alarm setting best practices

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-03

Is there any kind of "best practice" documentation for settings for sensors and alarms for StruxureOn monitoring a Symmetra PX500? I'm thinking like thresholds for voltages, temps, and other things that should be monitored.

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-03

Hi jsears,

This is not necessary, since the above-mentioned UPS is native supported by all Schneider Electric software, for example, StruxureWare DCE and StruxureOn GW. I.e., this means that all necessary Device alerts are already provided and pre-configured by the manufacturer.

I have in operation a pair of such UPSs for the sixth year and the only alert (threshold), that I setup at my discretion - Battery Temperature. The manufacturer, i.e. Schneider Electric, it is preconfigured, that if the overall temperature of the big battery array reaches 60°C, a warning (not critical) about battery overheating is generated. And one day last year, due to the fact, that this threshold is greatly overstated and is not critical in the understanding of the DCE server, three battery modules have become useless (damaged). And all because of the short circuit in the batteries in one battery module. This led to a sharp heating of all three battery modules to the boiling point of the electrolyte (>100°C). At the same time, at least six more battery modules were heated up (>70°C). All this led to the fact that the battery enclosure was covered with water vapor from overheated batteries.

In order to avoid such critical incidents in the future, I setup the threshold on the DCE server for Battery Temperature to a maximum of 38°C for one hour. If this threshold is exceeded, then a critical alert is generated, not a warning. Why 38°C? But because at a temperature, that is registered by the server DCE (via NMC2 card in UPS), the actual temperature of the batteries will already be about 48...50°C. Since the temperature sensors of the battery modules do not touch the batteries themselves, they only measure the air temperature near them 😀.

With best regards.

See Answer In Context

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-03

Hi jsears,

This is not necessary, since the above-mentioned UPS is native supported by all Schneider Electric software, for example, StruxureWare DCE and StruxureOn GW. I.e., this means that all necessary Device alerts are already provided and pre-configured by the manufacturer.

I have in operation a pair of such UPSs for the sixth year and the only alert (threshold), that I setup at my discretion - Battery Temperature. The manufacturer, i.e. Schneider Electric, it is preconfigured, that if the overall temperature of the big battery array reaches 60°C, a warning (not critical) about battery overheating is generated. And one day last year, due to the fact, that this threshold is greatly overstated and is not critical in the understanding of the DCE server, three battery modules have become useless (damaged). And all because of the short circuit in the batteries in one battery module. This led to a sharp heating of all three battery modules to the boiling point of the electrolyte (>100°C). At the same time, at least six more battery modules were heated up (>70°C). All this led to the fact that the battery enclosure was covered with water vapor from overheated batteries.

In order to avoid such critical incidents in the future, I setup the threshold on the DCE server for Battery Temperature to a maximum of 38°C for one hour. If this threshold is exceeded, then a critical alert is generated, not a warning. Why 38°C? But because at a temperature, that is registered by the server DCE (via NMC2 card in UPS), the actual temperature of the batteries will already be about 48...50°C. Since the temperature sensors of the battery modules do not touch the batteries themselves, they only measure the air temperature near them 😀.

With best regards.

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-03

Thank you. I am a bit confused though. When I go into the "Alarms" area of my StruxureON GW, There is nothing listed. When you say "that all necessary Device alerts are already provided and pre-configured by the manufacturer", what does that mean – that if some pre-configured item goes out of proper range we will get notifications even if we don't manually configure alarms?

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-03

Hi jsears.

Yes of course: a large number of necessary alerts is "programmed" in the NMC2 card for this UPS. Templates of these Device alerts already are in the special DDF-file signed with the digital signature on the StruxureOn GW server on the path C:\ProgramData\StruxureOn Gateway\1.0.3\ddfs\ddf_bundle\default\se-ddf.jar. And of course templates of these alert not aren't displayed in the StruxureOn GW web-interface anywhere. But, for example, on the StruxureWare DCE server they after all can be seen in the form of the long list:

And the Alarms tab on the StruxureOn GW server is intended only for setup of the user alerts/thresholds if necessary, especially if it concerns 3d party devices (not Schneider Electric).

With best regards.

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-03

I'm sorry, I know I'm being dense here, but the documentation for this product is really lacking in any helpful information. Does what you just explained mean that I do not have to do anything in order for all the standard device alerts to be monitored and reported by Schneider RMS?

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-03

Hi jsears,

You all understood correctly.

As can be seen from my screenshot, Symmetra PX 500 has more than 200 programmed alerts. And all these alerts are already configured in the StruxureOn GW software. Therefore, you do not need to configure anything 😀.

You can test this in practice, for example:

open the front door of the IO Enclosure or the side door of the MBwD Enclosure (depending on the design of the UPS) - in SxOn GW, an information alert about open doors should occur;
make a selftest UPS (from its touchscreen on the front doors of IO Enclosure) - in SxOn GW one warning and one information alerts about the selftest should occur.

With best regards.

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-03

Add, please, to this post one more tag of "symmetra".

Thanks.

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-03

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