Elk M1XOVR Question

I need to drive 16 12V LEDs for an annunciator panel and I want to use an Elk M1XOVR for the project. I'm thinking of removing the 8 relays from the board and use the solder points where the relay coils were connected to directly drive 8 of the LEDs. The other 8 LEDs will be driven by the voltage outputs provided on the board. Has anybody done this and is there anything special I need to do to make it work?

To avoid the soldering I would just use the relays installed on the ovr to switch aux power to your leds.
 
Mike.

That is plan B but I need to set up 4 of these and they are monitoring equipment that is on a lot (So the LEDs are on more than they are off). Was just trying to avoid the needless current draw to power a couple of dozen relays that I don't really need.

I would remove one relay and see if the output is what you expect it to be. That way if it doesn't work as expected you have only lost one output and can still use the board. You may even be able to solder the relay back in place.
 
Mike.

Any reason why you couldn't separate the load and put some of them on the voltage outputs of the M1G board itself? This would alleviate you from having to mess with the relays. 
 
Separately, if you could find one, it seems like an ideal situation for an ELK-M1OV board. It's not showing up on the Elk site anymore, so I assume discontinued, but there may still be some available in the wild. 
http://www.automatedoutlet.com/ELK-M1XOV-p/1113.htm 
 
May be worth a call to find out if they have one of these left in stock. 

The M1XOV would be ideal if I can find any. I placed an order through the Automated Outlet web site so maybe I'll get lucky.

I wish there was an easy way to "tag" forum users in a thread such as this...  like you can do on social media. Maybe there is, and I just don't know how to do it here.

This would be a good place to have called upon Avery (who works at AO and is active here) for info/assistance. 
 
http://cocoontech.com/forums/user/34097-automatedavery/

Hi Michael,
 
Our sincere apologies but this part is discontinued and we no longer have any remaining in stock.
 
A full refund has been issued onto your Discover card ending in xxxx
 
We do only have the M1XOVR in stock (http://www.automatedoutlet.com/M1XOVR-p/1114.htm).
 
Again our sincere apologies for the inconvenience.
 
Thank you,
 
 
Avery
Carrollton Branch

Automated Outlet

I probably wouldn't spend all the time removing solder and relays from the board.....at some point you need to decide if it's really the law of diminishing returns.

Can you use the relays in "inverted" mode.  Use the relay in the un-energized state to keep the LED on (with the NC Contact) with no draw for the coil.  Then energize it only when you want to turn the LED off? 

Both good points. Maybe not worth the effort to de-solder... especially if the duty cycle ends up where inverting the relays mitigates the current drain. Going to continue to keep an eye out for used M1XOVR boards though as that is still the best solution.