Power management question

[Anonymous user]

Does anybody know if its possible to automatically control the state (on/off) of each power recepticle on a UPS? I want to be able to automatically turn off my printer and possibly other peripherals at a predefined time and doing it through a UPS is the only way I can think to do it.

Thanks

[BillP]

hmm..

http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BH500NET

BH500NET is a 500VA UPS and it has some switchable outlets on it. it has a web interface but it is not routable - meaning you'd need to access it from your local area network or remote into a computer over the internet on your local network to access it.

this UPS is meant to have a router or modem connected to it that can be remotely rebooted but i guess that won't be too helpful if you route the UPS through it - hehe.

[here is a picture of the outlets|http://www.apc.com/products/moreimages.cfm?partnum=BH500NET&aPos=2]

there are two that are grouped together for control then two individual outlets.

[BillP]

some UPSs [(SMT/SMX/SUM Smart UPS)|http://www.apc.com/products/family/index.cfm?id=165] allow for scheduling outlet groups to turn on, off, or sleep for a predefined amount of time. an APC switched Rack PDU offers individual outlet control as well and allows you to schedule outlets to turn on, off, reboot, etc for a certain amount of time as well. i believe you need an NMC or PCBE software to do this. i only have experience with doing it on a network management card.

http://testdrive.apc.com/ has some samples of PDUs that you can log into and look at. Again, [switched rack PDU|http://www.apc.com/products/family/index.cfm?id=70] offers outlet control. Metered only offers current monitoring.

[Anonymous user]

Thanks for the reply. This is just for my home office so a PDU is totally out of my price range. I currently have an APC RS-800 that needs a new battery and was think of upgrading to a new UPS if I could get this functionality for a reasonable price.

Any other thoughts?

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

I think we're getting close. I checked the links you provided, but I couldn't find any detail information on the switchable outlets. Based on your email, the UPS needs to be on my local LAN in order to control it. That's not an issue for me as the UPS would be on my LAN.

It sounds like I would be able to connect to the UPS via the network management software to control the state of the outlets. That's cool, but I'm wondering if I would be able to define a schedule to change the state of the outlets. For instance, I have my desktop scheduled to shutdown at midnight and I would like to do the same for the printer that is connected to the desktop.

Do you know if the network management software for this UPS allows for automatically turning off one of the outlets at a predefined time and then turning it back on at another time? I doubt it, unless the UPS itself stored the outlet schedule internally.

What about sending a command from another PC on the LAN to turn the outlet on or off? I mentioned that I have my desktop shutdown automatically at midnight. I also have my laptop configured at startup to send a packet to the desktop to turn it on. If the UPS supported such a command, I could add it to the batch file that starts up my desktop and to the one that shuts it down.

What do ya think?