Bringing back a UPS after extended power outage

[Anonymous user]

Hi all,

I have a Symmetra RM6000 in a very remote location that occasionally experiences very extended power outages. After the most recent one, the UPS did not come back after the mains returned but had to be manually started. APC tells me this is likely because the battery drained completely -- indeed, it was the longest outage yet by a long shot.

Is there anything I can do to mitigate this issue? I suppose I could have the UPS shutdown earlier -- coming back up properly is more important than getting the longest runtime considering how difficult it is to get to this location. I just wanted to see if anyone had any other ideas?

Much thanks,

K. Plankton

[BillP]

would it be too much trouble to ask for the config.ini, data.txt, and event.txt from the network card? this would help tremendously.

instructions here-> http://nam-en.apc.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9321

if you see the value of 0% in the drop down, then it is supported. this means the UPS will turn back on when it sees input power again and will not wait to charge up to a certain percentage before it turns the output back on. this is helpful to configure if you have frequent outages and do not want the UPS and load to come back on and potentially turn all back off again without enough charge built up.

[Anonymous user]

When you say "had to be manually started", can you provide a little more information (maybe not, if the remote site didn't report it to you)? Was it acting like it was completely off (no lights / display on the front panel) or were there some lights on? When powered on from a cold start, the unit can decide that the load should not be turned on for some reason and display a corresponding message on the front panel. This can be "batteries discharged" or a number of other reasons, and gives a "Yes, turn on load" or "no" question on the front panel display.

Knowing this may help someone provide advice on how to prevent it in the future. If you have a network management card in there, it is easy to change some of the relevant settings, like the minimum battery capacity to return from shutdown. Most of those parameters are in the shutdown menu. Here are some of them:

Low Battery Duration - Defines how long the UPS can continue to run on battery power after a low-battery condition occurs.


Minimum Battery Capacity - The minimum battery capacity, as a percentage of full capacity, required in order for the UPS to end its sleep time (or turn back on when rebooted) and resume providing output power.


Return Delay - Defines how long the UPS waits before it turns on after a shutdown that was caused by a power failure, after a scheduled shutdown, or after a shutdown initiated by a Control command. If the battery is depleted below the percentage configured as "Minimum Battery Capacity", the UPS first waits until the battery is recharged to that minimum capacity.

[Anonymous user]

Thanks for taking the time to reply, Terry.

I'm told the unit had to be turned on from the front panel and that there were no lights or display.

Unfortunately the fellow who went to the site didn't note any messages on the front panel.

We do have a network card, here are the current settings

Low Batt. Duration: 2 mins
Min Batt Capacity: 00%
Return Delay: 0

Not sure if these are defaults or if someone configured it this way. I think there's a clue in that help documentation you provided about Minimum Battery Capacity, where it says '...and resume providing output power.' Seems to me like a value of 0 isn't compatible with this unless the UPS starts itself up in bypass mode (which i'm guessing it doesn't.) What do you think?

Thanks again,E

[BillP]

hello. i took a look at the config.ini and i have a question. you indicated that this is a Symmetra RM 6000 yet the config.ini appears to have been downloaded from a Smart UPS of some sort since the firmware application listed at the top of the file is Smart UPS & Matrix application and then in the file, I also see the SmartUPS/Matrix configuration value there with certain settings. one scenario could be that it is a Symmetra but you had the wrong NMC firmware on it but then I would not see valid settings under the SmartUPS/Matrix.

anyway, can you confirm the specific model or if this is the wrong config.ini? maybe its a Smart UPS RT 6000 in reality? the two units are a bit different so it'd help determine the problem of course. without the event log though, i can only make educated guesses.

[BillP · Accepted solution]

ok i took a look and everything looks in order there. i dont suppose anyone can look at the powerview's (front display) log? it holds 64 events of its own. the NMC holds 1500 and they have all been wiped you said due to the amount of time that has gone by? in all honesty i can only make a guess as to what happened. how the UPS got turned back on is a good inkling as to what occurred. so there were no LEDs on the display but was the display backlight active with no text or was there text? you made it sound like LCD was completely off versus backlight on. from what i do see in the configuration, when the UPS shuts down due to low battery or if its commanded off by a powerchute network shutdown client (which it does appear you aren't using this software), it will come back on. if something happened during the outage to interrupt the shutdown process too, this could have caused it to not come back up. essentially, we need that event log 🙂

oh another question i forgot - was the NMC off during this time - like you couldn't reach it? cause the UPS output could have been off but NMC on so the load can be commanded on remotely.