battery low trouble?

[Desert_AIP]

Now I'm more confused.
Anything hooked up to the Omni panel 12VDC is powered by the backup battery.
How do you have a second battery connected to just a siren?

It sounds like you should parallel the two batteries on the panel and be done with it. They will provide backup siren power as well.

 

[gizzmo]

Best way to test a battery without buying or making a tester is to remove the AC from the panel. With power removed place the biggest load you can on it, usually by placing in alarm with sirens sounding. If the battery is bad the voltage should start dropping fairly fast. Once a battery get 3+ years on it I recommend replacement.

 

[Anthony A.]

ok i just looked at my panel and it appears i have a small power supply feeding the exterior sirens.  it has its own battery terminals so i guess that is what is feeding those sirens.  reason i don't know too much about this is that i had a dealer install that a few years back.  in anycase, the power supply connects to the siren output terminals so im assuming that i only have a single 12v 4ah battery feeding the OP2.  does this sound correct?

 

[Desert_AIP]

ok i just looked at my panel and it appears i have a small power supply feeding the exterior sirens.  it has its own battery terminals so i guess that is what is feeding those sirens.  reason i don't know too much about this is that i had a dealer install that a few years back.  in anycase, the power supply connects to the siren output terminals so im assuming that i only have a single 12v 4ah battery feeding the OP2.  does this sound correct?

 
Yes
 
Sounds like you can easily parallel another 8Ah 12V battery with the main panel battery.
 
I made up two pigtails with a male spade connector and two female spade connectors for the + and - sides.
Then just connect the female from the panel to the male side and each of the females to the battery terminals.
I made the wires to each battery equal lengths to help maintain charge balance.

 

[Anthony A.]

Do you have a picture or diagram of how you have the pigtails setup? Sorry, im not understanding it clearly.

 

[Desert_AIP]

 

 

[Anthony A.]

Awesome....I got it now. Thank you so much for the help and all the replies thus far.

 

[jlehnert]

Going from memory since I'm at work, but IIRC, in PCAccess on the Status tab under expansion, it will show you the current battery levels for each enclosure.

 

[Anthony A.]

Yes
 
Sounds like you can easily parallel another 8Ah 12V battery with the main panel battery.
 
I made up two pigtails with a male spade connector and two female spade connectors for the + and - sides.
Then just connect the female from the panel to the male side and each of the females to the battery terminals.
I made the wires to each battery equal lengths to help maintain charge balance.

 
okay, so i just purchased (and replaced the existing 12v 4ah single battery) to 2 x 12v 12ah batteries.  its only been a few hours so can't say too much but PC access is reporting battery level as 228 SECURE.  this was the same value as the existing single battery.  
 
on a side note, i managed to find out which part was used to power the exterior sirens.  it is a DSC 1520 power supply.  
http://www.aartech.ca/ps1520-dsc-12v-1.5a-power-supply.html
 
so now my question goes to this:  since this power supply powers the exterior sirens and is connected to the EXT HORN bus on the OP2, do i need to replace the existing 12v 4ah battery as well?  my logic is that the OP2 has 24ah batteries combined for power, but the sirens only have 4ah which will run out long before the OP2 does.  so if this is the case, should i also be getting 2 x 12v 12ah batteries or would a single one give me the equivalent juice since its a much smaller load than the entire OP2 panel?

 

[Del91574]

If the 4ah battery is more than 3 years old, it should be replaced....not just because of the standby time, but as batteries age, the power supply will keep attempting to maintain a charge until (usually) one of 2 things happen....either the battery heats up and splits or the charger cuts out (either blows up or pops a fuse/PTC) and the ancillary device won't work.
 
Without me digging documentation on the OP II up, I'd suggest verifying the OP II charger can support that amount of load....24 ah is a significant load on any charger and even if it couldn't keep up, it'd be a while before the voltage dropped out on that sort of headroom and the panel noticed.
 
To figure out standby times you need to consider the load and do some calcs....both on the panel and on the siren supply to determine the standby, alarm times and safety factor.

 

[Anthony A.]

okay so how would i go about figuring out the load the OP2 puts out with a multitester?

 

[Del91574]

To do standby calculations, you need to take the alarm currents of all connected devices to the panel and typical headroom to add is 20%. There's plenty of example spreadsheets to determine what the loading on the batteries would be (with correction factors and multipliers) for you to get a idea, but you're going to need to get the values from your installed hardware (PIR's, GBD's etc.) and the installed HAI hardware from the cut sheets.
 
As far as what the maximum battery size the panel can support and charge, I'd need to call HAI, it's not published in the docs. Usually it's a combination of the size of the transformer and what the charging circuit can handle, but most panels max out at about 18 aH.

 

[gizzmo]

Something else to consider if the panel can handle the larger batteries. Use the proper leads to parallel the batteries, ones with fuses or breakers. If you have a cell short out you could get one hell of a battery fire with large batteries. I also recommend using power supplies to shed the load. You can place lower priority devices like extra keypads, if you have a lot, on it. Its a good idea to not get to close to the panel max.

 

[Anthony A.]

I emailed leviton and they said the recommended battery to use is 2 x 12v 7ah batteries. This is what the manual says but i specifically asked if problems would arise from using 2 x 12v 12ah. I really didnt get an answer to this so still not sure what i should do. Battery reading in pc access now is showing 231 which is good. Im really only worried if the charge circuit can burn out or if it will simply take longer to keep them both charged. Good idea of the fuse on the batteries.

 

[gizzmo]

I think the best batteries out there are the ELK 12V 8ah. Lowest fail rate and longest over all life span in my opinion.