ELK M1 Gold send e-mail after 5 mins of Input

TriLife

Active Member
Greetings;
 
I have my M1 Gold send me an e-mail, when power fails (router and M1 EXP are on backup batteries).
 
It also is supposed to send me an email, when power comes back. Unfortunately, our beloved PG&E often has outages, which last beyond the autonomy of the backup. So, when the AC turns back on, the system sends the email right away, but the router is not yet ready, resulting in no e-mail.
 
I'm sure there is a way to add a timer into the rule, which waits a couple of minutes before sending the message, enough for the router to finish booting.
 
Can anyone help me with this please?
 
Cheers;
 
You can do this by using a phantom output as a timer to create the delay.
 
Whenever AC Fail Restore Occurs
  Then turn Output 100 ON for 5 Mins
 
Whenever Output 100 State is turned OFF
  Then Send email Message1 to email1
 
RAL said:
You can do this by using a phantom output as a timer to create the delay.
 
Whenever AC Fail Restore Occurs
  Then turn Output 100 ON for 5 Mins
 
Whenever Output 100 State is turned OFF
  Then Send email Message1 to email1
 
Can I ask a somewhat related follow-up question:

The M1 Gold specifies 18Ah as max battery to be hooked up to it's charger. Is there any harm putting 27Ah there?

Cheers.
 
Hi RAL,

Well, I kind of did this:

Whenever AC Fail Restore Occurs
Then turn output 100 ON for 3 minutes
Then Send Email1

I tested this and it seems to work...

Any harm doing it this way, instead of the two Whenever solution you propose?

Cheers
 
TriLife said:
Hi RAL,

Well, I kind of did this:

Whenever AC Fail Restore Occurs
Then turn output 100 ON for 3 minutes
Then Send Email1

I tested this and it seems to work...

Any harm doing it this way, instead of the two Whenever solution you propose?

Cheers
I don't believe that will give you a delay between turning on the output and sending the email.  As far as I know, the two THEN clauses will be executed back to back.
 
Hmmm,

Examining the timing, I think you are correct.

Now in your solution of 2 Whenever's, are they both in the same rule, or are those two different rules?

In case they are two different rules, wouldn't the Whenever testing output 100 return an OFF at every test, except right after a power restore?

Cheers
 
TriLife said:
Can I ask a somewhat related follow-up question:

The M1 Gold specifies 18Ah as max battery to be hooked up to it's charger. Is there any harm putting 27Ah there?

Cheers.
There has been debate in the past about using a battery larger than the max spec size.  In my opinion, there is no harm in using a larger battery as long as you know that it will take a longer time for it to recharge after a power outage.  The M1 delivers a fixed charge current of about 0.7A.  So a fully discharged 18Ah battery will take about 25 hours to recharge.  A 27Ah battery will take about 38 hours.
 
I believe Elk sets the maximum battery size based on a desire to be able to recharge it in 24 hours or less.
 
Some folks have reported that putting a larger battery on the system damaged the charging circuitry.  I can't say it did or didn't happen, but I would write it off to coincidence.  Any discharged SLA battery looks pretty much like a dead short to a charger.  The charger has no way to tell the size of the battery.  It just delivers a limited amount of charging current until it sees the voltage rise to a fully charged level, and then it backs off to a maintenance level charge.  There is no way for a too-large battery to damage the charger by drawing too much current from it.  By design, a proper charging circuit has to limit the current to a modest level so as not to damage the battery by charging it too quickly.
 
If you do put a larger battery on the M1, it won't fit in the enclosure, and you will most likely need to locate the battery external to the M1.  If you do that, it would be a good idea to put a fuse on the battery end to protect the wiring from the battery to the M1.  Also, note that you should protect the battery wires by keeping them away from the other wiring.  Running the wires in conduit to the M1 enclosure is a good idea.  I would also use 1/4" or 3/8" plastic wire loom to protect the wires inside the M1 enclosure.
 
TriLife said:
Hmmm,

Examining the timing, I think you are correct.

Now in your solution of 2 Whenever's, are they both in the same rule, or are those two different rules?

In case they are two different rules, wouldn't the Whenever testing output 100 return an OFF at every test, except right after a power restore?

Cheers
 
A rule can only have one WHENEVER clause.   So you need two rules in this case.
 
WHENEVER rules trigger only at moment the condition changes state, such as an output going from ON to OFF.  AND clauses are different - they test the status of the condition at that moment, whether it changed recently or not.
 
So each of those rules will only activate one time.  The first rule will activate only when the power comes back on, and the second rule will only activate X minutes later when the output turns off.
 
After testing, I guess you can't have tow whenevers in the same rule. And the test of the output is on CHANGE, so it would not get triggered in Normal operation.

Sorry for the confusion
 
RAL said:
There has been debate in the past about using a battery larger than the max spec size.  In my opinion, there is no harm in using a larger battery as long as you know that it will take a longer time for it to recharge after a power outage.  The M1 delivers a fixed charge current of about 0.7A.  So a fully discharged 18Ah battery will take about 25 hours to recharge.  A 27Ah battery will take about 38 hours.
 
I believe Elk sets the maximum battery size based on a desire to be able to recharge it in 24 hours or less.
 
Some folks have reported that putting a larger battery on the system damaged the charging circuitry.  I can't say it did or didn't happen, but I would write it off to coincidence.  Any discharged SLA battery looks pretty much like a dead short to a charger.  The charger has no way to tell the size of the battery.  It just delivers a limited amount of charging current until it sees the voltage rise to a fully charged level, and then it backs off to a maintenance level charge.  There is no way for a too-large battery to damage the charger by drawing too much current from it.  By design, a proper charging circuit has to limit the current to a modest level so as not to damage the battery by charging it too quickly.
 
If you do put a larger battery on the M1, it won't fit in the enclosure, and you will most likely need to locate the battery external to the M1.  If you do that, it would be a good idea to put a fuse on the battery end to protect the wiring from the battery to the M1.  Also, note that you should protect the battery wires by keeping them away from the other wiring.  Running the wires in conduit to the M1 enclosure is a good idea.  I would also use 1/4" or 3/8" plastic wire loom to protect the wires inside the M1 enclosure.
 
Thanks for the extensive explanation on this.

Reason for asking is that I now have in the same cabinet 2*9Ah connected to the M1 and 1*9Ah charged by an Elk-P1215CB, supplying my router.

When I get a PGE special, this 1215 gives me a low voltage warning at 11V and then cuts itself off at 9V. It seems that when the voltage drops that low, my router (Netgear C6900) goes crazy and factory resets itself...

Rather than having to monitor two batteries banks, and guess which one is going to discharge first, it seems to make more sense to combine them into a single 27Ah bank and upon Low Battery from the M1, Turn Off the supply (via relay board), turn off the Router and M1-XEP...

Does that make sense.

Follow up: could the P1215 be connected in parallel to the M1 charging circuit, so the batteries charge faster, or would this cause instability?

Cheers.
 
TriLife said:
Thanks for the extensive explanation on this.

Reason for asking is that I now have in the same cabinet 2*9Ah connected to the M1 and 1*9Ah charged by an Elk-P1215CB, supplying my router.

When I get a PGE special, this 1215 gives me a low voltage warning at 11V and then cuts itself off at 9V. It seems that when the voltage drops that low, my router (Netgear C6900) goes crazy and factory resets itself...

Rather than having to monitor two batteries banks, and guess which one is going to discharge first, it seems to make more sense to combine them into a single 27Ah bank and upon Low Battery from the M1, Turn Off the supply (via relay board), turn off the Router and M1-XEP...

Does that make sense.

Follow up: could the P1215 be connected in parallel to the M1 charging circuit, so the batteries charge faster, or would this cause instability?

Cheers.
You can't connect two chargers in parallel.  They will end up fighting each other if they don't exactly match in their output voltages and the voltages that they use to determine when to change charging modes.  That can damage the chargers and also the battery.
 
You have a choice to use a larger battery to power everything from the same source, or to split the loads like you do now and use multiple batteries and chargers.  Splitting the loads would be my preferred way to go.
 
I'm not sure why the P1215 uses 9V as the cutoff.  That's a bit on the low side.  Usually, 10.5V is the recommended cutoff for a 12V battery.
 
I can see where your router wouldn't be happy when the voltage drops too low.  One way to change the cutoff voltage would be to add an Altronix LPD low voltage disconnect between the battery and the P1215.  The LPD allows you to adjust the cutoff voltage, so you could set it to 10.5V or whatever you think is best.   Not sure if that will solve any of your problems - you'll lose use of the router one way or another.
 
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