Tag Archives: UPS

UPSILON REMOTE MONITOR

#100 Monitoring A Line UPS Remotely

Modernizing the old UPSilon 2000 application was a daunting task my first thought was to read the serial output but unfortunately the UPS is listed as a HID device and not a simple COM port. So I went down the rabbit hole of trying to communicate with hid devices which have strict security to combat keyloggers. I tried to use kernel32 and the create file read and write file methods but I got access denied. Looking closer I could read some of the inputs of the ups hid device but it was going to take too long to figure out direct communication to the ups without an SDK or a good example app using USB HID to communicate with a UPS.

Computer Management Hid UPS

Some details of my ups hid were:
VID = 0001 PID = 0000 Path = \?\hid#vid_0001&pid_0000#6&7efa158&0&0000#{4d1e55b2-f16f-11cf-88cb-001111000030} SerialNumber = Manufacturer = MEC Product: MEC0003

Communication over USB

So after wasting 2 days I went back to the drawing board this time instead of using Wireshark to catch the USB packets I decided to take a closer look at the upsilon 2000 application. unfortunately the .dll's don’t show any useful functions in dependency viewer so I can’t call C++ functions from them in C#. So next I switched Wireshark to local monitoring and I found some very useful traffic.

tcp.port == 2570 connect as a client and get data
tcp.port == 8652 read the data from the sms server
udp.port == 11541 udp data

Port 8652 allows me to read alerts sent to the SMS server but instead I re-direct them to my C# application.

GET /smssend_hide.cgi?$sms_recptmobile=0123456789&$sms_content=DESKTOP-294DAYV: This is a test message!&$sms_code=1 HTTP/1.1
User-Agent: RUPS2K SMS
Host: 127.0.0.1
Connection: Keep-Alive

Port 2570 allows me to TCP connect as a client with no auth and now I get all the stat report strings every 1 second.

(238.7 238.7 238.7 007 50.1 27.4 --.- 00001000

The UDP port 11541 always receives upsXXXcnt001 for constant monitoring and I haven’t observed any other use besides this.

ups000cnt001 – connected ups
upsdiscnt001 – not connected

The exe files communicating between themselves are
Monw32.exe 11541 udp listner
RupsMon.exe 2570 tcp listner
UPSilon.exe connects as client

So after finding this info I was able to build a C# app that works in conjunction with UPSilon 2000 but the C# app offers more flexibility such as remote messaging via Telegram or forwarding the stats to a webserver for remote viewing.

The application checks the cd key every time it starts it connects to an IP in Taiwan http://upsilon.icv99.net on port 80 however is you go to port 8080 you get a webpage cd key checking form.
http://59.124.238.71:80
http://upsilon.icv99.net:8080/download_sys/
http://upsilon.icv99.net:8080/download_sys/keycheck.php?cdkey_check=testkey

Reporting serial key and NTFS to home via: http://59.124.238.71

The only thing I couldn’t do was send commands directly to the ups because that communication link is done within the upsilon app itself however I am happy with the overall outcome.

Source code of my application can be found on GitHub

JIAGENG MINI UPS

#94 another mini ups review

Nice honest stats compared to others.

Looking at other mini ups manufactures I decided to give Jiageng a go. The outer plastic enclosure looks very similar to a lot of other generic mini ups devices. I suspect they all originate from the same factory but have slight improvment’s to the actual PCB inside.

Decent PCB with good amperage Inductors.

Once opened I was greeted with a beautifully soldered matt black PCB with a higher version number than the previous mini ups from Andowl.

The PCB has quality components and no mystery chips. It also has the iconic Wintonic 18650 cells.

2 differences I noticed are that all the LEDs are a dark green color (the Andowl unit had 2 different greens) and the unit powers off automatically at a low voltage so that it doesn’t require a reboot after it runs “flat”.

The unit also has flashing LEDs as apposed to the Andowl’s fading LEDs

Top
Back
SKE-POE430-V3.0 matt black
Main IC is the STC8H1K08

Datasheet can be found here.
Andowl artical can be found here.

DC1018P MINI UPS

#90 DC1018P mini ups from Sinye Tech

After testing the generic Andowl UPS device I decided to find out if there were any alternatives in the same price range with similar features. After a few google searches I came across the SINYE TECH UPS device which has very similar features but is black in color and uses a different PCB.

After purchasing one and opening the ups I was disappointed to find out that the 4 18650 batteries had no markings on them whatsoever.. Also the main battery management IC has no identifying text on the chip. Seems like the mystery chip can of worms opens once again.

The good news is that the ups device has battery protection and has some decent components however… the actual black PCB board looks cheap unlike the good quality Andowl PCB…

Another major shock was the soldering (or should I say smoldering) of two of the transformer coil wires.. just looks ugly…

I also noticed the UPS device had a low battery LED flashing when I first switched it on and it never reaches the 100% LED even though the batteries are charged to 4.2V

Overall the UPS does function but I much prefer the Andowl Q-UP1000 UPS with similar functions it’s far more superior from what I’ve seen.

Example links:

https://www.takealot.com/2600mah-mini-portable-dc-ups/PLID73601687

https://manufacturese.com/product/56

https://www.globalsources.com/CCTV-power/DC-ups-for-router-CCTV-1184804963p.htm

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Mini-DC-UPS-with-10400mAh-Lithium_1600251602090.html

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/mini-dc-ups-battery-backup-poe_1600478530224.html

SIMPLE DIY 18650 BACKUP

#87 A DIY simple 18650 backup ups board

After setting up a CCTV system consisting of multiple WiFi cameras placed over my property I noticed that certain cameras were located in areas far away from AC outlets covered by my backup electrical system.

In this project I used some an old 18650 (LG makes the LGABD11865 ) from a laptop power supply. Also I upgraded my 5v charger to a 1.5A to provide enough charging and running current for the camera. The camera I am using is the EZVIZ C3W 1080p WiFi camera

Since Load-shedding has been increasing dramatically I had the need to find cheap simple and reliable power sources for there cameras (12v DC). One important requirement is that the backup system needs to fit into a small area E.G an electrical box on a pole where the camera is located.

While researching I came across the so called mini dc ups device mainly used for backing up WiFi routers at either 9v, 12v, 15v, 24v. however these devices seemed a bit overkill electronically wise and also price wise.

So I decided to opt-in on a cheaper smaller sized DIY version the components consisting of:

  • LiPo charger +DC-DC step-up module here
  • suitable PCB board here
  • 18650 li-ion battery holder here
  • 18650 battery 3500mah here
  • 5v cellphone charger micro-usb here

The components are all soldered onto a 50mm x 70mm 1 sided PCB board.

I noticed that the 4056 IC gets quite warm but doesn’t burn my fingers. The same goes for the coil. The specification is max 1A and the load I was applying was around 0.33mA – 0.670mA

After testing this particular LiPo charger PCB I noticed a few major problems the first being that the 8-pin 4056 LiPo chip is a copy of a copy… the next critical problem is that there is no protection circuitry besides the overcharge/discharge function in the 4056 chip.

This is a big problem since the chip does not switch off completely when low voltage occurs and as a result the load will periodically switch on and off unreliably before finally switching off completely. This oscillation can damage the load.

A solution will be to use a separate LiPo PCB with protection mosfets and a separate booster board.

A better solution
4056H PCB + protection mosfets and DW01-A
B6289Y (MT3608 booster)