Low Battery Duration and true runtime remaining

[Anonymous user]

Hello,

I want to get the maximum battery runtime on the SmartUPS 1400 and I am attempting to understand how the settings in the management card affect when the low battery signal is sent to the clients.

If I set the Low Battery Duration to 2 minutes and the Shutdown Delay to 20 seconds and the Maximum Required Delay is 2 minutes, when does the UPS actually send the low battery signal? With 2 minues left? 4 minues left? 4:20 left?

If I increase the Shutdown delay to 180 seconds, does this cause the low battery signal to be sent 160 seconds sooner? What if I increase the PowerChust command runtime to say 300 seconds so tha the Maximum Required Delay is then 6 minues. Does this cause the low battery signal to then come 4 minutes sooner? This is all very poorly documented.

Any help appreciated.

[Anonymous user]

Thanks for your repsonse, but it's not clear, no. If the "Low Battery Duration" is 5 minutes, does this really mean that there are five minutes left on the battery? If that's true, where's the power to operate during the "Shutdown Delay?" Is the Shutdown Delay included in the Low Battery Duration? Also what about the "Two extra minutes to allow for unforeseen circumstances" discussed in the help file. Is that added to the "Low Battery Duration" or is it included in it?

I don't see a setting for "minutes on backup power" in the Management Card.

Thanks again.

Message was edited by: aurelius

Message was edited by: aurelius

[TheNotoriousKMP_apc]

Hello,

The Total Time Required for Shutdown (which is the only number that should have attention paid to it) is the following:

Low Battery Signal Time + Shutdown Delay + (If configured, Maxmimum required delay). Maxmimum required delay takes the longest time from all configured PCNS clients to shutdown, and reports that time back to the card if you use "Force Negotiation" .

As for the "on battery after X minutes" that KVar was referring to, this is PER CLIENT in the PCNS Web Interface. When you select an event to shut down a server, it will go to a screen with a check box saying "Yes, I want to shutdown the server" then the next line will say "only after event has lasted this long (seconds)". This works well if you have servers that are more mission critical than others, and need them to shutodown last. That way you can have a server shutdown, then your Exchange server (if applicable), in case the first server needs to send an email, or finish a task that utilizes exchange.

I hope that was made clear, I apologize if it wasn't.

[Anonymous user]

Hello,

By "Low Battery Signal Time" I assume that you mean "Low Battery Duration."

I thought that the Maximum Required Delay was an alternative to the Low Battery Duration. I.e., the card uses whichever one is greater. Is this not the case?

I'm not configuring anything on the clients yet. I'm just trying to understand the settings on the UPS.

Thanks.

[TheNotoriousKMP_apc]

From the help file:

Shutdown Delay Defines how long the UPS waits before it shuts down in response to a turn-off command.

Therefore, if you have PCNS installed, or PCBE, if the UPS is told to turn off AFTER the shutdown is complete, it will wait that amount of time before shutting down after receiving that message.

[Anonymous user]

That's not what happens. Try setting your Low Battery Duration to 10 minutes and your Shutdown Delay for 20 seconds. The The servers will shutdown but the UPS will stay on for at least 10 minutes.

Actaully, it seems like 10 minues + 2 minutes + 20 seconds, but I'm not sure.

[Anonymous user]

aurelius wrote:
Hello,

By "Low Battery Signal Time" I assume that you mean "Low Battery Duration."

I thought that the Maximum Required Delay was an alternative to the Low Battery Duration. I.e., the card uses whichever one is greater. Is this not the case?

I'm not configuring anything on the clients yet. I'm just trying to understand the settings on the UPS.

Thanks.

"low battery signal time" simply means estimated runtime remaining before it would signal "low battery".
If you set it for 5, it would signal "low battery" when there's 5 minutes remaining.

[Anonymous user]

Are you saying then that the Shutdown Delay is included in the Low Battery Duration? From my testing, that doesn't seem to be the case.

People on this forum seem to be in the same situation as me, guessing at what these setting actually mean.

[Anonymous user]

The PCNS clients always shutdown when they receive a low battery signal, I believe. The two minues seems to be an additional time that's documented in the help file, but I'm not sure if the two minutes is always added or not.

[TheNotoriousKMP_apc]

Unless you specify for the UPS to initiate a shutdown, the PCNS or PCBE clients will not shutdown until their threshold has been violated. In the 10 + 2 + 20 equation, what's the 2 value for?

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

Hello,

I want to get the maximum battery runtime on the SmartUPS 1400 and I am attempting to understand how the settings in the management card affect when the low battery signal is sent to the clients.

If I set the Low Battery Duration to 2 minutes and the Shutdown Delay to 20 seconds and the Maximum Required Delay is 2 minutes, when does the UPS actually send the low battery signal? With 2 minues left? 4 minues left? 4:20 left?

If I increase the Shutdown delay to 180 seconds, does this cause the low battery signal to be sent 160 seconds sooner? What if I increase the PowerChust command runtime to say 300 seconds so tha the Maximum Required Delay is then 6 minues. Does this cause the low battery signal to then come 4 minutes sooner? This is all very poorly documented.

Any help appreciated.