Hello all, Last week I rescued and UPS from the trash (it's really amazing the kind of things you can find in the trash of the university research labs). No manual, no cd, no cables, just the unit. It's name is "Blizzo 500", and blizzo was just the rebranding of a spanish reseller which has been out of the scene for nearly two years now, at least according to the wayback machine. Thanksfully, it had some stickers (in english) with brief instructions, warning about output wave not being sinusoidal, and standard info about power.
After a quick test, it looked like working, so I carried it home. I then opened it, and it really looked like a "line interactive" or "standby" type. After a bit of reverse engineering, I managed to get the serial port schematic, looking like it supports both "dumb" and "smart" mode, so I tested it in "dumb" mode, with the genericups driver. I also added support to override DSR (as I needed it to use with an "straight" cable, with just two pull-ups to DTR) to NUT 2.2.2, just to find that the latest version already has it (thats the problem of using stable debian), so I'm not submiting the patch. After playing arround with an optocoupler and the single PCI slot of my motherboard, the computer where I plugged it now supports autoresume without power races :). However I was puzzled about the fact that the serial port looked like "smart", so I tried searching in google images with random searches about ups until I found something like my unit (at least in shape). It was a SOLA S1K320, and the chasis really looked like my unit, excluding power connectors and front panel. I could find the manual, and saw that the serial port description matched with what I had reverse engineered. According to the manual, some leds of my units are only available in the 650VA version, but mine looks like a 500VA. The manual refered to some "UPSMON" software, which I tracked to Powercom, just to find out that the KIN or BNT [456]25AP also have the same chasis design as my unit, but according to this (http://pcmups.com.tw/download/Download/PCM-King325A-625AP.pdf), mi ups is nearer the KIN (due to the drawing of the european power connector). The manuals also match, but not the serial port "details". As NUT supports both the SOLA and Powercom, I tested both drivers to finally find that the UPS answers to the Powercom protocol, but only after modificacions of the check values, thanks to the documentation of Michael Tokarev. This process however raised some questions: Are the SOLA S1KXXX really following the best protocol? They look quite like the Powercom, including manuals. (ok, this is just curiosity) I could find some info of the protocol in the upsd by Michael Tokarev, and also the recently provided by powercom for the USB models (as it looks like they are the old ones with a USB to serial chip included), and looks like the implementation of the driver lacks some features. >From the SVN logs, looks like nobody is working on it. As Michael Tokarev replyed when Alexey Sidorov wrote the "enhanced" features of the powercom driver, and supposing is the same Michael Tokarev of the upsd, why didn't he completed the powercom driver? I see that from time to time, someone asks on the list to improve or add features to the driver (a few years ago "Dan Mahoney, System Admin" offered a network for development), but looks like there is not movement. Now that powercom is offering help, can't be the driver completed? Also, the source of the powercom and powercom HID should share some code regarding battery, times and loads calculations, am I right? Finally, looking at the powercom driver source, it as toooooooo muuuuuuuch black magic for my taste. IMHO it should go a mayor rewrite. After all this crap, my final question is this: As I do not want to offend anyone... Is anyone working on all this? If nobody is working on it, can I rewrite the powercom driver to adapt it to the information that is available right now (and hope to get the missing info from powercom)? Is "Dan Mahoney, System Admin" still on the list and still having problems to solve? Is Michael Tokarev still on the list and willing to share where did he find all the info he has about the powercom protocol and models? Are Alexey Sidorov, Simon Rozman or Peter Bieringer still on the list and would them be offended if I rewrite the driver? Anyone has anything to say? Thanks for your time, I wait for your reply! Pedro _______________________________________________ Nut-upsdev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/nut-upsdev
