Nut upsdev - Mar 2007 - Belkin F6C900-UNV and the megatec driver

Greetings!

Thanks to all the developers who have made this project so far. 
Searching for a Linux based Belkin UPS monitor led me straight to the 
Network UPS Tools.

I have bought a Belkin F6C900-UNV (900VA) for use on a Slackware 10.2 
server to replace an older APC model that died suddenly.

So far I have successfully managed to get NUT 2.0.5 compiled and 
configured and found that this Belkin product uses the Megatec protocol 
over RS-232. The three daemons, megatec, upsd, and upsmon, start up 
properly, and using /usr/local/ups/bin/upsc will show the UPS voltage 
levels, load, etc, correctly. The problem I am having is that the 
monitor never changes from OL to OB when I tried testing pulling the 
plug from the wall.

Output from the NUT programs looks like this when connected to utility 
power:
root@myhost:~# /usr/local/ups/bin/upsc Belkin900@localhost
battery.charge: 100.0
battery.voltage: 27.60
battery.voltage.nominal: 24.0
driver.name: megatec
driver.parameter.port: /dev/ttyS0
driver.version: 2.0.5
driver.version.internal: 1.5
input.frequency: 59.9
input.voltage: 122.5
input.voltage.fault: 122.8
output.voltage: 122.5
output.voltage.nominal: 120.0
ups.beeper.status: disabled
ups.delay.shutdown: 0
ups.delay.start: 2
ups.load: 7.0
ups.mfr: unknown
ups.model: unknown
ups.serial: unknown
ups.status: OL
ups.temperature: 0.0

When disconnected from the wall I get this:
root@myhost:~# /usr/local/ups/bin/upsc Belkin900@localhost
battery.charge: 98.2
battery.voltage: 26.50
battery.voltage.nominal: 24.0
driver.name: megatec
driver.parameter.port: /dev/ttyS0
driver.version: 2.0.5
driver.version.internal: 1.5
input.frequency: 59.9
input.voltage: 122.5
input.voltage.fault: 122.8
output.voltage: 122.5
output.voltage.nominal: 120.0
ups.beeper.status: disabled
ups.delay.shutdown: 0
ups.delay.start: 2
ups.load: 8.0
ups.mfr: unknown
ups.model: unknown
ups.serial: unknown
ups.status: OL
ups.temperature: 0.0

Using Minicom on the serial port the UPS is connected to set to 
2400-8-N-1 and sending the characters Q1<cr> produces this output when 
utility is connected:
(122.5 122.8 122.5 007 59.9 27.6 N/.A 00001001

And this output immediately after the unit is unplugged from the wall:
(122.5 122.8 122.5 008 59.9 27.4 N/.A 10001001

Sending the characters F<cr> produces this:
#120.0 006 24.00 60.0

Sending T<cr> makes the UPS test for 10 seconds. Sending T01 or T1 
doesn't seem to work, the UPS echoes it back. Sending I<cr>
doesn't
produce any output, but doesn't echo back "I" either. Sending
D<cr>
echoes D back. I have not tried sending S yet.

During the 10 second test, a Q1 returns this:
(122.8 122.8 122.8 009 59.9 27.5 N/.A 00001101

I think the stumbling block I have run into is that this UPS sends the 
characters "N/.A" where the temperature digits are expected, and the 
driver doesn't see the 8 status bits that follow.

I wish I was more of a programmer to be able to solve this and send in a 
patch to help anybody else who wants to monitor a F6C900-UNV. If this 
issue has been solved in a testing release, my apologies, I checked the 
ChangeLog but did not see it. If I can be of any more help with 
providing output from the UPS' serial port please let me know.


Thanks in advance for any advice or help,
Christian

On 3/10/07, Carlos Rodrigues <carlos.efr@mail.telepac.pt>
wrote:
> That's a violation to the megatec protocol, and that seems to be the
> cause of the problem.
>
> I've added a fix in the development version of NUT, you can pullit
> from directly fro NUT's SVN repository.
BTW, you can drop "megatec.c" and "megatec.h" from the trunk
into your
2.0.5 sources, it should work as well.


-- 
Carlos Rodrigues

On 3/10/07, Christian Monkman <c.b.monkman@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Using Minicom on the serial port the UPS is connected to set to
> 2400-8-N-1 and sending the characters Q1<cr> produces this output
when
> utility is connected:
> (122.5 122.8 122.5 007 59.9 27.6 N/.A 00001001
>
> And this output immediately after the unit is unplugged from the wall:
> (122.5 122.8 122.5 008 59.9 27.4 N/.A 10001001
>
> During the 10 second test, a Q1 returns this:
> (122.8 122.8 122.8 009 59.9 27.5 N/.A 00001101
>
> I think the stumbling block I have run into is that this UPS sends the
> characters "N/.A" where the temperature digits are expected, and
the
> driver doesn't see the 8 status bits that follow.
That's a violation to the megatec protocol, and that seems to be the
cause of the problem.

I've added a fix in the development version of NUT, you can pullit
from directly fro NUT's SVN repository.

-- 
Carlos Rodrigues