Can anyone make sense of these power settings?

[Anonymous user]

The APC help file for powerchute just leaves me more confused. I have an APC 2200XL with the network management card. Once the UPS is on battery power at hits 10% left, I want it to signal all servers to shutdown and then once the servers are all shutdown, to cut power.

So let me see if I understand this.

1) UPS hits 10% battery left and sends signal to servers to begin shutdown
2) UPS waits the "Maximum Required Delay" (2 minutes) to ensure all servers have enough time to shut down
3) After 2 minutes is up, UPS sends a shutdown command to itself.
4) UPS waits the required "shutdown delay" before actually turning itself off


If that is the case then what is the 'Low battery duration' for? The help file says, "Defines how long the UPS can continue to run on battery power after a low-battery condition occurs.". Is this just a safety setting in case, during steps 1-4, something gets hung up? So if I set the low battery duration for 10 minutes, then once it hits 10% left, after 10 minutes, it will just cut power to itself no matter if the servers are shutdown or not?

[Anonymous user]

The APC help file for powerchute just leaves me more confused. I have an APC 2200XL with the network management card. Once the UPS is on battery power at hits 10% left, I want it to signal all servers to shutdown and then once the servers are all shutdown, to cut power.

So let me see if I understand this.

1) UPS hits 10% battery left and sends signal to servers to begin shutdown
2) UPS waits the "Maximum Required Delay" (2 minutes) to ensure all servers have enough time to shut down
3) After 2 minutes is up, UPS sends a shutdown command to itself.
4) UPS waits the required "shutdown delay" before actually turning itself off


If that is the case then what is the 'Low battery duration' for? The help file says, "Defines how long the UPS can continue to run on battery power after a low-battery condition occurs.". Is this just a safety setting in case, during steps 1-4, something gets hung up? So if I set the low battery duration for 10 minutes, then once it hits 10% left, after 10 minutes, it will just cut power to itself no matter if the servers are shutdown or not?

[Anonymous user]

Then why do I have these options when connecting to the Powerchute server?

[Anonymous user]

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

Where do you configure, on the UPS, what constitutes a low battery condition?

And does the UPS know when all clients have been shutdown?

Message was edited by: nappyjim

[TheNotoriousKMP_apc]

With the Network Management Card you only have two options for shutdown, using PCNS.

1. Shutdown PCNS client after X minutes on battery

or

2. Shutdown PCNS client when X minutes of battery remain.

You can't signal a shutdown based on a battery capacity %. You can only configure a UPS reboot based on a battery capacity %.

If your low battery signal time is set to 10 minutes, then, when the UPS sees there is 10 minutes of runtime left, it will send out a shutdown command, and begin its shutdown procedure.

[Anonymous user]

Now I am confused more. I went into the powerchute client help file and it listed out the steps involved for a client to shutdown and the UPS to shutdown. And the way they were explaining it, it seems like the lower battery duration is triggered by a client. If you look at the diagram in the attached file, the low battery duration countdown seems to be triggered by the client when a Command File is started.

[Anonymous user]

Screenshot is attached.

[TheNotoriousKMP_apc]

Here's a screenshot from the help file.

[TheNotoriousKMP_apc]

If you look at your screenshot, the first field there is "Low Battery Duration". That is the lowest point of runtime remaining at which the UPS will signal a PCNS shutdown to any configured devices.

As for the UPS knowing when everything that has PCNS configured is off, if you select "Shutdown UPS when finished" for an event, it will send a notification back to the UPS that it is powered down, allowing the UPS to start its shutdown procedure based on your settings. Please note that if your first device is configured to shutdown in response to an event, and has the check box checked for UPS shutdown, and you do not want the remaining devices to power off based on that event, you will have to uncheck that box on the one PCNS client or, after it is shutdown, the UPS will power off along with the remaining load.

[TheNotoriousKMP_apc]

Here's the way it breaks down. There are only 2 ways to shutdown the system.

Let's say for example 1 you want the PCNS client to turn off after the UPS has been on battery for 600 seconds (10 minutes). You would log into the PCNS client and go to configure events, select the box for UPS: On Battery and action would be Shutdown. You would then put a time of 600 seconds in the box, and leave the box checked. Let's assume at this point, your low-battery signal time is still 2 minutes and you have over 30 minutes of runtime remaining

After the UPS goes on battery it sends a signal to the PCNS client that it's on battery. The PCNS client starts a timer of every 25 seconds when it receives the notification. Once it receives the violation still at the 600 second mark, it begins a shutdown, and signals back to the UPS to begin its (UPS') shutdown procedure. Then the PCNS client turns off, then the UPS turns off.


Scenario 2:
PCNS is installed, but nothing is configured for a shutdown, so you're allowing it to shutdown gracefully at the low-battery point. The UPS's low battery signal time is set to 7 minutes and you have 30 minutes of runtime remaining.

When the UPS goes on battery, the same message will be sent, just ignored, as nothing's configured for that event. After the UPS has been on battery for 23 minutes (assuming a load fluctuation of 0), you will have 7 minutes left, which is what the UPS's low battery signal time is set to. At that point, the UPS sends out a signal basically stating that it is in a low battery state, and to begin a shutdown immediately. The PCNS client begins a shutdown, then eventually, the UPS runs out of battery power and turns off.

In either scenario, the return battery capacity % that you're seeing in your screenshot will tell the UPS that it is safe to restart itself after the battery has recharged to that %, this is after either scenario 1 or 2 has occurred.

[Anonymous user]

Ok, I understand now. One more question, if I use scenario 2, is it still possible to have the client run a batch file before shutdown? I know it scenario 1, I can configure the shutdown event to run commands before it shuts down.

[TheNotoriousKMP_apc · Accepted solution]

There's the "configure shutdown" section of the PCNS client, you should be able to run one from there.