Support for APC 7900 series switchable PDU?

Viking
#1

Hey there - probably the same question asked a million times. I am trying to interface a pretty simple power control unit that’s easier to get in Australia than the Digital Loggers one (which I love, but not certified for local use). The APC7000 series (7920) is cheap here (used on eBay) for $200 and will help me control things like my dehumidifier and overall observatory control (powering up the mount, etc for remote).
Is there an API or something to which I could write a simple driver/command mapping tool? eg: i assume all output relay devices have the same basic state machine;

  • am i on?
  • how can I be turned on?
  • how can I be turned off?
  • (maybe) how can I be rebooted (cycled off and on) and/or a delay start (better done in Viking I think)

Then you just need to know if you are mapping telnet commands, SNMP commands or JSON/REST, etc and the response code and just do a mapping?

Thinking out loud (as usual).

#2

Hi Paul,

to import something in Viking (the I/O cards manager companion of Voyager) we need it to use during development and test it.
If you want to use it in DragScript you can write your own library to use it from the command line, executable, or script callable. After this use the external script block to call it.

All the best
Leonardo

1 Like
#3

Thanks L - I will try using a “telnet scripting interface” to do something similar. I wonder if this is something that would be good for Voyager/Viking - something like the Serial Command interface but for the modern network era. Tricky with things like SSL etc so maybe something for later on.

#4

If you have online and protocol for communication is on LAN please routing to external public IP to allow us to develop a library in Viking. If you have docs about protocol please send a link or docs.

We will try to understand if we can add to Viking.

#5

Thanks! It looks like SNMP (V1/2/3) is the only viable supported protocol that I can find sufficient documentation on. I think for the time being I’ll just write some simple batch files to power up the observatory, mount etc and then switch it all off at the end of the night.

Seems pretty easy from what i can see, I’ll do a test tonight.

#6

quick update - I managed to create a solution with snmpset/snmpget commands inside a DragScript - works well, the only thing that is not as nice as native Viking integration is there are no “buttons” that I can press if I need to do a manual override (eg: to turn on/off a power outlet), without going to another interface (like a command line or web interface for the device).

It would be cool if Viking could be extended in teh same way that DragScript can through “send serial” or “script” interfaces - but maybe that creates other problems I haven’t thought of.