[Nut-upsdev] UPS CYBERPOWER CP1300EPFCLCD MISSING FROMCOMPATIBILITY LIST

Sat Mar 10 23:41:39 UTC 2018

On Mar 10, 2018, at 4:57 PM, Ron J Taylor <ron.j.taylor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> 
> Hello Charles, 
> Nice to make your acquaintance. J
> Thanks for your detailed reply. I appreciate it greatly.  I want to learn.

You're welcome!
>  
> I have read and tried to get my head around the information you have provided but as a lot of it is new to me I have some questions.
> 
> 1.       As I am connecting the Cyberpower CP1300ePFCLCD to my Synology NAS DS216+II via USB cable.  
> 
> This makes the NAS a NUT Server and the NUT driver is part of the NAS operating system which I have no control over

Sounds correct to me.

Out of curiosity, does the NAS operating system let you connect to a remote NUT server?
> 
> In the UPS section of the Control Panel, the NAS is reporting the following:
> a.       Manufacturer = CPS
> b.      Model = CP1300EPFCLCD
> c.       Status  = Connected
> d.      Battery 100%
> e.      Estimated Battery = 3390 seconds 
> 
> The UPS is only Lightly loaded (about 7%) as I want a long run time due to frequent power outages.  This USP runs my NAS, Modem/Router, Ether switches etc.  It gives me plenty of time to start my Inverter Generator.
> 
> 2.       In the Information Tab of the Control panel The NAS reports the USB device as CP1500AVR UPS. 
> I have raise this difference of names with Synology but they have told me this is normal.  I don’t know but my instinct tells me it’s not?

I am not familiar with Synology, so this is just a guess, but they may be looking things up based on the USB ID. FreeNAS has a similar logical disconnect, where they basically use the NUT Hardware Compatibility List as a menu to select which driver to configure (also internal to their OS). In both cases, there is a many-to-one mapping between the model name and the correct driver (if we only consider USB connections). In your case, CP1500AVR and CP1300EPFLCD both use the usbhid-ups driver.

Since the CPS hardware is mostly compliant to the USB HID PDC (Power Device Class) spec, the usbhid-ups driver can figure out some of the model-specific differences.

> My question is if you release a new driver(s)/packages, does Synology have to do an update to the DSM for this to change? I would think so?

That would be the easiest method to get the update, yes.

If the Synology software allows you to connect to a remote NUT server (on a Raspberry Pi, for instance), and the driver connected to the remote server is updated, then the Synology software would see the corrected values from the updated driver. However, unless you need to record the output voltage for some reason, I'd say this is not worth spending too much time on the upgrade (given that the UPS itself displays the correct output voltage).

Note that the input voltage and output voltage should be identical unless the UPS is in a boost or buck mode ("ups.status" just shows "OL", and "input.voltage" is between "input.transfer.low" and "input.transfer.high" so I am guessing it is okay.)

> 
> I am assuming that as the NUT server, it would be the dominant device.  
> My other devices that are running the nut-client (eg Raspberry Pi’s) would be subservient to the NUT / NAS server?

Yup.

A picture might help: http://networkupstools.org/docs/user-manual.chunked/ar01s03.html#_monitoring_diagrams

Right now, the Synology box is the master, and the blue "communication" line in the diagram is USB. If you plugged the UPS directly into a Raspberry Pi, then it would be the master.

> 
> 3.        ups.timer.shutdown: -60 and  ups.timer.start: -60

Actually, these are slightly different. They are in seconds, but the negative value indicates that the timer isn't active at the moment.
> 
> I was assuming these values as correct as the LCD panel shows the battery run time as 60 minutes and the estimated battery time of 3390 seconds from the NAS is close enough and this figure does vary depending when and where I read it.

^ This part is correct.

> I have simulated a MAINS FAILURE by turning off the power and the clients reported that they were on battery.  I left it for about 5 minutes and all seems to be doing what it should.
> 
> I have set the Time before Diskstation enters safe Mode to 15 minutes on the NAS UPS panel.  As the estimated battery time is 60 minutes the this gives me enough time to start the generator but only if I am at home!  Hopefully, if I am not, and the mains outage continues the all will be gracefully shutdown on low battery and according to the HELP below it should all restart upon mains return.  Well that’s the theory at this stage.  When I am more knowledgeable I intend to test it fully but at this stage I want to be sure my planning is valid. 

I can't argue with this, but my reading of the help text is that if you don't set the timer to 15 minutes, it will go into Safe Mode when the battery is low (10%, according to the battery.charge.low variable). The default would give you an estimated 54 minutes to start the generator before the NAS starts to shut down.

> 
> This is from the Synology Help:
> ________________________________________________________________________________________________
> Safe Mode
>  
> When the Synology NAS enters Safe Mode, it stops all services and unmounts volumes in order to prevent data loss and shut down (halt for EDS14) safely when the UPS device runs out of power. By default, the system enters Safe Mode when the UPS device starts running low on power. You can also specify the amount of time before the Synology NAS enters Safe Mode when power failure occurs. However, if the UPS device reaches low battery before the specified time, the system enters Safe Mode immediately.
>  
> In situations when the Synology NAS shuts down during Safe Mode, it will automatically turn on when power is restored if you have enabled the Restart automatically after a power failure option (located at Control Panel > Hardware & Power > General).
> _________________________________________________________________________________________________
> 
> 
> 4.       When I update the packages on my Rasbian Jessie  on my Raspberry Pi’s I usually use the apt-get update && apt-get upgrade Commands.  
> If you release a new driver/package will this pick it up?  I am guessing it would by the looking at the URL below?
> According to this URL https://packages.debian.org/jessie/nut-client When I look at this I am running 2.7.2-4. 

Yes, but the thing about Debian stable releases is that they tend not to update packages unless there is a major fix (usually security-related).

There is also a channel called "backports" where you can request a newer Debian package (from stretch, for instance) to be back-ported to an older release like jessie.

Debian stretch has NUT 2.7.4, for instance.