Using APC Smart-UPS with Mac Advice

There should be a communications cable that came with the APC UPS, one end of this cable will have USB connector on it and the other end may look like an ethernet connector. The USB end of this cable should be plugged into a USB slot on the Mac Pro computer and the other end plugged into the slot labeled Data Port on the APC UPS. With this cable connected the APC UPS will communicate to the computer the charge percentage of the battery and a loss of AC power. After the communications cable is connected click on the Apple symbol on the upper left of the screen, then click on System Preferences, then under System Preferences screen click on Energy Saver. On the Energy Saver Screen should be two boxes at the top center, one labeled Power and the other labeled UPS, click on the UPS box and this will bring up the UPS preferences screen. On the UPS screen should be a box labeled Shutdown Options. Click on the Shutdown Options and this will bring up a screen with three options for Automatic Shutdown of the computer. I have an APC Back UPS 1500, I have set it to shutdown after 3 minutes. Also the Energy Saver Screen will have a box labeled Show UPS status on the menu bar that can be selected to display UPS status on the menu bar. To answer the question of is the UPS overloaded, there could be a yellow display light labeled Overload. If this light is not lit the load is below 1000 volt amperes and within range of the UPS. Or the UPS could have a small Display and a Menu Display button that could be used to check the load on the UPS.

hotwheels 22 wrote:

i just bought a used APC Smart-UPS 1000 unit and put in a new battery and everything seems to be working. i am hoping someone can share their expertise on this setup...

...should i be running some kind of calculation or writing down the amps or volts on these devices to see how it relates to the 1000 designation...?)

A quick check of the on-line manual for what I think you've installed shows a display similar to my own APC Back UPS 1500. There should be a slanted graph on the display showing how much of the available capacity of the UPS your setup is using, in steps of 20%.

While there is no indication in the manual I've downloaded (APC has lots of models and it's not clear which one you've got) how to display it, the graphic of the LCD screen suggests it's possible to step through a series of measurements including the current load in watts and the estimated run time, as David Grisez and I can with the APC Back UPS 1500.

BTW, the USB connection he mentions is pretty cool. The Mac can interact with the UPS without any of the APC software. I have mine set to shut down when the battery level reaches 25% since, as the battery ages, the available run time will shrink.

hotwheels 22 wrote:

hi gents.

a big thank you. i have been meaning to get this done for some time now.

this appears to be my unit: http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=sua1000i

i now have the cable connected and i am in Energy Saver with three options: 1. after using battery (minutes) 2. time remaining (minutes) and 3. battery level is below (%). can someone just give me a quick explanation again of what i am doing here? i check /one/ of these and checking the % and setting it at 25 lets it adjust to the battery itself becoming less powerful so this would ostensibly give me more time than setting an actual minute option? i mean, i HAVE to set one of these options or the computer will crash if i am not around to manually shut down?

also, assuming i am on a deadline and trying to get something uploaded or something or trying to get it onto a zip disk to work elsewhere when on a deadline - why wouldn't i just set it to time remaining at 2 minutes to give me as much time as possible to get this work done?

also, i am seeing a "Runtime Graph" on the link above and it appears to be showing me that 500 Watt load will allow me a 10 minute usage on battery power - presumably at full battery charge? i mean, i have my mac pro and my monitor and my time capsule (wifi which i guess i don't really need) and my cable router (to retain internet access in case i need it). so i can unplug the time capsule which i probably don't need and add up the ratings in Watts of the three devices that stay plugged in and get the time i can use them off this chart is that right?

and on the front of the machine on the left are five vertical buttons showing "Load" with the bottom three lit. presumably this is showing me something i have to read up on?

and then on the right i have another set of five vertical buttons showing all five green under "Battery Charge" and this is /flashing/.

thoughts and/or a little more help as i read up on the manual here...

THANKS

Hmm... First off, if I read it right, that link is to the 230V version of the UPS, though the manual seems to apply to both, and I assume you've got 120V service that you're plugged into.

The front panel doesn't have an LCD so the indicators are it rather than gauge readouts. The manual says that the reading being given by those five LED's is a value between the highest lit and the next one up so it's an approximation at best. Indeed, I've found that with the UPS's with LED screens that actually show numbers, an approximate run time is given for the current load vs battery state. But if you put it in test mode, in which the load is actually running off the battery, the displayed run time will be different. That's why I chose to use battery level as the deciding factor for when the Mac should issue the shutdown command to itself. Moreover, my Energy Saver control panel says the "Time Remaining" is unknown, meaning, I suppose, that the UPS isn't reporting it, while the percent of battery charge is reported.

I'd suggest that you hook everything up, then see if Energy Saver control panel's UPS option reports the battery level percent on the menu bar, since if it doesn't the Mac would have no hint of the battery's state and whether it's time to shut down.

As to what do you do if you have just one more thing to finish, if you're basing shut down on % of charge remaining, if you've set it at, say 25% and you're already down to 30% with that one more thing to be done, open the control panel, turn off the shutdown options, and keep your fingers crossed.

hotwheels 22 wrote:

hi gents. i am re-reading and reconfiguring things here as i go.

so i do see a "overload" "on battery" and a "replace battery" button as well as a round "Test" and a round Power On/Off button (i think).

so one other question i guess i have is about the ability of this unit or of the mac os to let me /see/ what the load/time relationship is exactly. obviously it sounds like the 1500 unit will give me more time but to get started i don't really mind using this unit and perhaps to buy a 1500 when it comes up and to replace the battery on that one and sell this one.

that said, it would still be nice to do some analysis and/or testing of what i can expect it terms of minutes of usage but also it might be nice to actually test the unit in some way (love to get a suggestion or two here) in terms of how i would use it when power goes out. for instance, presumably i would get some kind of power symbol (?!) like i do on my macbookpro that lets me know how quick i have to shutdown before it gets shut down for me automatically based upon my settings...?

THANKS AGAIN

I think part of the problem in using your UPS is the paucity of information the front panel provides. It took me a while to figure it out because I'm using these: http://www.apc.com/products/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BR1500G &total_watts=800 and the LCD readout provides a lot of information.

Testing yours may be trickier too, because a self test, either by the button, or forced by pulling the plug, will show if it's working but not potentially for how long unless you pull the plug and then watch the battery charge % that your Mac is reading (since the control panel will act on that number) and time it to see how long it takes to get to, say, 50%.

Hi, I have a question about using UPS on Mac (or should I use it on the PC?) I have a Mac and a PC, and I want it to shut both machines down, is there a way to do this? Maybe with the Smart-UPS software? Thanks!

As standard the APC Smart-UPS 1000 has just a USB port which can only link to a single computer, it does also have a slot in which I believe you can add a network interface. With a network interface you could then in theory use the network client from APC on both computers and have both computers running off the UPS and both able to monitor and auto-shutdown.

However I find the APC software to be very poorly supported e.g. I have no idea if it is El Capitan compatible, it is also as far as I am aware command-line only.

Another option is to use alternative software in particular there is some free software called NUTS. Not only could this directly monitor the UPS over the network again requiring the optional network card but you could connect the UPS via USB to a single computer and the NUTS software can act as a 'server' to other NUTS running computers. See http://networkupstools.org/ (NUTS can monitor UPS devices over the network, USB, or a USB to Serial adapter.)

Note: There have been reports of an issue using a USB connected UPS with El Capitan. It has been confusing Time Machine and preventing automated backups, this is because Time Machine defaults to not running if the computer is running off 'battery power'. A desktop Mac connected to a UPS looks to the Mac as if it is running off battery and hence confuses the Time Machine software. Whilst a laptop shows a specific option to override Time Machine and allow backups even when on battery power a desktop Mac does not have this option. I don't know if this still applies to El Capitan 10.11.3.

I just checked my 2009 Mac Pro with 10.11.3 with APC Smart UPS and it is doing hourly TM backups. As you said, in some previous version of El Capitan automatic TB backups were not made. That was my case too.