Apologies and another question

[mikefamig]

You mentioned above that you are planning to use the Altronix to power the entire system... I assume this to mean both the house components as well as garage components.
 
There are also posts above asking about installing it in the house vs. the garage. I didn't see anything clarifying where you have decided to install - I assumed the house due to temperatures mentioned.

 
Yes but the altronix isn't installed yet, it is planned as an upgrade to rule out any power supply problems and for future expansion. Right now the house runs on the controller ps with the exception of the xep which runs on a p1216 as you advised. The garage runs on the p212s.
 
Mike.
 
Correction to the above....the twa runs on the p1216.

 

[mikefamig]

drvnbysound
 
To catch you up.............My problem may have been a bad controller all along. Elk replaced it for me and all is well in the original configuration. What  a long strange trip it's been.
 
Mike.

 

[drvnbysound]

drvnbysound
 
To catch you up.............My problem may have been a bad controller all along. Elk replaced it for me and all is well in the original configuration. What  a long strange trip it's been.
 
Mike.

 
I didn't miss that at all (here).

 

[mikefamig]

I didn't miss that at all (here).

Then back to your original question. You asked what the voltage is in the garage? I don't understand.

 

[drvnbysound]

In your original configuration, you had Elk components in the garage, correct? Are they still there?
 
If so, will you be using the Altronix to power these components?
 
You mentioned that you found the pot adjustment on the Altronix, which allows you to adjust to 16VDC. I assume you won't be leaving it that high if you are also powering equipment in the house. So, if you drop the voltage down to 12-13.8VDC... what's the voltage measured in the garage?
 
Just as mentioned before, you're going to have a voltage drop due to the length of cable between the locations. If you're at 13.8V in the house...  are you getting 12 in the garage?
 
Generally speaking, many power supplies have the voltage adjustment so you can overcome voltage drop when using longer cables, as you are doing. However, if you are also driving equipment near the PS, you won't be able to do so, without over driving voltage to the nearby components.

 

[mikefamig]

In your original configuration, you had Elk components in the garage, correct? Are they still there?

Yes
 

If so, will you be using the Altronix to power these components?

Yes

You mentioned that you found the pot adjustment on the Altronix, which allows you to adjust to 16VDC. I assume you won't be leaving it that high if you are also powering equipment in the house. So, if you drop the voltage down to 12-13.8VDC... what's the voltage measured in the garage?
 
Just as mentioned before, you're going to have a voltage drop due to the length of cable between the locations. If you're at 13.8V in the house...  are you getting 12 in the garage?
 
Generally speaking, many power supplies have the voltage adjustment so you can overcome voltage drop when using longer cables, as you are doing. However, if you are also driving equipment near the PS, you won't be able to do so, without over driving voltage to the nearby components.

We discussed earlier in the message thread the option of turning up the voltage at the supply to a point that the voltage is correct in the garage. At that point the voltage at the supply may be too high in the house but this problem can be solved by putting one or more diodes in a series in the supply circuit until the voltage is reduced to the required voltage ~13.8vdc.

 

[RAL]

You mentioned that you found the pot adjustment on the Altronix, which allows you to adjust to 16VDC. I assume you won't be leaving it that high if you are also powering equipment in the house. So, if you drop the voltage down to 12-13.8VDC... what's the voltage measured in the garage?
 
Just as mentioned before, you're going to have a voltage drop due to the length of cable between the locations. If you're at 13.8V in the house...  are you getting 12 in the garage?

 
 
One other thing that Mike mentioned that will be different this time is that rather than using 3 pairs of wire in the Cat5e cable to deliver the power to the garage, he will switch over to using a spare set of 16 gauge wire that also runs out there.  That should help reduce the voltage drop.

 

[Del91574]

The M1 I just finished up this past weekend was running close to 14 VDC at the terminals of the panel. I adjusted the Altronix I installed to match with a couple of tenths to compensate for a 150' cable run (but I used 2 pulls of  3pr 18 AWG OAS, TP, direct burial PLTC).
 
I'm still going to connect the fire alarm in the detached building directly to the M1....too many bad memories of a bus device dropping out and it's a reasonably short run and I've got the appropriate AWG conductors installed (and surge protected on both ends).
 
But from experience, you want closer to 13V at distance for any remote bus devices. There's really not going to be any major issues with the devices powered in the house being "overvoltaged" if it's not insane before the drop.

 

[drvnbysound]

We discussed earlier in the message thread the option of turning up the voltage at the supply to a point that the voltage is correct in the garage. At that point the voltage at the supply may be too high in the house but this problem can be solved by putting one or more diodes in a series in the supply circuit until the voltage is reduced to the required voltage ~13.8vdc.

 
Understood. I wasn't sure if this [i.e. diodes] was something that you were planning to do.

 

[drvnbysound]

One other thing that Mike mentioned that will be different this time is that rather than using 3 pairs of wire in the Cat5e cable to deliver the power to the garage, he will switch over to using a spare set of 16 gauge wire that also runs out there.  That should help reduce the voltage drop.

 
Yes... "should help". That's why I was asking if it has been measured.

 

[drvnbysound]

The M1 I just finished up this past weekend was running close to 14 VDC at the terminals of the panel. I adjusted the Altronix I installed to match with a couple of tenths to compensate for a 150' cable run (but I used 2 pulls of  3pr 18 AWG OAS, TP, direct burial PLTC).
 
I'm still going to connect the fire alarm in the detached building directly to the M1....too many bad memories of a bus device dropping out and it's a reasonably short run and I've got the appropriate AWG conductors installed (and surge protected on both ends).
 
But from experience, you want closer to 13V at distance for any remote bus devices. There's really not going to be any major issues with the devices powered in the house being "overvoltaged" if it's not insane before the drop.

 
So, if you want 13V at the remote devices, and you have a 2V drop, you are talking about 15V out of the PS. I don't recall what all the existing home devices are, but will they operate on 15V without issue? My other concern is not only what is being powered today, but if anything will be added in the future as well... and how those device(s) will operate with the higher voltage. It may be a non-issue... but just raising the question.

 

[Del91574]

Just looked up the Bosch blue lines I use to be sure with hard numbers,  Rated to 15VDC. Also looked up Honeywell (16VDC) and Optex (18VDC).
 
If you have a 2V drop on a 12V system, frankly, you have a design issue. Over 15% VD is not acceptable on the "listed" voltage.
 
If you're running a distribution board, easy enough to drop the voltage in the house if it really was a concern, as I mentioned how to do it before. Even if no dist board, easy enough to pigtail and be done.

 

[RAL]

I don't recall what all the existing home devices are, but will they operate on 15V without issue? My other concern is not only what is being powered today, but if anything will be added in the future as well... and how those device(s) will operate with the higher voltage. It may be a non-issue... but just raising the question.

 
You raise a good point. Out of curiosity, I looked at the specs for about a dozen different devices, such as smoke detectors, PIR detectors, glass break detectors and such. I can't say I've done an exhaustive search, but all of the ones I checked have an input voltage spec of at least 9 to 15VDC.  Some allow for voltages as low as 6V, and some as high as 35V.  
 
So, you're right that you need to worry about it and check to make sure the devices actually being used can handle whatever voltage is being supplied.  But in most cases, I think it will be ok.

 

[mikefamig]

So, if you want 13V at the remote devices, and you have a 2V drop, you are talking about 15V out of the PS. I don't recall what all the existing home devices are, but will they operate on 15V without issue? My other concern is not only what is being powered today, but if anything will be added in the future as well... and how those device(s) will operate with the higher voltage. It may be a non-issue... but just raising the question.

When I had the p212s in the house I used three cat5e leads twisted together as one to carry the power and the voltage drop was only 0.6 volts. I had 13.8 at the house and 13.2 at the garage so I think htat I will be ok with the 16awg that I will be using with the altronix.
 
Mike.

 

[mikefamig]

I started the new controller on Wednesday at 5pm and it is still running with a clean log and reasonable number of data bus errors. I wake up each morning and look at the log and breath a big sigh of relief. I wish that I had replaced the control a  month ago when Elk first offered.
 
Mike.