Apologies and another question

[mikefamig]

The XEP does not draw power from the control if you are using the wall wart, the only item it shares with the panel is a serial connection which is not a load on the panel.

 
I thought that I read that it caused a littel draw but I wouldn't argue the point, my memory isn't that trustworthy.
 

3 pairs of C5 do not equal the ampacity that should be using 18 AWG. Also a big faux-pax and technically against code (placing power source in parallel).

 
I'm surprised that there is a problem with using multiple leads in this way. To the best of my knowledge the three small wires together increase the ampacity and did serve the purpose of increasing the voltage at the load. What is the reasoning against it?
 

You have a board rebooting, that's what the 1367 is indicating. I would be hard pressed to believe it's the M1, but may be possible, as I have heard others report one of the firmwares is suspect. The fact that the M1 behaves without having additional loading on it (TWA on supply) tells me you have a power issue.

 
I re-installed the boot loader and firmware today just for my peace of mind but it is the same version that I installed previously. I agree that there must be a voltage drop occurring but can't find what is causing it. The last restart was in the middle of the night last night.
 
As I said I have re-installed the firmware and I have erased the log and will start fresh tonight. I think that I need to let it run longer than I have been with no changes to see if a pattern emerges.
 

Are you saying you had your meter attached and were reading the voltage directly via a DMM? Any other method is not giving you the real story. Has the wiring been absolutely verified that no grounds or other faults exist?

 
Yes I had the meter on the screw posts of the xin at the garage and used my iphone to arm the garage area. Two overhead doors were intentionally left open and there are rules that turn on outputs for 2 seconds each to close the overhead doors if necessary before arming. I watched the door switch activate and the voltage dropped from ~13.28 to ~13.0.
 
 

By having the load maxing out the output of the 212 (TWA) you did not provide any headroom on the supply....at least 10%. You stated that if you disconnect the TWA the panel behaves, so that tells me you've got a unit that is pulling the panel/supply down.

 
Agreed, it may just have to be good enough to remove the TWA and live without it. But even at that I won't be comfortable that it was the problem until the systems behaves well for a week or more. I understand about the 10% overhead on the 1amp TWA device but I have a hard time thinking that the TWA is drawing more than 1 amp when just sitting silently.
 

If I had time, I'd tell you I'd take a drive over there, but I'm a little under the gun at the moment.

That's a very generous offer.  You are more than welcome to look and it would be good to meet but I don't expect you to work for free. But understand that I would consider it a personal defeat if I don't get to the bottom of it myself. I must be overlooking something.
 
Mike.

 

[mikefamig]

Mike -
 
By my calculations, for a 250' run, the 3 pairs of Cat5e have a resistance of about 4 ohms.  (that's over 500' of total wire length, since you have to count both the resistance of the +12V wire and the resistance of the common.  If the  XIN and XOVR are both drawing their nominal current of 65mA each, you should see a voltage drop of about 0.6V, which is pretty close to what you actually measured.
 
But consider what happens should the current draw suddenly increase due to say, one of more outputs going active.  If the current increases to 0.5A, that will cause a voltage drop of 2V.  And a draw of 1A would cause a drop of 4V.   That would be enough to cause problems for the XIN and XOVR.   A momentary  increase like that will probably not show up with a meter - they just don't react fast enough.

 
OK and this conversation just went over my head. I do not know how to calculate voltage drop. Is there less voltage drop in a cat5e twisted pair than straight wire? I understand that there is resistance in any conductor and that it is affected by heat but I do not know how to calculate it. I WAS able to measure the voltage increase at the load as I doubled and tripled the cat wires and was happy with that. Ignorance is bliss!
 

When a voltage is applied to a relay coil, there is a momentary inrush of current that can be substantially higher than the nominal current that the relay draws after it settles down.
 
DEL might have some further insight as to whether this is possibly what is happening. 

 
Yes DEL has been an incredible help and he has convinced me that I have a power supply problem. I am leaning towards removing the TWA being that it is a large draw and not necessary to my plan.
 
I feel that I'm between a rock and a hard place. I had the 212s power supply in the garage where the cold presents a problem for the battery and it is no use to the TWA which needs to be near the controller. I moved the 212s to the house where it can supply the TWA and the battery is nice and warm but it has a 250' run to the garage introducing the voltage drop.
 
Throwing out the TWA is starting to look like a sensible solution.
 
Mike.

 

[drvnbysound]

The p212s used to be in the garage but I moved it into the house. The controller and the p212s are in the same box along with the M1TWA.
 
The control power supply powers:
 
1 dbh
1 xep which uses the wallwart included wit hit but still draws a little current from the control
1 KP2
1 M1XRFTW
 
The 212s powers has two 1amp outputs
 
#1 carries:
1 M1TWA
 
#2 carries the devices in the garage via three of the cat5e twisted pairs for the 12v supply.
1 DBH
1 XIN
1 OR

 
Based on the above, you have the following on the M1:
(1) DBH -> 0A
(1) KP2 -> 0.085A
(1) XRFTW -> 0.085A
 
You have the XEP powered separately via the wall wart, so no power draw there.
 
The VAUX of the M1 is capable of a 1.25A draw. You have a 0.17A draw. Personally, I'd drop the P212S and drive the TWA from the M1G directly. Unless you have (3) 4ohm loads, and each zone of the TWA maxed out, you aren't going to be drawing 1A through it.
 
I'd also drop the DBH from the garage and just daisy chain the databus from the P212S to the other devices.

 

[Del91574]

Without getting into the fray:
 
Multiple smaller conductor cables do increase the circular mils of the overall cable, however they do not increase the overall ampacity that the cable is capable of handling. It's like stating I decided to pull an 18/6 T-stat cable instead of 14/2 NM cable and the ampacity and capabilities are the same. It may work for a short period of time, but in the long haul, it's asking for trouble as the power source is now in parallel with the multiple conductors and the possibility of an imbalance should one of those tiny 24 AWG conductors fail, have corrosion issues, etc.
 
For FW, I'd roll back to the last UL listed/tested and start there as a benchmark. While the others may be OK, the overall testing and stability required for a UL listing is a wise place to start. Get any variables out of the equation.
 
I don't know what your TWA is doing and/or what sort of rules you may have controlling it, but that's part of the equation here. The second is the devices in the field and what inrush is doing that your meter might not be seeing. This is where an analog meter or a really good DMM come into play to try to catch something that is going on too fast to be caught otherwise. t
 
I would definately look at any cabling that may have any sort of grounding on it, take all the media out of the equation. You should have nothing or very high meg to ground. Don't use your hands to hold the cable to the leads!

I wouldn't be surprised if your TWA is possibly kicking out a PTC on the 212 and then resetting.
 
My suggestion is to put the 212 in the field, deal with oversizing the batteries, and let that run the XIN and XOVR in the field to negate voltage drop.  Second would be to put a supply in at the panel to loadshed the TWA off the panel and 212 and call it a day. From that point, you should be pretty clean on power and what is drawing from where.
 
Now you're making me consider the job I'm trimming out with a 150' building run with an XIN and KPAS in a detached barn and possibly considering an aux supply...but then again, I'm pulling multiple 18/6 for the data and FA circuit out there, so I'll do my homework again
 
All said, let me know if you want to try a supply for the sake of troubleshooting, I've got enough on the scrap pile that would probably fit the bill.

 

[mikefamig]

Based on the above, you have the following on the M1:
(1) DBH -> 0A
(1) KP2 -> 0.085A
(1) XRFTW -> 0.085A
 
You have the XEP powered separately via the wall wart, so no power draw there.
 
The VAUX of the M1 is capable of a 1.25A draw. You have a 0.17A draw. Personally, I'd drop the P212S and drive the TWA from the M1G directly. Unless you have (3) 4ohm loads, and each zone of the TWA maxed out, you aren't going to be drawing 1A through it.
 
I'd also drop the DBH from the garage and just daisy chain the databus from the P212S to the other devices.

Those numbers don't aree with mine
 
See post #18 here
http://cocoontech.com/forums/topic/27097-elk-power-consumption/page-2?hl=%2Belk+%2Bpower+%2Bspreadsheet#entry219606
 
I got those numbers from Elk's power consumption spreadsheet
http://www.elkproducts.com/Owner_support_tools.html
 
Mike.

 

[mikefamig]

Based on the above, you have the following on the M1:
(1) DBH -> 0A
(1) KP2 -> 0.085A
(1) XRFTW -> 0.085A
 
You have the XEP powered separately via the wall wart, so no power draw there.
 
The VAUX of the M1 is capable of a 1.25A draw. You have a 0.17A draw. Personally, I'd drop the P212S and drive the TWA from the M1G directly. Unless you have (3) 4ohm loads, and each zone of the TWA maxed out, you aren't going to be drawing 1A through it.
 
I'd also drop the DBH from the garage and just daisy chain the databus from the P212S to the other devices.

Those numbers don't aree with mine
 
See post #18 here
http://cocoontech.com/forums/topic/27097-elk-power-consumption/page-2?hl=%2Belk+%2Bpower+%2Bspreadsheet#entry219606
 
I got those numbers from Elk's power consumption spreadsheet
http://www.elkproducts.com/Owner_support_tools.html
 
Mike.

 

[RAL]

OK and this conversation just went over my head. I do not know how to calculate voltage drop. Is there less voltage drop in a cat5e twisted pair than straight wire? I understand that there is resistance in any conductor and that it is affected by heat but I do not know how to calculate it. I WAS able to measure the voltage increase at the load as I doubled and tripled the cat wires and was happy with that. Ignorance is bliss!
 
 
Yes DEL has been an incredible help and he has convinced me that I have a power supply problem. I am leaning towards removing the TWA being that it is a large draw and not necessary to my plan.
 
I feel that I'm between a rock and a hard place. I had the 212s power supply in the garage where the cold presents a problem for the battery and it is no use to the TWA which needs to be near the controller. I moved the 212s to the house where it can supply the TWA and the battery is nice and warm but it has a 250' run to the garage introducing the voltage drop.
 
Throwing out the TWA is starting to look like a sensible solution.
 
Mike.

 
 
To calculate voltage drop, you use Ohm's Law, which says Voltage = Current x Resistance  (or V = I x R, where "I" represents current).
 
Wire has a resistance per foot, which varies depending on the wire gauge.  A handy table to use is this one.
 
For 24 gauge Cat5e wire, it has a resistance per 1000 feet of 25.67 Ohms.   So in your case, you have 250' + 250' (+12V and common), giving you a resistance of 12.8 Ohms.   But since you have 3 pairs in parallel, it would be 1/3 of that, or 4.3 Ohms.
 
To calculate the voltage drop of the wire, you take the current flowing through it and multiply by the wire resistance.  The XIN and XOVR draw a nominal combined 0.13A.
 
Thus, 4.3 x 0.13 results in 0.56V
 
In theory, using 3 pairs of wires in parallel should work as well as one larger wire.  The NEC even allows parallel conductors in some cases, where the wires are at least 1/0 in size.    Combining the conductors assumes that the connection is good and solid.  If it isn't, then that's trouble.  One of the bad things about parallel conductors is that one of them could fail and you would have a hard time knowing.  You would still measure continuity from end to end for the combined set, but unless you know what the resistance should be and compare it to what it really is, nothing will tell you that you have a bad connection somewhere.
 
An 18 gauge wire will give you slightly lower resistance than the 3 Cat5e conductors you are using now (3.2 Ohms vs 4.3).  Whether that's good enough, I can't really say.
 
But before I buried a new 18 AWG cable out to the garage, I think I would try it first by just laying the wire over the ground and see if it makes a difference.
 
And before I even did that, I'd try drvnbysound's suggestion above of removing the DBH and the P212S.

 

[drvnbysound]

Those numbers don't aree with mine
 
See post #18 here
http://cocoontech.com/forums/topic/27097-elk-power-consumption/page-2?hl=%2Belk+%2Bpower+%2Bspreadsheet#entry219606
 
I got those numbers from Elk's power consumption spreadsheet
http://www.elkproducts.com/Owner_support_tools.html
 
Mike.

 
Here's a screenshot of the downloaded sheet, with the information entered:
 

 

[Del91574]

Based on the above, you have the following on the M1:
(1) DBH -> 0A
(1) KP2 -> 0.085A
(1) XRFTW -> 0.085A
 
You have the XEP powered separately via the wall wart, so no power draw there.
 
The VAUX of the M1 is capable of a 1.25A draw. You have a 0.17A draw. Personally, I'd drop the P212S and drive the TWA from the M1G directly. Unless you have (3) 4ohm loads, and each zone of the TWA maxed out, you aren't going to be drawing 1A through it.
 
I'd also drop the DBH from the garage and just daisy chain the databus from the P212S to the other devices.

Not arguing, but I'd keep the TWA as it's own item independent from the M1. Just because it's not loaded or drawing that much initially, you have to always figure worst case when building a system and plan accordingly. Just because it's not presently drawing the max, doesn't mean it can't or the loading on it isn't close enough to cause issues.
 
The M1 does NOT support 1.25A on it's aux power output, only 1A! It's a 1.25A PTC, which will draw the extra off the standby battery, but you can't exceed 1A without issues. Read Appendix F in the manual.

 

[mikefamig]

Without getting into the fray:
 
Multiple smaller conductor cables do increase the circular mils of the overall cable, however they do not increase the overall ampacity that the cable is capable of handling. It's like stating I decided to pull an 18/6 T-stat cable instead of 14/2 NM cable and the ampacity and capabilities are the same. It may work for a short period of time, but in the long haul, it's asking for trouble as the power source is now in parallel with the multiple conductors and the possibility of an imbalance should one of those tiny 24 AWG conductors fail, have corrosion issues, etc.
 
For FW, I'd roll back to the last UL listed/tested and start there as a benchmark. While the others may be OK, the overall testing and stability required for a UL listing is a wise place to start. Get any variables out of the equation.
 
I don't know what your TWA is doing and/or what sort of rules you may have controlling it, but that's part of the equation here. The second is the devices in the field and what inrush is doing that your meter might not be seeing. This is where an analog meter or a really good DMM come into play to try to catch something that is going on too fast to be caught otherwise. t
 
I would definately look at any cabling that may have any sort of grounding on it, take all the media out of the equation. You should have nothing or very high meg to ground. Don't use your hands to hold the cable to the leads!

I wouldn't be surprised if your TWA is possibly kicking out a PTC on the 212 and then resetting.
 
My suggestion is to put the 212 in the field, deal with oversizing the batteries, and let that run the XIN and XOVR in the field to negate voltage drop.  Second would be to put a supply in at the panel to loadshed the TWA off the panel and 212 and call it a day. From that point, you should be pretty clean on power and what is drawing from where.

I'm all for putting the 212s back out in the garage and I'm glad that you said that. I don't want to deal with pulling more cables out there and you've convinced me of the potential problem with twisting multiple leads together. If I have trouble with the 212s in the garage I can always upgrade to a more suitable supply. As for the second ps to supply the twa I will forego that until I see the system run well without the twa installed. In fact I will be very happy if and when the system runs for a week or so without incident.
 

Now you're making me consider the job I'm trimming out with a 150' building run with an XIN and KPAS in a detached barn and possibly considering an aux supply...but then again, I'm pulling multiple 18/6 for the data and FA circuit out there, so I'll do my homework again
 
All said, let me know if you want to try a supply for the sake of troubleshooting, I've got enough on the scrap pile that would probably fit the bill.

 

[drvnbysound]

I stand corrected, regarding the VAUX amperage. I quickly glanced at the cover and saw the 1.25A nomenclature.
 
I'm just trying to eliminate as many pieces of hardware as possible to reduce the number of variables.

 

[mikefamig]

You guys have convinced me that it is a bad idea to use multiple leads twisted together for the power supply to the garage. I also think that it did more harm than good to bring the 212s into the house. Tomorrow I'll remove the TWA and move the 212s back out to the garage removing the voltage drop as a problem. and reducing the overall load on the system.
 
I'm not convinced that this will resolve my problems but it is easy enough to do and worth the effort. I'll let you know how it goes tommorrow.
 
Mike.

 

[mikefamig]

Here's a screenshot of the downloaded sheet, with the information entered:
 

 
I was adding teh .3amp of teh xep.
 
Mike.

 

[mikefamig]

Based on the above, you have the following on the M1:
(1) DBH -> 0A
(1) KP2 -> 0.085A
(1) XRFTW -> 0.085A
 
You have the XEP powered separately via the wall wart, so no power draw there.
 
The VAUX of the M1 is capable of a 1.25A draw. You have a 0.17A draw. Personally, I'd drop the P212S and drive the TWA from the M1G directly. Unless you have (3) 4ohm loads, and each zone of the TWA maxed out, you aren't going to be drawing 1A through it.
 
I'd also drop the DBH from the garage and just daisy chain the databus from the P212S to the other devices.

 
I had the twa driven by the M1 and the 212s in the garage powering the xin and ovr and had problems.
 
The only time that this system has run well for 24 hours in a row is with the twa installed and the wireless disconnected and then later with the wireless installed and the twa disconnected. The two have not worked well together yet.
 
Mike.

 

[RAL]

Mike -
 
I went back and re-read this entire thread.  Let me summarize what I came away with and then tell me if I've got it right.
 
1) In your original configuration, with the P212S in the garage, it seemed like there was a data bus problem of some sort, perhaps caused by the M1XRFTW wireless adapter.   You found that after replacing the XRFTW, it worked ok without the TWA connected, but problems came back when you connected the TWA in addition to the XRFTW.   And if you disconnected the XRFTW, it worked ok with the TWA connected. 
 
2) Because of winter temperatures in the garage, you decide to move the P212S into the house and power the devices in the garage from there over the Cat5e cable, using 3 pairs to provide the power.
 
Assuming I have these facts right, here's what's bothering me.
 
Item 1 makes it seem like there is a power supply loading problem on the M1 itself.  It appears that when you decrease the load by removing the TWA or the XRFTW, the problem goes away.
 
But item 2 makes it seem like there is a problem with the devices in the garage not getting adequate power.  I guess it's possible that moving the P212S created a second problem.   But I wonder....
 
Since moving the P212S back to the garage is easy for you to do, that seems like a good next step.  But I suspect that you will see the earlier problems with the TWA and XRFTW return.
 
If that happens, I'm thinking it would make sense to try and provide a separate power source for the TWA and see if that fixes things.  It would be nice to get some understanding of whether this really is all a power problem, and a separate power supply for the TWA might be a way to prove that.
 
I apologize for throwing another suggestion at you at this point.  Just thinking about all the things you've seen and what it could mean.