Other than making sure all of the negative terminals are common to the power supplies, is there a do's and dont's guide to adding additional power to an M1? Specifically adding power to ELKDBH's. I plan on using ELK 4 amp power supplies. What happens if a power supply fails does it take the whole system down? The installation is an approximately 10,000 square foot house, 8 keypads, lots of peripherals, etc.
Adding Power to an M1
- Thread starter rfdesq
- Start date
Make sure that your backup batteries can also support all the required power of the system. With this comes another challenge. How to prevent the battery charging circuit in the M1 from overloading (assuming you add extra batteries in parallel with the original one).
What I would do is to power as many peripherals as possible from a parallel 12v power system (with individual power supply, charge controller and battery) . You can power most non-RS485 devices this way: motion sensors, etc. Install a relay or opto-isolator from this 12v circuit to feed a zone in the M1 to detect whenever there is a power loss in your secondary 12v circuit.
Using this method you have almost no limits in your design, and avoid placing the whole system at an overloading risk.
What I would do is to power as many peripherals as possible from a parallel 12v power system (with individual power supply, charge controller and battery) . You can power most non-RS485 devices this way: motion sensors, etc. Install a relay or opto-isolator from this 12v circuit to feed a zone in the M1 to detect whenever there is a power loss in your secondary 12v circuit.
Using this method you have almost no limits in your design, and avoid placing the whole system at an overloading risk.
BraveSirRobbin
Moderator
You may want to consider using Elk's Power Distribution Modules also. I replied to a thread by IVB where I mentioned this in detail. 
Those are the PD9HC's I mentioned in my earlier post. I highly agree. I'm still concerned about injecting 12 volts into the RS485 DBH.BraveSirRobbin said:You may want to consider using Elk's Power Distribution Modules also. I replied to a thread by IVB where I mentioned this in detail.
BraveSirRobbin
Moderator
Ah, gotcha!rfdesq said:Those are the PD9HC's I mentioned in my earlier post. I highly agree. I'm still concerned about injecting 12 volts into the RS485 DBH.BraveSirRobbin said:You may want to consider using Elk's Power Distribution Modules also. I replied to a thread by IVB where I mentioned this in detail.Â
You dont have to do it if you will not overload your M1 power capacity from your RS485 devices only. If your drive all other non-RS485 using a parallel 12v power system (using the PD9HCs to isolate sections of the power hub) you will leave the M1 internal power only for devices that really require it.rfdesq said:
A siren or group of sirens is another candidate for the separate power supply. You will need to control the voltage to the siren using OUT3 or the output expander.
How will you tell whenever a leg of the PD9HC get a power faliure? This is critical, beause some of your sensors might not notice it. In the case of the siren you will not be able to notice about the faliure until you try to use it. If you use an external power supply it will not be supervised. A solution is to connect the input of an optoisolator to the 12v (with a very high resistor to limit current). Then connect the output to a zone in the M1. Using a 24Hr Supervised type zone you will be able to trigger actions whenever there is a power loss. One option is to send ou email or dial you a message about the trouble.
I guess it's time to break out the calculator and determine the load of 8 keypads, 12 two wire smoke detectors, a couple of temperature sensors, etc. All other devices will be taken off of the M1 panel load by a separate power supply.
I plan on firing two ELK45's from one of the 2.5 amp outputs on the 4 amp supply. This will be through a relay connected to output 3. The relay is supervised but not the sirens.
Time to research optoisolators .
I plan on firing two ELK45's from one of the 2.5 amp outputs on the 4 amp supply. This will be through a relay connected to output 3. The relay is supervised but not the sirens.
Time to research optoisolators
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