An alternative to APC’s proprietary network card to keep your UPS humming. Or, well, hopefully not *humming*… just providing good, clean power to your racks.
Resources mentioned in this video:
– OpenNMC on Crowd Supply:
– OpenNMC Docs:
– NetCube Systems Austria:
Support me on Patreon:
Sponsor me on GitHub:
Merch:
Main Channel:
2nd Channel:
Contents:
00:00 – Why an open NMC
01:57 – Swapping out NMCs
02:21 – First login and firmware updates
03:05 – NUT and better power graphs
source
Would love this if the price is reasonable, until then, ESPHome to APC Serial is sub 10 bucks
Is there anything like this available for eaton and tripplite?
I have 3 APC UPS with NMC3s and even with the 3, APC wants to be an ass about support if you don't have proof that you bought it from an approved vendor. I also hate how the only way to get data out to open standards is through SNMP. Its not bad, but their implementation of v2c is broken and v3 is so slow on their cards. I am excited to see someone making a 3p card for this.
Sadley, it's past time for me to replace my main UPS batteries. It takes the normal 12v7ah ones…. 96 of them!
I have 840lbs of surplus UPS in my basement running a significant amount of the house when the power goes out. It was a great deal at $200, but now i need another deal…
At home I have 3x APC UPS I baught a few bucks but which work well after battery exchange….
And I baught NMC2 cards : OF COURSE I didn't paid $1500 for it !
There are many of them second hand to sell in china for less $40….
Installing in my UPS, spend one hour to upgrade and run since (and it manage battery life 😋
So the price of this beautiful project much not cost more than $100 to be competitive…. IMHO….
I'm looking into getting a rack mount UPS for my networking equipment. I'm wanting something that's 1U (2U is fine but I don't have that much to power and don't want too many expensive batteries), and ideally the option to use something like NUT so I'm not locked down to one limited interface. If this comes out at a decent price, would it be worth it to get a new APS UPS to use with this card? Or is there a better option to go with if you're starting fresh?
Looks like a fantastic piece of kit. I hope they work on other versions for different vendors, I'd love a management card for my Cyberpower units with an integrated NUT server.
did they tell you anything about their ideas for management in medium sized business, where people have 30-60 individual UPS?
I would like to see something similar for Eaton NMCs but theyre so small fitting everything on it would be hard
OMG I need this card!!!! That so cool someone is making a solution for this
Neat. But I get what I need using the USB / RS-232 cable. Even my TrueNAS works this way. Lucky me I guess?
Time to replace batteries again, but looking into deep cycle lithium instead of SLA this time around.
Otherwise might get an APC UPS because of this video tho
Why don't you just have like a workstation inside your rack?
UPI
I'm thinking APC is going to sue the blood out of OpenNMC. I don't want them to, but I wouldn't be surprised
When will APC/Schneider punish (e.g. block or brick) 3rd party NMC modules? Is the APC SMARTSLOT even open to non-APC companies, or its specifics is a closely guarded trade secret? Has it been reverse engineered yet?
Give APC a month and the will change the firmware in the UPS to not work with the aftermarket card.
They will say it part of a “security patch”.
Just an fyi for most apc smart-ups for the past few years you can enable advanced menu option and pull everything over modbus including battery life data. Also you can write to many points like self-test and shut off/on output groups you configure
Nice.
I just don't waste money on that kind of UPS. It doesn't need software or cards, needs just to provide power while the mains is out.
A squirrels cheeks also have nuts built in
I have a large one from back in the day modified with 4 large 100ah sla batteries, it backs up my network and my 3d printer for the 45 seconds it takes for the diesel genny to come online.
I only have one UPS in my house, and it powers the transmitter for my dogs' shock collars. We found out the hard way (in a storm) that is VERY important. 😮😂
I'm so excited for this I could…
The Management Card 2 AP9630 was discontinued in 2023, but they have updated the Firmware a couple of time since. To download latest 2025 version just Google the model number.
AWESOME!
Very cool project. I've been happily buying the unsupported NMC2s used for ~$25 for a while now. They live on an isolated offline VLAN, so I don't much care what they do there.
Are they planning to do the same kind of replacement card for other manufacturers like Eaton?
Thats nuts!
Love this! It'd be great to see a similar card for CyberPower UPSs.
I've had two desktop UPSs from APC and I really don't trust them anymore. Both of their battery or control board went bad right after warranty ended, and they sure don't have replaceable batteries.
On the NMC side, I've only dealt with the eaton cards at work, and they're sometimes a massive pain to install.