BLAZER(8)							    NUT Manual								 BLAZER(8)

NAME

       blazer - Driver for Megatec/Q1 protocol serial (blazer_ser) and USB (blazer_usb) based UPS equipment

NOTE

       This man page only documents the hardware-specific features of the blazer driver. For information about the core driver, see nutupsdrv(8).

SUPPORTED HARDWARE

       The blazer driver is known to work with various UPSes from Blazer, Energy Sistem, Fenton Technologies, General Electric, Mustek and many
       others. The NUT compatibility table lists all the known supported models. Keep in mind, however, that other models not listed there may
       also be supported, but haven't been tested.

       All devices with a serial interface (use the blazer_ser driver) and many with a USB interface (use the blazer_usb driver) are supported.

EXTRA ARGUMENTS

       You may need to override or provide defaults for some values, depending on the make and model of your UPS. The following are the ones that
       most likely will need changing (see ups.conf(5)):

       default.battery.voltage.high = value
	   Maximum battery voltage that is reached after about 12 to 24 hours charging. If you want the driver to report a guesstimated
	   battery.charge, you need to specify this (see BATTERY CHARGE).

       default.battery.voltage.low = value
	   Minimum battery voltage just before the UPS automatically shuts down. If you want the driver to report a guesstimated battery.charge,
	   you need to specify this (see BATTERY CHARGE).

       default.battery.voltage.nominal = value, override.battery.voltage.nominal = value
	   Some devices show a wrong nominal battery voltage (or none at all), so you may need to override or set a default value.

       override.battery.packs = value
	   Some devices report a part of the total battery voltage. For instance, if battery.voltage.nominal is 24 V, but it reports a
	   battery.voltage of around 2 V, the number of battery.packs to correct this reading would be 12. The driver will attempt to detect this
	   automatically, but if this fails somehow, you may want to override this value.

       ondelay = value
	   Time to wait before switching on the UPS (minutes). Note that a value below 3 minutes, may cause earlier firmware versions to not
	   switch on automatically, so it defaults to 3 minutes.

       offdelay = value
	   Time to wait before shutting down the UPS (seconds). This value is truncated to units of 6 seconds (less than 60 seconds) or 60 seconds
	   (more than 60 seconds). Defaults to 30 seconds.

       norating
	   Some UPSes will lock up if you attempt to read rating information from them. Setting this flag will make the driver skip this step.

       novendor
	   Some UPSes will lock up if you attempt to read vendor information from them. Setting this flag will make the driver skip this step.

       protocol = string
	   Skip autodetection of the protocol to use and only use the one specified. Supported values megatec, megatec/old, mustek and zinto.

       runtimecal = value,value,value,value
	   Parameter used in the (optional) runtime estimation. This takes two runtimes at different loads. Typically, this uses the runtime at
	   full load and the runtime at half load. For instance, if your UPS has a rated runtime of 240 seconds at full load and 720 seconds at
	   half load, you would enter

	       runtimecal = 240,100,720,50

	   The first load should always be higher than the second. If you have values available for loads other than 100 and 50 % respectively,
	   you can use those too, but keep them spaced apart as far as reasonably possible. Just don't get too close to no load (prediction of
	   runtime depends more on idle load for the battery then).

       chargetime = value
	   The time needed to fully recharge the battery after being fully discharged. If not specified, the driver defaults to 43200 seconds (12
	   hours). Only used if runtimecal is also specified.

       idleload = value
	   Minimum battery load used by the driver to estimate the runtime. If not specified, the driver defaults to 10%. Only used if runtimecal
	   is also specified.

SERIAL INTERFACE ONLY

       cablepower = string
	   By default the driver will set DTR and clear RTS (normal). If you find that your UPS isn't detected or the communication with the UPS
	   is unreliable, you may try if clear DTR and set RTS (reverse), set DTR and RTS (both) or clear DTR and RTS (none) improves this
	   situation.

USB INTERFACE ONLY

       vendorid = regex, productid = regex, vendor = regex, product = regex, serial = regex
	   Select a specific UPS, in case there is more than one connected via USB. Each option specifies an extended regular expression (see
	   regex(7)) that must match the UPS's entire vendor/product/serial string (minus any surrounding whitespace), or the whole 4-digit
	   hexadecimal code for vendorid and productid. Try -DD for finding out the strings to match.

       Examples:

	   -x vendor="Foo.Corporation.*"

	   -x vendorid=051d    # (APC)

	   -x product=".*(Smart|Back)-?UPS.*"

       bus = regex
	   Select a UPS on a specific USB bus or group of busses. The argument is a regular expression that must match the bus name where the UPS
	   is connected (e.g. bus="002", bus="00[2-3]").

       subdriver = string
	   Select a serial-over-USB subdriver to use. You have a choice between phoenix, ippon, cypress, and krauler. When using this option, it
	   is mandatory to also specify the vendorid and productid.

       langid_fix = value
	   Apply the language ID workaround to the krauler subdriver. This is mandatory for some devices to work (LDLC, Dynamix and others). You
	   must to provide value (0x409 or 0x4095), according to your device entry in NUT hardware compatibility list (HCL).

UPS COMMANDS

       This driver supports some instant commands (see upscmd(8)):

       beeper.toggle
	   Toggle the UPS beeper. (Not available on some hardware.)

       load.on
	   Turn on the load immediately.

       load.off
	   Turn off the load immediately (see KNOWN PROBLEMS).

       shutdown.return [value]
	   Turn off the load and return when power is back. Uses the timers defined by ondelay and offdelay.

       shutdown.stayoff [value]
	   Turn off the load and remain off (see KNOWN PROBLEMS). Uses the timer defined by offdelay.

       shutdown.stop
	   Stop a shutdown in progress.

       test.battery.start.deep
	   Perform a long battery test (Not available on some hardware.)

       test.battery.start.quick
	   Perform a (10 second) battery test.

       test.battery.start value
	   Perform a battery test for the duration of value seconds (truncated to units of 60 seconds).

       test.battery.stop
	   Stop a running battery test (not available on some hardware.)

BATTERY CHARGE

       Due to popular demand, this driver will report a guesstimated battery.charge and optionally battery.runtime, provided you specified a
       couple of the EXTRA ARGUMENTS listed above.

       If you specify both battery.voltage.high and battery.voltage.low in ups.conf(5), but don't enter runtimecal, it will guesstimate the state
       of charge by looking at the battery voltage alone. This is not reliable under load, as this only gives reasonably accurate readings if you
       disconnect the load, let the battery rest for a couple of minutes and then measure the open cell voltage. This just isn't practical if the
       power went out and the UPS is providing power for your systems.

				battery.voltage - battery.voltage.low
	   battery.charge =  ------------------------------------------ x 100 %
			     battery.voltage.high - battery.voltage.low

       There is a way to get better readings without disconnecting the load but this requires one to keep track on how much (and how fast) current
       is going in- and out of the battery. If you specified the runtimecal, the driver will attempt to do this. Note however, that this heavily
       relies on the values you enter and that the UPS must be able to report the load as well. There are quite a couple of devices that report 0
       % (or any other fixed value) at all times, in which case this obviously doesn't work.

       The driver also has no way of determining the degradation of the battery capacity over time, so you'll have to deal with this yourself (by
       adjusting the values in runtimecal). Also note that the driver guesses the initial state of charge based on the battery voltage, so this
       may be less than 100 %, even when you are certain that they are full. There is just no way to reliably measure this between 0 and 100 %
       full charge.

       This is better than nothing (but not by much). If any of the above calculations is giving you incorrect readings, you are the one that put
       in the values in ups.conf(5), so don't complain with the author. If you need something better, buy a UPS that reports battery.charge and
       battery.runtime all by itself without the help of a NUT driver.

NOTES FOR THE PREVIOUS USER OF MEGATEC DRIVERS

       The blazer drivers having replaced the megatec ones, some configuration changes may be required by users switching to blazer.

       Part of this, the following megatec options, in ups.conf, have to be changed:

       battvolts
	   You need to use default.battery.voltage.high and default.battery.voltage.low

       dtr and rts
	   You need to use cablepower

       ignoreoff
	   This parameter can simply be discarded, since it was a wrong understanding of the specification.

KNOWN PROBLEMS

       Some UPS commands aren't supported by all models. In most cases, the driver will send a message to the system log when the user tries to
       execute an unsupported command. Unfortunately, some models don't even provide a way for the driver to check for this, so the unsupported
       commands will silently fail.

       Both the load.off and shutdown.stayoff instant commands are meant to turn the load off indefinitely. However, some UPS models don't allow
       this.

       Some models report a bogus value for the beeper status (will always be enabled or disabled). So, the beeper.toggle command may appear to
       have no effect in the status reported by the driver when, in fact, it is working fine.

       The temperature and load value is known to be bogus in some models.

AUTHORS

       Arjen de Korte <adkorte-guest at alioth.debian.org>, Alexander Gordeev <lasaine at lvk.cs.msu.su>

SEE ALSO

       nutupsdrv(8), upsc(8), upscmd(8), upsrw(8)

   Internet Resources:
       The NUT (Network UPS Tools) home page: http://www.networkupstools.org/ The NUT HCL: http://www.networkupstools.org/stable-hcl.html

Network UPS Tools						    05/21/2012								 BLAZER(8)