Output Voltage on Smart-UPS 2200 RM

[Anonymous user]

Hello everyone,

We have Smart-UPS 2200 RM and a monitoring system which is checking the UPS. One the things checked by the monitoring is so called APC Symmetra Status. This is a small example of the information:

OK - Battery status: normal, output status: online, capacity 100% (crit at 90%), bat. temp. 12C, bat. curr. 0A, input voltage 224V, output voltage 224V, output current 0A, run time remaining: 01:52:00, current output load 9%

But for the last couple of weeks we have almost everyday the following warning:

CRIT - Battery status: normal, output status: online, capacity 100% (crit at 90%), bat. temp. 12C, bat. curr. 0A, input voltage 220V, output voltage 220VCRIT, output current 0A, run time remaining: 01:52:00, current output load 9%rt-UP

For the last around 6 months the devices and servers connected to the UPS were not changed. Nothing new is added and the load is not changed. I checked the logs in the UPS Web interface (Data - Logs) and this is an example of the logs.

		Smart-UPS 2200 RM
Date	Time	Vmin	Vmax	Vout	Iout	%Wout	Freq	%Cap	Vbat	TupsC	%VAout

03/03/2015

21:43:41

223.2

226.0

223.2

0.88

9.1

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.1

03/03/2015

21:33:41

223.2

224.6

224.6

0.88

9.7

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.7

03/03/2015

21:23:41

223.2

224.6

224.6

0.88

9.7

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.7

03/03/2015

21:13:41

223.2

224.6

223.2

0.88

9.7

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.7

03/03/2015

21:03:41

223.2

226.0

223.2

0.82

9.7

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.7

03/03/2015

20:53:41

224.6

226.0

226.0

0.88

9.7

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.7

03/03/2015

20:43:41

224.6

226.0

226.0

0.82

9.7

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.7

03/03/2015

20:33:41

224.6

224.6

224.6

0.82

9.7

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.7

03/03/2015

20:23:42

224.6

226.0

224.6

0.88

9.7

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.7

03/03/2015

20:13:42

223.2

224.6

224.6

0.88

9.7

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.1

03/03/2015

20:03:42

223.2

224.6

224.6

0.88

9.1

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.7

03/03/2015

19:53:42

223.2

224.6

224.6

0.88

9.7

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.7

03/03/2015

19:43:42

223.2

223.2

223.2

0.88

9.7

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.1

03/03/2015

19:33:42

223.2

224.6

223.2

0.88

9.7

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.7

03/03/2015

19:23:42

223.2

224.6

223.2

0.88

9.7

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.7

03/03/2015

19:13:42

223.2

223.2

223.2

0.88

9.1

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.7

03/03/2015

19:03:42

223.2

223.2

223.2

0.88

9.7

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.7

03/03/2015

18:53:42

223.2

223.2

223.2

0.88

9.1

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.7

03/03/2015

18:43:42

223.2

223.2

223.2

0.82

9.7

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.1

03/03/2015

18:33:42

221.7

223.2

223.2

0.88

9.7

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.7

03/03/2015

18:23:42

223.2

223.2

223.2

0.88

9.7

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.7

03/03/2015

18:13:42

223.2

224.6

223.2

0.88

9.7

50.00

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.7

03/03/2015

18:03:42

223.2

224.6

223.2

0.88

9.7

50.25

100.0

55.35

12.6

9.7

The Self-Test passed always without any problem and I'm a little bit confused. Should I worried about these warnings, could we ignored? Of course we could modify the settings in the monitoring but I want to be sure that there is nothing to worry about. Maybe there is a tool or diagnostics to perform in order to find if there is any problem. Thank you in advance.

RM 

[BillP]

So your UPS is a Smart-UPS but another type of UPS we have is a Symmetra. I am not sure what you mean by having a Smart-UPS and then saying one of the things reported is an APC Symmetra status.

Can you clarify where that information comes from that you posted? Is it from the APC Network Management Card in your device or is it coming from a tool you have on your network, such as an SNMP monitoring tool where somebody has set a threshold?

The data log you provided looks to be from an APC Network Management Card. Ideally, I'd love to see the full event.txt and data.txt that you can download from it. Just from the copy/paste I can tell it is an older firmware but the logs should still be there, available via FTP. Can you see if you could retrieve and attach them here?

(Instructions for downloading logs are here -> 
http://www.apc.com/support/index?page=content&country=ITB〈=en&locale=en_US&id=FA156131)

Everything looks normal to me so I feel like the message your getting is from a tool someone set up and not the APC management device. It sounds like this is a 230V model used internationally, is that correct? Thus it can be set for 220 or 230V. The input/output voltage looks normal to me. If you want to double check the UPS model number, that'd be helpful, preferably from the white sticker physically on the unit if you have access to it. "Smart-UPS 2200 RM" is very general and doesn't tell me specifics unfortunately.

[Anonymous user]

Hi Angela,

sorry, maybe I didn't explained well. Our UPS is Smart UPS 2200 RM (Model Number: SUA2200RMI2U) I could provide also the Serial Number if needed. The information from the Network Management Card follows:

About Network Interface

 Hardware factory information  
 Model Number:  AP9617
 Serial Number:  ZA0513005140
 Hardware Revision:  A10
 Manufacture Date:  03/22/2005
 MAC Address:  00 C0 B7 75 ED 15

The Monitoring system is using a plug-in to check some components and one of the plug-ins is APC Symmetra Status. Here is some information about it:

"This check monitors ten aspects of an APC Symmetra UPS: (1) the battery status, (2) the battery replacement status including the number of batteries to be replaced, (3) the output status, (4) the battery capacity, (5) the battery temperature, (6) the battery current, (7) the output voltage, (8) the output current, (9) the remaing run time, and (10) the current load in percent. The output current and remaining run time are not checked against a level, but just displayed.

(2) is only displayed if a problem is found, the level is WARN if one battery needs to be replaced and CRIT if more than one battery needs to be replaced. (1) is not displayed if the state is normal but a problem in (2) was found. The check output includes the calibration status of the UPS. During a calibration the check result in section (2) is OK even though the UPS is running on battery. The check reads the date of the last calibration and optionally applies an alternative level for the battery capacity on the day of the calibration. This is because the battery capacity is reduced after calibration and may cause an unwanted critical condition with the standard level. In addition a time span after the day of the calibration can be configured during which the post-calibration phase still persists."

We use the same plug-in on all our UPSs (Smart UPSs) and it works without any problem. I think we could modify the threshold but before we do it, I just want to be sure that everything is ok with the UPS because this behaviour occurred the last 2-3 weeks. I think that the Critical information about the output voltage is when there is a big difference between the Input and Output but as i said nothing like device was added to the UPS for months. I've also uploaded the data and event logs. Please let me know if you further information.  Thanks

[BillP]

What is this plug in? What tool is it a part of?

I don't see any problem here besides that the input voltage (provided by your power utility) has gone from ~220 to ~223-224 the past few days. This tiny jump is nothing to be worried about. If the voltage gets too high, then the UPS starts boosting/trimming using its internal automatic voltage regulation and presents a notification to you in the event log. If it gets way too high outside of the transformer's capability, then it goes to battery.

I would look into how this plug in operates and also understand that the APC Network Management Card event/data logs I asked for and that you retrieved are good to review as well in addition to this seemingly third party plug in. I know this is coming from me but I trust our own APC event/data logs more than this plug in since I don't know how it works or what it is looking at 

Adding load would not likely affect the input voltage. It could if it was an extreme jump in load and drawing a lot more current on the circuit but that is not something I see often with UPSs of this size. When there is a problem with the input voltage you need to be aware of, the APC Network Management Card information/logs will also tell you and everything in those looks normal to me. I would not be concerned with a 3-4V jump on input in this scenario.

I just wanted to mention too that your AP9617 firmware is older. If you wanted to update it to take advantage of the latest bug fixes/features of the older AP9617, you can download SFSUMX372 (download part number) from http://www.apc.com/tools/download/index.cfm and follow the instructions here on upgrading it -> http://www.apc.com/support/index?page=content&country=ITB〈=en&locale=en_US&id=FA156047 This will not change anything we've discussed and I am not saying you need to upgrade to fix anything but this firmware is several years old that you're using. The new firmware also has a newer interface that you may have seen on other APC products that is light blue. Don't feel pressured to upgrade but I just wanted to note it with you.

[Anonymous user]

Hi Angela,

thank you for your answer and support. Sorry, I forgot to provide you a link about the monitoring plug-in. Here you could find more information: http://mathias-kettner.com/checkmk_check_apc_symmetra.html You said that there is no problem with the input voltage but is there any problem with the output voltage? Because the warnings that we received are about the output? And is it a problem when there is a difference between input and output voltage and what are the acceptable values (if there are such). I noticed a couple days in the logs (they are not visible any more) that sometime input is around 220-221 but the output went to 226. Sorry I'm not an electrician if my questions sounded a little bit silly. Thanks in advance

[BillP]

Hi Kiro,

No, I don't see a problem with input or output voltage or the UPS's functionality in general.

So this plug in just monitors the AP9617 over SNMP. It looks like in that plug in, the warning threshold for voltage is 225V:

# - output voltage to 225V or lower

I think this value is just a default value based on the creator of the plug in. It seems like your nominal (expected) input voltage at your location is 220V. The UPS will know what to do if the input voltage really gets above a certain particular amount based on what we have programmed it to do.

I guess what I am trying to say here is that the plug in is made by someone else and the APC UPS and APC Network Management Card is what we offer and what sends a alerts/notifications/log entries that we think you should know about based on our device's functionality and design. It also functions based on the specifications we set. I know you're just checking into this based on the alarm but consider that you're sort of taking a third party's suggestion and opinion over the APC UPS/Network Management Card itself.

I don't know if it is worthwhile to investigate why this person things output voltage of 225+ is too high or it is more just of an information alarm that is listed as warning. This is all based on your input voltage too for this type of UPS. It will just output what is being input until you get to the point when it starts to see it as too high or low and will begin compensating for that using the transformer. Or, go to battery if the voltage difference is too extreme.

I hope this helps clarify! Let me know if you have further questions.

[Anonymous user]

Hi Angel,

I get your point. Usually when there is a problem I go directly in the web interface to check what is happening or we receive an e-mail. We could adjust the threshold but I was curious why it happened so oft for the last couple of weeks. Maybe the cold weather was the reason for this. But if you don't see any problem in the value of the output voltage then it is ok. Thank you for your time and help.

[BillP]

No problem! Now that type of issue, why voltage changed a few volts, presumably one circuit (assuming all of your UPSs are on different circuits), I am not sure on and would refer to an electrician on what could cause that. But as far as I can tell, the UPS is in good working order and you can breathe a sigh of relief! 

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

 Thank you