ECE497 Project - PDU

Team members: Wesley Van Pelt

Grade
 -- Executive Summary -- Installation Instructions -- User Instructions -- Highlights -- Theory of Operation -- Work Breakdown -- Future Work -- Conclusions -- Demo -- Late

Score: --/100

Executive Summary
Please look at the repo readme, I did all of my actual documentation there. Any time I spend working on this wiki page is time I could be spending on the repo readme, the project itself, or studying for other finals.

What is a PDU and what is it for
A Power Distribution Unit (PDU) is a very general term which is basically just a relay box with a bunch of outlets. They also typically have power monitoring for each of the outlets, and are controlled through a web interface.

What is this specific PDU
This PDU was built with 18 outlets in groups of 2 and 4 on each relay with a current monitor.

How do I use it
SSH into the bone, and use the cli at `/pdu/src/cli` to turn the relays on and off. Use `/pdu/src/power_logger.py` to log power usage and `cat /pdu/log/live` to see current readings. And definitely read the usage parts of the readme.

Packaging
Everything is mounted in a short 2U server case with a CNCed backplate for mounting the outlets. Refer to the repo readme for a part list.

Installation Instructions
https://bitbucket.org/wesley5040/pdu

User Instructions
The user should read my repo readme.

Highlights
I plan on actually using this, so it has nice packaging and a thorough readme.

Theory of Operation
You connect this to your UPS so you can power cycle devices without having to get up from your desk as well as see their power usage.

Work Breakdown
I did everything.

Future Work
The main thing is really just to get a working display with some input buttons mounted to the case. Maybe an ncurses interface which has power usage graphs. I don't really want a web UI, but having pfSense dashboard integration would be nice.

Conclusions
I look forward to using this, and it was more work than I thought.