Warning - rambling post before I get to the point at the end, but thats par for the course...
So the power went out here yesterday when a giant oak with shallow roots, too much rain, and a gust of wind all came together. No one was injured and it trapped us all in our little neighborhood for the day, forcing everyone to actually talk to each other (in large part about when the power would come back, and also for me to say, Yes, I do have generator gas, yes, it is still good because theres this stuff called Stabil you should try, and yes, you may have some. But thats another story about how todays men dont know how to prepare for squat, and it makes me sound old and even more codgery, and if you're reading this on CTech theres a decent chance youre not in that camp as youre also a somewhat competent human. But anyway...
This whole episode got me to thinking about a cheap way to build a simple power outage detector that would connect to a zone on a security system (Elk M1G in my case), thereby notifying as to when the power goes out and comes back on. And, before someone tries to remind me that the Elk will tell me that automatically with a simple text, please understand that my Elk and internet and ISY are powered by a dedicated circuit that is in turn powered by a repurposed server UPS that is in turn connected to four 110AH batteries wired in series to 48V to power that UPS. So, it basically doesnt lose power for quite some time (better part of a day or more). Thus... I need a device to tell me weve lost power when Im away from home other than the neighborhood soccer moms and their soccer hubbies on FB, as I generally try to ignore those posts (and FB in general, come to think of it). I know I could go spend $70 or more, and maybe pay another subscription fee, to solve this. But that goes against my codgery nature and seems silly when I likely have a bunch of parts laying around that should accomplish the same thing. Maybe a RIB, mounted in a box? Anyone already solved this one and care to share?
So the power went out here yesterday when a giant oak with shallow roots, too much rain, and a gust of wind all came together. No one was injured and it trapped us all in our little neighborhood for the day, forcing everyone to actually talk to each other (in large part about when the power would come back, and also for me to say, Yes, I do have generator gas, yes, it is still good because theres this stuff called Stabil you should try, and yes, you may have some. But thats another story about how todays men dont know how to prepare for squat, and it makes me sound old and even more codgery, and if you're reading this on CTech theres a decent chance youre not in that camp as youre also a somewhat competent human. But anyway...
This whole episode got me to thinking about a cheap way to build a simple power outage detector that would connect to a zone on a security system (Elk M1G in my case), thereby notifying as to when the power goes out and comes back on. And, before someone tries to remind me that the Elk will tell me that automatically with a simple text, please understand that my Elk and internet and ISY are powered by a dedicated circuit that is in turn powered by a repurposed server UPS that is in turn connected to four 110AH batteries wired in series to 48V to power that UPS. So, it basically doesnt lose power for quite some time (better part of a day or more). Thus... I need a device to tell me weve lost power when Im away from home other than the neighborhood soccer moms and their soccer hubbies on FB, as I generally try to ignore those posts (and FB in general, come to think of it). I know I could go spend $70 or more, and maybe pay another subscription fee, to solve this. But that goes against my codgery nature and seems silly when I likely have a bunch of parts laying around that should accomplish the same thing. Maybe a RIB, mounted in a box? Anyone already solved this one and care to share?
