Very Compact Battery Backup
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I got tired of lugging a pair of 12V12AH SLA batteries around with my pfSense MiFi so i started searching ebay and found the IEI AUPS-A10 series. These are battery backup units that use a laptop style battery inside and takes 5.5mm barrel jack that are standard on many shelf sized network appliances. The power monitoring features are unreal and that was just with usb cable locally, i haven't tried the network monitoring yet…This is truly one great pfSense accessory. I bought two as i am also going use this with an solar panel/controller/battery pack to feed it so I get power monitoring for battery output too for another project...
http://ieiworld.com/product_groups/industrial/content.aspx?gid=09049539805266347587&cid=08176555500849685209&id=08176545572675626779
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Very interesting. Where did you buy them, what was the price?
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http://www.aliexpress.com/item/12V-9V-UPS-Standby-uninterruptible-power-supply-DC-Mobile-Power-router-modem-UPS/1912055776.html
http://www.ebay.com/itm/141440830439?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
cheap options…
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http://www.mini-box.com/OpenUPS2?sc=8&category=1264
I bought one of these a while ago. I never did get the chance to install it in my M350 though. I'm off work for a while though so maybe this coming week.
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They appear to use the LiFePO4 which is the same type of battery used to power electric bikes with crank or hub motors.
Very long life battery, better than the normal batteries used in phones.
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Yea i got one of the AUPS-A10 and 4 of the B10 off ebay for cheap. I was wary of the B10 due to the 4 pin power input, but in the kit it uses a 5.5mm to 4 pin adapter, so all good.
One caviet, You must install the software on Windows to enable the LAN features. Only applicable to new units. -
And in an effort at transparency, I was praising the ebay seller about the item and i mentioned i was posting a good write-up on the forum here and he offered me a free AUPS unit if i provided the link. I did not accept the free hardware and thanked him. I already bought 5 of these @20 bucks new so I hogged up all I want from ebay and felt it was a worth recommendation. I like recommending hardware with no hidden agenda's. I can say for sure Iei makes solid gear. This would defiantly be a nice atom backup or something low power. One of the 5 i bought had the 8.5" PanelPC attached for 20 bucks!! AFL-08AH N270 atom touchscreen. Used, bad cmos battery. 2 dollar fix.
Tell me there ain't some bargains on there. -
Can you please post the eBay product or seller link? I can't seem to find any…
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http://www.aliexpress.com/item/12V-9V-UPS-Standby-uninterruptible-power-supply-DC-Mobile-Power-router-modem-UPS/1912055776.html
http://www.ebay.com/itm/141440830439?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
cheap options…
Sorry not these, I meant the types like Phishfry was writing about, with management interface and stuff.
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I may have jumped the gun on how great these are. They work good at the basic function of battery backup. The monitoring software is windows based and is very informative and useful. The web interface is unpolished and is very lackluster. The real test as the "ultimate pfSense accessory" will be how it works with NUT, the Freebsd Network UPS daemon. The device is not on the list of supported hardware so i am going to give it a try this weekend on a test box. I have lowered my bar for this device as it doesn't show the actual input voltage, which i wanted for my battery bank monitoring i was hoping to use this for..
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Here are some pictures of the Windows software versus their web interface:
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More pix of Windows interface–Battery Tab
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Windows Interface pix
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Windows Interface pix
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Web Interface Homepage pix
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Web Interface Email Tab pix
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Web Interface pix
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And just to be clear the above images are from the AUPS-B10 which is a bit larger at 100W.
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Well bad news. Neither Local UPS or remote UPS modes would work with this device and Network UPS Tools package.
In Remote UPS mode/NUTS status is showing but is Error:Stale Data. Soooo. 20 bucks for a battery backup with nice windows software. -
Remote windows tool is fairly useless for anything more than curiosity sake.
But I'm pretty used to running ups with no management at all, so its no big deal.
I like buying used batteryless APC ups from ebay, dropping in a new battery and then you get the pfsense management interface and OK ups cheap.Lithium is much better of course.
BTW - I couln't find one like your cheap.
Seems like they are usually fairly expensive. -
@Phishfry:
Well bad news. Neither Local UPS or remote UPS modes would work with this device and Network UPS Tools package.
In Remote UPS mode/NUTS status is showing but is Error:Stale Data. Soooo. 20 bucks for a battery backup with nice windows software.I didn't think that these models would work out of the box with these open source software modules like NUT, however, I really doubt that their management hardware interface has anything revolutionary new. It shouldn't be too difficult to add suppurt to NUT at least at basic level. Think about it: software like NUT supports most UPS-es unofficially, somebody just took the time and effort to monitor traffict between the original sowtware from the manufacturer and the UPS, and implement that into NUT.
UPS Management is important for cases when power failures frequency and their duration cannot be estimated - for example in my area there are failures of less than 10 minutes about 3-4 times a year, and failures exceeding 40 minutes 1 or 2 times a year. I really need to know when the battery goes below a certain percent to start shutting down things properly.
So I think the most basic thing in management is to know if it's on external power or on battery. If this basic functionality would be available, you could at least do something when things go to battery (wait 1 minute and if still on battery start normal shutdown, write the event in a logfile, etc.)
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Here is a link. This is the 60W version. I was bidding just for kicks. Have at it…
http://www.ebay.com/itm/IEI-VESA-MOUNT-DC-UPS-MODULE-AUPS-A10-/161542515361?'I think that Local NUT would work in Generic USB mode but this device uses a Silicon Labs serial uart to usb bridge. Also couldn't kind any devices on the NUT device list with a similar serial to usb setup. Plus for "Generic" settings it needs a APC cable type???Serial cable?. I looked at log and started nut.sh from shell to debug but couldn't find any easy answers..Service not starting for sure. Maybe need to set USB port manually versus Auto.
Under remote UPS it would start the daemon but error out at stale data..
Looking at the web interface it does seem that many of the data fields are the same as APC units.
The Silicon Labs device is detected by UGEN on plug and play. -
I'd go with the web interface - that's the easiest way IMHO:
- look at the page source (or the page inside the frame if it's a HTML frames-based interface) where it says info about statuses
- search in the page source code for lines or patterns containing the values
- pull the DC-in plug, look at the page and its source code see if it changes
If you identified which part of the HTML interface source code changes when an event occurs, it's really simple to put together a shell script to wget or fetch the page, parse the code for the field containing the value, assign it to a variable and start doing something with it. Just run the script with a cron job every minute and you're done. Of course you'd have to have the switch on the UPS too or use a dedicated nic if you have a spare on the box.
PS: I could help if I had such a unit, but unfortunately postage makes it was too expensive for me.
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@Phishfry:
Here is a link. This is the 60W version. I was bidding just for kicks. Have at it…
http://www.ebay.com/itm/IEI-VESA-MOUNT-DC-UPS-MODULE-AUPS-A10-/161542515361?What was the price you won it for last time?
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You have your battery UPS and does time exceed 10 mins, go start this…
http://www.thegeneratorguys.com/store#!/Portable-Diesel-Generator/p/13028031/category=2991958
It can also start when power goes out and your UPS does keep everything up until power flows from the generator.
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Haha, very funny - that for a home lab. Keep in mind also that coming back from a small generator like these to the mains power can be done only by powering down all the consumers first, that's because the AC phase of the generator is not as stable as the mains is, 99% that the generator phase along with the UPS phase and mains phase will be out of sync from each other, thus it's not possible to switch back the power source online. (if you do, 99% that it's going to burn your equipment). Fully automated online switch back is naturally possible, but you need a quite expensive generator with variable speed / automatic phase correction and sync. That's not something small bussinesses or home labs can afford…
I've got for my virtual hosting server a dedicated Smart-UPS 1500 RM which I bought used for about 100 bucks without batteries. Added new (after-market) batteries and reset internal battery counter, now I have 01:25:00 runtime with it. Also for the router and switches in a separate room got a small Back-UPS BR 800 which has 01:04:15 runtime left according to NUT status. No need for generator stuff and it's all offline, headless and fully automatic, doesn't need any manual intervention.
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You power your UPS via the generator to charge it, not to run the hosting directly.
;)
Then you have 100% stable power and able to kepp your things running without interruption.
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Not quite… look at the specs... Trust me, I work in a corporate environment where we do have huge UPSes and generators feeding entire buildings.
Nevermind, this is way off topic anyway.
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I paid 20 bucks each for mine. I bought from two different sellers. The B10's were buy it now. Made an offer at 17 bucks and sold. For my particular use - I built a pfsense luggable mifi with Advantech ARK-1388 and need to power it between work and home so the 140 minute run time is perfect. I know its not much but that is at full load. I am drawing way less than that(12V-1.5A max). Also i saw comments about special battery type i don't think that is correct. Its just a laptop style Lithium Ion battery. The 100W version uses a 19V battery while the 60W version uses 7.4V. I wonder what the battery is modeled after…Would be nice to know for replacements. Connectors look off the shelf.
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Robi,
The UART protocol for this IEI AUPS device is well documented that someone could implement this easily in NUT.
http://www.ieiworld.com/redirect.ashx?code=3&id=0A175420370520988327&dest=null