Back-UPS ES 700 cycles power when supply comes back

[Anonymous user]

I have bought an ES 700 and fully charged it. Setup is:

1. Master socket has my computer attached with PowerChute installed

2. Battery backup socket has a small mail server attached

3. Controlled outlets have printer attached.

All works well apart from this critical issue:

1. I turn the mains off at the wall

2. Battery turns on and controlled outlets lose power.

3. At this point Just my PC and mail server are on.

4. I wait for PowerChute to kick in and hibernate the PC. This happens successfully.

5. I then turn the mains back on. After perhaps 3 seconds, I heard a "click" from the UPS and the battery backup socket loses power

momentarily but long enough for my mail server to reboot!

This is not UPS! Is this a fault/bug or what?

I tried cycling the power with the PC already in hibernation and that seems to work ok, so I think it's something to do with either the controlled

outlets or th ePowerChute software.

andy

[BillP]

Andy,

Your UPS and software are working as designed. When PowerChute commands the OS down it sends a signal to the UPS to power down also. This happens because customer have asked to have the OS restart once AC is restored. Most computer BIOs will restart the OS when it see AC restored so AC must be cut to complete this cycle. Example: AC goes out, UPS goes on battery, PowerChute commands OS off and sends power down signal to UPS, UPS waits 2 minutes and cuts power to battery outlets, AC is restored, UPS powers back up, OS restarts.

If power is not cut to the battery outlets the OS would not restart without user intervention. To resolve your issue you could purchase a separate UPS for the mail server, script PowerChute to shutdown the mail server, uninstall PowerChute and use native power options to shutdown the OS and script that to power down the mail server.

Note: Schneider Electric does not official support scripting of PowerChute Personal Edition but there are instruction available on the forum Script against PowerChute Personal Edition?

[Anonymous user]

Well that sucks. Sounds like I will have to uninstall powerchute as it is effectively useless.

I claim this is a bug. The UPS should only cycle the power on the master socket not the others. The others are not are not controlled by power chute ergo they should not be recycled when the AC comes back on. The UPS on the secondary battery backups is effectively useless when using powerchute as it is not, in fact, uninterruptible (it gets interrupted every time the AC comes back on).

Any chance you will fix this bug? (a configuration option would be nice)

Thanks

andy

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Andy,

PowerChute Personal Edition is working as designed to meet the requirements of many, many users. If you would like a UPS that offers configurable and switchable outlet you should purchase a Smart-UPS SMT or Smart-UPS SMX. With those units you can configure some, all, or no outlet groups to power down / cycle in the event of an outage.

Another option you have with the Back-UPS is to uninstall PowerChute and install APCUPSD. APCUPSD will allow you to change the UPS power off settings. You should note that if the UPS continues to run until the battery is drained  1 - the mail server will crash and that is why I recommended scripting the shutdown of the server, 2 - continual draining of the battery can cause the battery to degrade and could cause the need for premature replacement.