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Early Vid: Enterprise Power Distribution Units (Patreon)

Published:
2025-08-19 04:22:32
Imported:
2026-06

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Taking a look at some enterprise PDUs, specifically an ADP AP7830 from 2005. I'll go over the current retro rack power situation, fire up this AP7830 to see if we can interact with it, and prototype a future control panel using an old Liebert System3 panel and some ESP8266 microcontrollers.Video should go live Thursday or Friday!

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Enterprise Power Distribution Units

Taking a look at some enterprise PDUs, specifically an ADP AP7830 from 2005. I'll go over the current retro rack power situation, fire up this AP7830 to see if we can interact with it, and prototype a future control panel using an old Liebert System3 panel and some ESP8266 microcontrollers. Check me out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/clabretro Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio #netro #retrotech #retrocomputer #ibm #networking Serial to USB converter: https://amzn.to/4mAXDlJ Rack stuff StarTech Universal Rack Rails: https://amzn.to/404JV1Q StarTech 42U Rack: https://amzn.to/482c3oh StarTech 25U Rack: https://amzn.to/3mEB7hS Tripp Lite SMART1500LCD UPS: https://amzn.to/3KZW3Jw 1U 24 Port Patch Panel: https://amzn.to/3Nm0bFa 1U Brush Panel: https://amzn.to/3mExAA3 1U Rack Shelf: https://amzn.to/3oaDclT Video gear Camera: https://amzn.to/4al3xjA Main mics: https://amzn.to/4dCUuO2 Desk mic: https://amzn.to/3ye8BsV Note: The above are Amazon affiliate links. It doesn't cost you extra, but I'll receive a commission which will help keep the content coming. I only link to things I've personally ordered. 00:00 Intro 00:37 APC AP7830 01:32 Current Retro Rack Power Situation 04:48 PDU Types 208V, and 240V 08:04 Buck-boost Transformers 09:12 Powering up the AP7830 17:07 APC's History 18:41 Future Retro Rack Power Plans 19:48 Prototyping a Retro Rack Control Panel 21:30 Programming an ESP8266 30:45 208V AP7911 Overview 31:34 Next Steps

Comments

Justin Danielson

I don't think I've ever come across something single phase that said 208v that wasn't happy to take 240v. Unless it was horrifyingly expensive, I'd say send it

clabretro

I was thinking about that, definitely going to get the right cable and go for it haha

Michał Szczepaniak

Oh I wanted to buy some second hand cheap old PDU with ability to measure power and turn each socked individually but sadly i don't think those exist. Currently i have 10 socket power bar and i've run out of sockets already, and i'm measuring power for all computers using single smart socket. From my understanding pdu with power measurement can also do that but would be nice if it could measure each socket individually, but again, don't think such thing exists :/ Oh also the issue here is that some of them want three phases of 230V which is a LOT and hard to get three phases in residential building (tho my dad has one and its awesome)

Lily Finley

I have more than a dozen of these Cyclades PDUs (https://www.basscomputers.com/product/avocent-cyclades-pm10-20a-pdu/3105), across my 5 racks, plus a few in the office. I got them for basically the cost of shipping a few years ago. They're a nice 1U form-factor and they're switched (in addition to being metered). I chopped off all of their 20 amp plugs and put on 15 amp plugs for ease of plugging it in anywhere. They only have a serial console port, no Ethernet, so I wrote a C# app you can throw on a Raspberry Pi that converts it into a Home-Assistant-friendly REST API. They're great.

Diego Silva

What a timely vid! I just got a UPS and a PDU delivered, all 230/400V, 3 phase. Down here in Uruguay its pretty easy to get 400V 3 phase to your house (all street wiring is 3 phase, normally in residential services it's a single phase drop from the pole using a random phase and the neutral), however 400V 3 phase is mandatory for services over 10kW. (As a bonus, pretty cool for electric cars! Like in Europe, our EVs charge with the Type 2 plug which can handle 3 phase, and most EVs can draw something like 26kW using their onboard charger when plugged into a 400V AC EVSE) I added a 400V (3P+N) circuit on my panel, and a red 3P+N+E 32A Red IEC industrial socket. UPS draws from that, outputs 400V, PDU splits it into 230V C13 female sockets from each phase to neutral, in sequence for each socket. Literally finished setting it up in the rack an hour ago! As always, great video! Keep up the great work!

Michał Szczepaniak

Let me clarify myself. While you can get PDU that measures each individual port, or pdu that can turn each port individually, its impossible to find one that does both, at least not in cheap category

Vorisi

Id suggest some denounce in your esp code. Nice to see some diy electronics creeping in, though!

clabretro

oh interesting, I'll have a look at those!

clabretro

interesting! it's very rare to have 3 phase at a house here !

clabretro

oh yeah I'll definitely have to do that once things get ready for "production"

Jonathan Cilley

I ran a small data center in the mid 2000’s that was all APC for racks, power distribution, and in-row cooling. We had a ton of those PDUs all networked and controlled with APC’s data center monitoring tools. Brings back fun memories.

clabretro

Awesome. Was eyeing some old ads showing some of their monitoring tools, will hopefully get a chance to get hands on with it eventually.

Jonathan Cilley

I loved working with their central management tools. I could see the status of all my cooling and power in one dashboard. Made things easy.

Thomas Eriksen

All grounded SMPS have leakage current, some even have warning label about high leakage current, with many SMPS on same circuit leakage current will sum to a level that trips GFCI, if your regulations allow; drop GFCI for network racks

Martin Paulsen

If you don't end up using the long boi in the rack, you could mount it to the wall behind the workbench and have more outlets for stuff than you'll ever use (probably).

clabretro

Yeah I should've mentioned, I'll drop the GFCI altogether when I upgrade to 20amp.

clabretro

Yes! I was thinking that as well.

Will G.

My office has a server room with a window. Looked through the window today and noticed the huge power unit has a Liebert panel.