Review of Minuteman Enspire UPS
Minuteman Enspire UPS Series is one of the new products from Para Systems. We tested the Enspire400, which is a low-end model of the series Enspire, with the purpose of evaluating the feature set available, the duration of the battery and how well it does the transition when there is power outage and the impact on ongoing Voip Calls. The results were all positive. Below are the details.
This UPS can be used to support valuable equipment like Ip phones, laptop, computers and many other not high power consumption devices. It basically consists of 6 connectors out of which 3 are for battery & surge and the other 3 are only for surge. The size of the UPS makes it easy to place it under the working table or the model can be wall mounted.
Minuteman SentryPlus Monitor is the software used to analyze and also to change few parameters for the UPS box. Some of the details from the software are explained below.
Fig 1a & 1b: The main box diplayed when UPS is connected to device and not to the main supply; and on right it is connected to the main supply
Above diagram is the main monitor box in the software. On the left section is the detail description for the basic UPS ratings values. The UPS can supply up to 200W of power when it is 100% charged. On the right section is the graphical presentation for different values of the battery. We can a have the meter for Input frequency/voltage; Output frequency/ voltage and battery level/voltage. The output voltage of the UPS remains constant to the device even though there is a power breakage.
The bar above these sections contains Configure, Meters, Event Logs and History. The Meters shows the real-time (I/O voltage level) status for the battery. The Event logs list the time and date the UPS was connected/disconnected to the main power supply. The History section will give the graphical representation of the Battery I/O voltage parameter simultaneously with time
These are the list of the parameters which can be modified in the configuration section.
Fig 2a & 2b: The figure on the left is the popup menu in the Configure option; The figure on the right is the scheduler window in UPS menu option.
In Devices option we can give notification identity, which could be by e-mail, sms or paging about its status. In UPS option we have scheduler, by which we can set a particular time and date within 2 year to command the device to test the batteries, reboot or shutdown (as shown above on right. The Network option gives details about other devices connected to the UPS.
On the bottom of the main window are the sections as Main, Tree, Time, Status, Diagram, Scroll and Network.
Tree: This section describes about the I/O battery voltage type and the real-time status of the battery.
Time: This section will give detail on the time parameters set for shut down, test time, battery replacing time etc.
Status: It displays the parameters like overload, overheat, Buzzer alarm etc. are marked with green/red light indicating its working or in caution status.
Diagram: It shows graphical representation for the connection between the UPS (Battery), the main supply (AC Input) and the device (AC Output). The below diagram indicates that the UPS is in charging mode and the connected device with the UPS is also being charges bypassing the UPS.
Fig 3a & 3b: The figure on the left indicates UPS connected to the main supply for charging and the device gets supply from the same via UPS; figure on right shows the UPS is in charging with no device connected.
Scroll: It is again the graphical representation of times verses the I/O voltage of the UPS battery. The diagram describes the graphical presentation of the UPS input and output voltage. The red line goes down when the input to the UPS is disconnected, and it remains zero for the particular time interval. When the input plug is connected back the graph shows the blue and black line back at 115V I/O voltage.
Fig 4a & 4b: The figure on the left shows the I/O voltage graph when connected to main supply; the figure on right shows I/O voltage graph when main supply is not connected to UPS.
Network: It keeps the list of the devices connected in the network. The Host Name, the IP address, whether it’s acting as a master or a slave in the network (there can be only one master to command UPS) and how much percent power does each device is consuming from the UPS.
Scenario
We experimented by powering one of our IP phones from the UPS. The UPS was fully charged when we disconnected it from the power input. The phone was sometimes in idle state or a call was made from it. We noted the time and percentage of power consumed. After noting down the value we came to the following graph.
From the above graph we can conclude that the IP phone worked for 8 hrs 45 mins in normal office working condition, including 3 to 4 hours of talktime.
Conclusion:
The Minuteman UPS is very user friendly device. It can efficiently handle the power supply after unpredicted power failure, without any interruption. Therefore it is also recommendable for power fluctuating sensitive device that needs above average UPS authonomy time.
