work. Several years ago FTDI tweaked their driver to break FTDI-compatible usb-serial dongles causing a lot of grief:
https://blog.erratasec.com/2014/10/the-deal-with-ftdi-driver-scandal.html#.WtYNVJcpBPY

One reaction is to only buy genuine FTDI-based usb-serial dongles, and another is to go with a Prolific-based usb-dongle where they don't play those games.

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Well, for me, what works is the connection using what I described above with no additional adapters.  I am using it currently and took the part numbers directly from the functioning cables, for me nothing more was needed.  The cables allow for smart communication between the SC1000 and Win 10.  The functioning driver version for FTDI is: 2.12.28.0 dated: 08/16/2017.

Not to disagree with Voidstar, but I had a Prolific cable years ago that stopped functioning and have not had any issues with the FTDI chipset.  Maybe I just happened to get it when the driver issue was corrected??

Hope this helps.