Adding External Power Supply

[wanted]

Hi all,

can some one clarify whether or not adding an external power supply of 13.8vdc to the M1 will result in damage?

In particular the Expanders on the DataBus and also the M1EXP.

From my reading of the manuals the Expanders should be ok because there voltage ranges seems to be 9 - 14vdc.

I'm tring to run these items on an additional power supply, i assume you still will need to tie the negatives of the different PS on the databus?

Thankyou

Anthony

 

[sandman]

Hi all,

can some one clarify whether or not adding an external power supply of 13.8vdc to the M1 will result in damage?

In particular the Expanders on the DataBus and also the M1EXP.

From my reading of the manuals the Expanders should be ok because there voltage ranges seems to be 9 - 14vdc.

I'm tring to run these items on an additional power supply, i assume you still will need to tie the negatives of the different PS on the databus?

Thankyou

Anthony

Hi Anthony, not sure why you would want to run external power supplys connected to an ELK. A few things though come to mind

1) If you have an extreme number of PIRs. Run the PIRs from an external PSU but make sure it has a backup battery.
2) ELK outputs with relay boards. Personally I think ELK could have done something a little better here. To drive those relay boards from the databus, I cant see that being a good idea HOWEVER they are the designers.

I had this issue and decided to power all the ELK boards from the BUS however I used Digital Output expanders (no relays) and drove the line output into a Darlington driver ULN2003 with the help of an external power supply to drive my 240v contactors. In that way, very light load on the ELK bus and let the Darlington driver sink the heavy current.

Cheers..Pete

 

[AutomatedOutlet]

but make sure it has a backup battery

Yes, very true. If you loose power, you don't want any of your sensors to suddenly drop out. It could trigger alarms.

 

[CollinR]

Also depends too..

If all the PIRs do is occupancy detection it's no biggy, the lights won't work anyway!


But yes if it is a burglary zone it needs backup.