[Beowulf] Watts Up Pro

[Michael Lewis]

On Fri, Jul 13, 2007 at 07:53:55PM -0700, Greg Lindahl wrote:
> So, the thing that logs power usage over time seems to be the "Watts
> Up Pro", which says that it plugs into USB and has a Windoze program that
> graphs power usage. Does anyone have one, and can you access the data
> sans Windoze program? Are there any other cheap logging power meters?

I have one of these (though mine is plain serial, and not the usb model).
It is in fact possible to get at the data without the included software.

The vendor documents the protocol here (again, mine is serial and not USB,
so YYMV):
https://www.wattsupmeters.com/comprotocol.pdf

It's a pretty simple protocol.  It is possible both to instruct the device
to log samples to the serial port, or to have it dump its logs.  I tend to
just use a regular old terminal program (tip, kermit, minicom, what have you)
and send it the commands by hand and cut and paste the output.  Someday(tm),
in my Copious Free Time(tm), I'd like to whip up a script that would send the
commands, parse the output, and perhaps even insert the results into a
database.

The ability to hook it up in the machine room, and be able to run tests and
collect data without having to stay in the machine room alone is worth the
extra cost above the Kill-A-Watt, IMO.

-- 
Michael Lewis                       |   mclewis at ucdavis.edu
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