# Tripp Lite UPS Monitoring

**URL:** <https://discourse.nodered.org/t/tripp-lite-ups-monitoring/35388>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [5 November 2020 17:39 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/tripp-lite-ups-monitoring/35388 "2020-11-05T17:39:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 11\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![wecoyote5](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/wecoyote5/32/27418_2.png) [@wecoyote5](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/wecoyote5)\
**Post date:** [5 November 2020 17:39 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/tripp-lite-ups-monitoring/35388/1 "2020-11-05T17:39:41Z")

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Hi all, has anyone integrated a Tripp-Lite UPS in Node-Red to monitor power and gracefully shutdown that could share their setup? The UPS has the USB interface and no network capability and I'm running NR on an RPi4 which has a UPS port available.  
Thanks!

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**Author:** ![Trying\_to\_learn](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/trying_to_learn/32/28400_2.png) [@Trying\_to\_learn](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Trying_to_learn)\
**Post date:** [5 November 2020 19:32 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/tripp-lite-ups-monitoring/35388/2 "2020-11-05T19:32:22Z")

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You may need to elaborate more on that.

What does the USB offer for commands? Is it a _serial_ port?  
Is there any protocol needed to log in?

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**Author:** ![wecoyote5](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/wecoyote5/32/27418_2.png) [@wecoyote5](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/wecoyote5)\
**Post date:** [5 November 2020 20:58 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/tripp-lite-ups-monitoring/35388/3 "2020-11-05T20:58:32Z")

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Sure, from what I can glean, it's a serial interface with set of basic commands. I haven't found any specs on the interface yet (the search continues). The closest I came so far is this npm package... [https://www.npmjs.com/package/node-tripp-lite](https://www.npmjs.com/package/node-tripp-lite) which matches the connection type (USB) and makes sense as to what info would be available. Before I start down a rabbit hole I was wondering if anyone tried this interface yet.

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**Author:** ![Trying\_to\_learn](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/trying_to_learn/32/28400_2.png) [@Trying\_to\_learn](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Trying_to_learn)\
**Post date:** [5 November 2020 21:07 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/tripp-lite-ups-monitoring/35388/4 "2020-11-05T21:07:27Z")

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You will have to study the commands sent/received and how they are parsed.

I know nothing of the UPS.

What exactly is it you want to do? If you don't know that, then the rabbit hole just got a whole lot bigger.

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**Author:** ![wecoyote5](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/wecoyote5/32/27418_2.png) [@wecoyote5](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/wecoyote5)\
**Post date:** [5 November 2020 21:10 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/tripp-lite-ups-monitoring/35388/5 "2020-11-05T21:10:23Z")

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My plan is simple... I want to put my automation hardware on a UPS and I want to monitor the UPS to see if it's on battery power and if after xx minutes on battery power gracefully shutdown all the hardware.

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**Author:** ![TotallyInformation](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/totallyinformation/32/31_2.png) [@TotallyInformation](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/TotallyInformation)\
**Post date:** [5 November 2020 21:15 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/tripp-lite-ups-monitoring/35388/6 "2020-11-05T21:15:25Z")

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I've not but I do have my APC UPS connected. APC has a well-known API though and an app for Linux.

Incidentally, if you shut down the Pi, Node-RED will also shut down fairly cleanly.

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**Author:** ![dceejay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/dceejay/32/38_2.png) [@dceejay](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/dceejay)\
**Post date:** [5 November 2020 21:15 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/tripp-lite-ups-monitoring/35388/7 "2020-11-05T21:15:31Z")

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That npm library you have found looks like a great place to start. It should be fairly simple to wrap into a node if you have any JavaScript programming experience.

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**Author:** ![wecoyote5](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/wecoyote5/32/27418_2.png) [@wecoyote5](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/wecoyote5)\
**Post date:** [5 November 2020 21:34 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/tripp-lite-ups-monitoring/35388/8 "2020-11-05T21:34:10Z")

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All my programming experience is in industrial automation (PLCs, HMIs, etc) and I have little exposure to JavaScript so it'll take a while to plow through it but I'll see what I can come up with. I did a little more research and the TrippLite's USB connection is HID enabled so it should work with this npm package or possibly the NR usbhid package. So we'll see, thanks for the feedback all.  
@TotallyInformation, thanks, although I'm not as concerned about NR as I am with my Hubitat; possible dB corruption can happen with an abrupt power loss. Hubitat can't monitor the UPS but I can pass the shutdown command from NR to Hubitat.

Again, thanks all for the help.

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**Author:** ![TotallyInformation](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/totallyinformation/32/31_2.png) [@TotallyInformation](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/TotallyInformation)\
**Post date:** [5 November 2020 21:40 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/tripp-lite-ups-monitoring/35388/9 "2020-11-05T21:40:16Z")

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> [@wecoyote5](#):
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> Hubitat; possible dB corruption can happen with an abrupt power loss. Hubitat can't monitor the UPS but I can pass the shutdown command from NR to Hubitat.

Well that should be easy enough. How is Hubitat started, is it from a systemd script?

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**Author:** ![wecoyote5](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/wecoyote5/32/27418_2.png) [@wecoyote5](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/wecoyote5)\
**Post date:** [5 November 2020 22:05 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/tripp-lite-ups-monitoring/35388/10 "2020-11-05T22:05:52Z")

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Yea, the hooks are there I just need to create the event to kick it all off. I just can't monitor it directly in hubitat so I'm leveraging my NR interface.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/nodered/original/1X/d073cd938eafa2e558d7c2cd59003b3ef4963033.png) [@system](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [4 January 2021 22:06 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/tripp-lite-ups-monitoring/35388/11 "2021-01-04T22:06:08Z")

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