How to View Current Draw During M1 Alarm?

[video321]

Sorry, Lou...my bad; I meant to say current draw.

Thinking about this whole thing makes me wonder if the 1A for available current does NOT include output 1 & 2 (when in speaker mode anyway). I looked again at the Elk current draw worksheet and there isn't even a listing for output 1 & 2.

 

[apostolakisl]

How about that. Elk shows you the current draw on the battery during a battery test. Never new that was there. It is automaticaly doing the same thing I thought was such a great idea to set up manually with a multimeter. . . without the multimeter.

 

[Del91574]

One more thing....
I was looking at the P112K which includes the 624 PS. The specs don't list that as not allowing the battery to deep discharge. Do ayone know if it does or not? I did see Elk has a switch that could be wired in that has that feature.
Any recommendations for a secondary PS? Altronix?

Depends on what you're looking to do with it.

The smaller supplies don't offer any loadshed on AC loss/low battery, so $10 buys a LBC from Elk. The supply you purchase would depend on what your install has and what you intend on adding or using the supply for, or what you really want to do.

If you're running a general supply and want to supervise it, a 212S is a nice feature. If you're just running some minor things, I wouldn't justify the expense to drive a strobe and maybe a piezo or two, however if you size the supply and battery appropriately, loadshedding on the panel can be done. The big thing is when loadshedding burg devices (not audible/visual or fire) that your supply has more standby than your panel, otherwise very bad things happen as the supply cuts out with the panel still running, especially bus devices.

 

[video321]

I've been going back and forth with this and spent a lot of time comparing supplies by Altronix since their price point is much better than Elk with more features.

Although, I don't believe I need a PS for my install...as of now. From looking at the M1 manual I see the power supply is rated @ 2.5A and the UL listing for a residential burglar alarm states a siren on output 2 and 1A on VAUX, SAUX, VKP & J16 combined (nothing stating the 1A includes out 2). The question I have now is if all of that power is coming from the transformer or if some of it comes from the battery. If the latter, what happens if I don't have a battery or it happens to be bad?

 

[video321]

How about that. Elk shows you the current draw on the battery during a battery test. Never new that was there. It is automaticaly doing the same thing I thought was such a great idea to set up manually with a multimeter. . . without the multimeter.

But the battery test isn't giving you the alarm draw (unless there's something I'm missing here). Your first idea of putting the meter in-line with the battery and setting of the alarm would be best if someone didn't have 2 keypads like I used.

 

[tmbrown97]

I do recall something I read a while back about using a relay to switch on certain outputs like the siren, but having the power coming directly off the M1's battery - basically the output drives the relay which connects the siren directly to the battery, bypassing the M1's power restrictions. I think Spanky mentioned it.

 

[video321]

I do recall something I read a while back about using a relay to switch on certain outputs like the siren, but having the power coming directly off the M1's battery - basically the output drives the relay which connects the siren directly to the battery, bypassing the M1's power restrictions. I think Spanky mentioned it.

You recall correctly; I've seen them
What I'm curious about is how are things actually powered. Is power automatically pulled from the battery during an alarm condition to give it that 2.5A rating? Or can the system itself power it. I guess one way to find out would be to pull the battery and put it into alarm, but I really don't like to have my exterior speaker wailing for tests.

 

[Del91574]

Rather than doing that, why not just buy a $20 Altronix SMP3 with a 4Ah battery and transformer and call it a day instead of messing with the garbage of sacrificing the backup time on the panel and similar? We're only talking piezos and strobes here. You'd still be using an outboard relay for load switching.

 

[video321]

Again, DEL, I'm not going to disagree with you; that would be a wise decision and probably what I end up doing. I may even get a larger PS/battery to power more things as well. I guess I'd like to know exactly what is happening with my panel though. Like you said, it's only piezos and strobes, which aren't drawing any current until called upon so I'm not really reducing the uptime of the panel unless I'm in an alarm condition.

 

[video321]

Considering my goal, I do agree that I should be looking to offload as much power from the panel as possible. Like DEL said, why would I want to sacrifice the backup time of the panel? Though I don't believe that means a secondary PS.

Instead, I might look to double the backup time of the panel. Since (at this time) the only power hungry devices I have are triggered during an alarm condition, why not just add a 2nd 8AH battery in parallel and run a fused output to the relay-triggered devices. That would give my all the power I require during an alarm while doubling the standby time of the panel.

That seems to be the most logical solution at this time, unless there is something I'm missing. I do realize one faulty battery could bring down the other, but the risk of a faulty battery was there to begin with - I just doubled the risk.

Thoughts?

 

[video321]

What I'm curious about is how are things actually powered. Is power automatically pulled from the battery during an alarm condition to give it that 2.5A rating? Or can the system itself power it.

Looking through the manual some more I found this:
Standby Battery Connection
Connect the BLACK wire to the Neg (-) terminal on the battery, the connect the RED wire to the Pos (+) terminal on the battery. The control is designed to operate with and recharge a 12 volt, sealed lead acid battery from 7Ah up to 18 Ah for backup of the primary power supply. The control maintains a float charge for the battery of 13.8 VDC at 100 mA. This is in addition to the continuous output of 1.5 Amps that the power supply maintains (see maximum current drains for UL Listed Systems).

That is telling me the system can pull 1.5A before going to battery for more current, right?

 

[ecborgoyn]

This isn't exactly consistent with other words from Elk. Other places indicate a max of 1.0A continuous. This MIGHT be due to a conservative spec/design. Or it might be a consequence of the UL listing process. I have no experience or visibility into this process. Does anyone else?

I have a few outstanding questions into Elk support regarding the power supply.